Thailand and The Great Fire Wall of China

Bangkok, Thailand

Bugs - the edible kind

We arrived in Bangkok, Thailand yesterday and are happy to be here. We are being very kindly hosted by friends of Paul's brother that he's had since Peace Corps days. Last night we all went out to an Italian restaurant and sat outside enjoying the humid warm weather once again wearing flip flops. As we sat there a cart selling food passed by and Paul and Jeff (our host) hopped up. The cart's choices included grubs of various sizes and species, crickets and grasshoppers. In great glee the cart seller offered Paul a grub which he promptly swallowed. Then Paul bought a bag of fried crickets he and Jeff crunched on merrily - just like potato chips.

Bugs - the monitoring kind

While we don't really know if we were monitored in China we do know we had to show our passports at every hotel. One day when I called the front desk in Xian with a question and they asked me my room number, after 7 weeks in different hotels, etc., I was off a few floors and said, "Room 240," instead of, "Room 640." I got a big silence on the other end and they asked me if I was sure as room 240 was usually for their Chinese guests.

Bathrooms

I actually think it had to do with the toilets. Probably room 240 had a squat toilet rather than a seat toilet. In China most of the toilets are squat toilets, a hole in the ground, which I understand many Chinese feel are more sanitary as you don't have to touch any part of them with your body...true. However, amazingly now in about 70% of the bathrooms you can find a 'Western' style toilet as they sometimes label them. One thing to look for is the sign saying, "Deformed Man End Place." This would be known as the accessible bathroom stall in the America. If they have an accessible stall it's a seat toilet (Yea!).

The Great Chinese Fire Wall

Notice how you didn't hear from us much in China? China blocks blog sites!!

While there is a way to email your own blogs to your blog site it was much more complicated. You have email your blogs to the website somehow and no posting of pictures at all.

We tried to download a movie for the children to watch on an airplane flight as we had done in Australia (New Zealand web interfaces too slow) and found it was cut off. Either China didn't want the movie downloaded in to the country or the movie site didn't want the movie pirated in China.

Either way we were somewhat cut off from the world. Glad to be in Thailand!

Jackie