Eddie here, pulled into Bangkok late last night after about a 13 hour flight from New Zealand. I ended up sitting next to a Buddhist Monk on the flight. I wasn’t sure what to think at first, but he ended up being one of the most interesting people that I have come across on this trip.

Most people have a perception that Monks are very quite and usually do not speak much to the general public. In most cases, I think that is true. This Monk actually spoke very good English and was definitely not your average Monk. He called himself a special Monk! Very talkative and very open to discussing his life story as a Monk, but not preaching! And if you know me, then you know that I ask lots of questions. He also asked me lots of questions about my lifestyle as I shared my travel photos with him. I was actually going through all of my photos on the flight deciding on which ones to have printed. You can print digital photos in Thailand for about .05 cents each. So back to the Monk….The one thing that I found very funny was that he liked Eminem (Rap Music). I ended sharing one of my ear phones with him during the flight and we listened to rap music. He also told me that one of his friends said that he looked like the Rap Artist “50 Cent”, which he kind of did. I definitely had him laughing during the flight as I shared my photos and talked about my life. He told me that I was a crazy American (In a good way) as I told him that he was not a “normal” Monk. He left me with one saying that really stuck: “Not Good, Not Bad”. As I mentioned before, he was not your average Monk based on some things that he shared. For example, in regards to rap music, most of it is very violent and full of foul language. I asked him if it was ok for him to listen to rap music being a Monk, and his answer was “Not Good, But Not Bad”. I like that answer, I think we can apply that to many things that we do.

In regards to Bangkok, that’s another story! It’s the city that never sleeps. When I woke this am it was pouring rain. Thunder storms all day and is pretty much going to be like that all week. Very humid on top of that! My main purpose here today was to get to the Indonesian Embassy to apply for a long term Visa as I plan to spend about 6 month there. Ended up making my way there and got turned down because my passport was full of stamps and had no free pages in it. The quick solution, head to the US Embassy to get some inserts. After about 4 hours, several cab rides, and getting completely soaked; I managed to get everything taken care of. My visa should be ready in about 3 days. Well, that’s about it for now. Below are just a few photos from Bangkok. Tomorrow I will hit the town and get some more photos. The journey continues…