Leaving India was comparable to moving out of my parents' house when I was 17: having the urge to break free from them and to run away as fast as I could, coupled with the desire to run back into their arms and cling on tightly.

    I didn't arrive in Bangkok until nearly midnight on the 18th and I was struggling to stay awake through customs and immigration. Glad that I kicked my post-pneumonia cough before filling out that SARS questionnaire on the plane, otherwise I would be sitting in quarantine in Bangkok right now.

    Luckily, in Bangkok I had a connection: my aunt's sister, Ivy, and her husband, Chen, live there, and they had kindly offered for me to stay with them. However, they were away at a conference, so all I had was a torn slip of paper on which I had scrawled their address to give to the taxi driver. He spoke little English and I didn't know a word of Thai.

    It's a wonder I found the place at all.

    Getting back into a cosmopolitan city after India was a shock, even at midnight. The cab flew over smoothly paved highways and brightly lit skyscrapers whizzed by. Civilization! Air-conditioning! I sunk into the plush leather (well, it felt like it, ok?) seat and smiled with relief.

    I was speechless when we pulled up at an opulent high-rise and a uniformed man opened the car door. "Oakwood Serviced Apartments" gleamed the oval sign. I was suddenly a wide-eyed child in a candy store. To go from begging for a toilet seat to THIS! The bellman took me to the apartment, which was on the 15th floor and boasted a fantastic view of Bangkok. Thailand was already a kind country and I'd only been there for a couple of hours!

    The next day followed much in the same fashion. I wandered down to the pool. Yes, the pool - beautifully landscaped with footpath bridges and waving palm trees. After roasting myself in the sun for a bit, I indulged in two pina coladas and a grilled chicken salad (my first NON-CURRY meal in God knows when). When I got back to the apartment, Ivy and Chen had returned and, seeing as I had never met them before, I chatted with them both for a bit.

    They took me to Sukhimvit Road, one of the main shopping/eating streets in Bangkok, especially for tourists. We strolled past the endless stalls of DKNY, Burberry, Calvin Klein and D&G knock-offs. So cheap! The bargaining was beyond me, though. Chen said that you should start at 30% of the asking price!!! 30%! I couldn't do it. Everytime a keen shopowner would see me eyeing a product and ask, "How much do you want to pay?" I would go red and stammer, "Um, well, oh, I don't know..." and back away. Sad, very sad, but I'm not businnes-savvy!

    We went out for dinner to this massive restuarant - an indoor beer garden called Tawandang Brew House. Brilliant concept, I must say - pack hundreds and hundreds of people into a cavernous German beer hall, brew your own beer, provide cheap, local Thai food, and in the center of it all, have a stage with live entertainment. The guy who designed the place really knows how to make money!

    So I LOVE spicy food. At home I'm always dousing my pizza slices with red peppers, asking for my dishes "extra hot" and looking for ways to add chilis to every dish. Ha, in Thailand I AM NOTHING. The food I had at Tawandang comprised one of the hottest meals I've had in recent memory. I literally CRIED my way through the dinner, glaring jealously at all the native Thais slurping on their own soup happily, seemingly unaffected by the cruel chilis. Were we eating the same food?

    Just when I thought the fire raging in my mouth was absolutely unbearable, the live entertainment began, which was a good distraction. It was a revue-style show (no cover, either!), complete with dancers in costume, big band music, and then covers of songs ranging from Cher to the theme from the movie "The Land Before Time." I know, it sounds outrageously tacky, but it wasn't! It was surprisingly professional and thoroughly entertaining. Somehow, I never pictured myself at a German Brew House in Bangkok, Thailand with watering eyes, listening to a Thai woman sing Britney Spears. But there I was.

~Hope