Second Bangkok post.

Good morning Bangkok...
I sit here on my balcony watching the sun come up, I'm sitting in a pair of board shorts and nothing else... it's that perfect temperature.
So much has happened since my last post.
Yesterday we went on an awesome adventure to a temple or (wat) about 50km west of the city to be tattooed by monks. What we had to do was purchase some gifts for the monks which were a pack of smokes, some incense and some flowers, all of which cost 55 Baht, (A little over a dollar American)... which is by far the cheapest tattoo I've ever received. So after we purchased our gifts we went into the temple where the monk was performing the tattooing. We entered the temple on our knees and placed our gifts in a golden dish on the floor... when the monk had completed the tattoo he was working on he then motioned the rest of us in the room to approach... so the group of us all held the dish of purchased gifts and he took it two hands and blessed it and meditated over the offerings. When he was done with that the gifts were separated and placed in other dishes, and the tattooing started. When my turn came I came to the pillow that was positioned in front of him, I knelt and bowed three times while touching him on the knee... then he had me sit cross legged in front of him and he chose the prayer that was to be tattooed on my back. The style of tattooing is called Yant and it's done by many dabs into your skin with the needle which is formed from the root from a tree that is blessed by monks, the ink is made from cobra venom. The process of being tattooed didn't really hurt, it was more loud than it was painful... which made me kind of smile because my tattoo artist back in Seattle told me about that. When we had completed he then dabbed it with a cloth that was dipped in sacred oil and he said a blessing over the tattoo and he blew on it. What I found really cool happened when he tattooed Pema and the the other women that came with us. In buddhism women aren't allowed to touch monks, which would a pose a problem if a lady wanted to receive one of these tattoos. When it was Pems turn she came to the pillow in front of the monk to which he placed another pillow between himself and her and he placed a glove on his left had (The one he touched the skin with). Why I find that so interesting, I don't know... just another part of the worlds culture, and I love to experience it.
Getting back from this little village was an adventure in itself... equally as fun. So we walked out of the temple area and along the road to a bus stop where we asked some of the locals if they knew how to get a taxi... then instructed us that we should wait where we were at for a bus that would come along, and sure enough it did. For 18 Baht we took this bus from where we were at to a main road where we could catch a cab back to bangkok. We picked up some boys who were in military school and a flock of teenage thai girls who would giggle at us American boys.
Today we're going to be heading to the weekend market which is an awesome thing that goes on... apparently world famous.
So many things have impressed me with Thailand... first off, they don't hate Americans, like say, western europe (for the most part). It's actually kind of neat... whenever we go into a little eatery the music almost immediately changes into something from the US... it's kind of cool, their culture is one of hospitality and it really shows. My thai is getting a lot better, so much so that I can operate on my own... which really rang true when I hailed a cab home last night when I was pretty inebriated.