Thailand: I spent my second day in Thailand doing 'nothing'. I must have been asked 100 times within the first few light hours of today what I was planning on doing. "Nothing," I kept on responding, which must have been the wrong answer for people either kept on forgetting my reply or not believing it. "Are you still reading that book?" someone would ask. "I'm going into town why don't you come?" It was almost as if relaxing in Thailand, relaxing in southern Thailand, was not something someone was supposed to do... especially during monsoon season. "We're going to go check out the fabric stores. Are you coming?"

When I checked into the Pine Bungalows the advert said 'relaxing and quiet, away from the crowds.' With water coming down in buckets I figured the small 30-hut hostel would be the prime place to kick back and read, write and reflect a bit. And even in the first week of the season (the area around Krabi having been closed for the past three months) everything appeared to be up and running, all the tourist trades busy bringing in their Thai Baht.

Skillfully (rudely) avoiding the invitations for this trip or that I kept to myself. The book I'm reading, Beyond the Sky and the Earth, an account of a Canadian woman who goes to teach in Bhutan, had me hooked and I had nothing more than that chalked in for the day, beside what more can you expect when fat rain is pouring from the heavens? Around 2pm the clouds broke and the sun shone down, forcing me to throw on my suit for a quick dip into the ocean. "What do you think, Id?" I asked the 15-year-old Thai boy who works at the Bungalows, standing by the sea with the black clouds overhead. "I think it not so good idea." So I promised to make it short and raced into the boiling water. Not ten minutes later the sky opened up, the rain clouds having miraculously sprinted hundreds of kilometers to pour down directly over me. I hauled myself out of the water to Id and a few of his sisters waiting on the beach. "Baba bobo." Crazy, Said Id. "Thank you for waiting." I apologized.

After a shower and more reading, more rain, the sky again cleared and I took the opportunity to take to the beach once again. The Bungalows are well out of town and happen to be the only place, minus one, on a stretch of beach covering nearly five kilometers. I hit the sand and before I stepped twice four of the five hostel dogs were at my feet. "How nice of you to join me." I said and headed off. It wasn't until we reached a small village around the far bend that I realized the damned dogs were using me. The village consists of three long cement buildings which house livestock, chickens and ducks mostly. Today was the day the ducks were allowed out. As I turned the bend the four dogs took off in unison, fanning out in some type of attack formation. I looked up in time to see a dozen or so small Thai kids yelp and begin throwing things at the mutts. "Hey!" I called. "No, no, no." The only words in Thai I had learned so far were Hello and Goodbye, and neither worked for this situation. But as I got closer a few small girls ran up and grabbed my hand. They pointed to the dogs, "Ma!" they called, and motioned the killing of the nearby ducks with their hands: some quacking and quick biting. I tried to explain that they weren't my dogs, giving up and saying 'Lagone', Bye, in the end. The rocks were getting closer now and the dogs came running up to me, no ducks harmed, to shield themselves in my shadow. "You little..." I said. They hadn't come with me for the company, only the protection. I contemplated making friends with the small villagers by throwing my own rock at the inches-away hounds but ended up turning around and leading the things far from the quackers back to the hostel.

Neatly settled back into my book, rain once again coming down in sheets, one of the earlier questioners came up to have a chat. "What did you do today?" She asked. "Nothing?" I looked up from my book as Sombong, the hostel manager, answered for me: "Mai pen rai." Which means several different things, 'It doesn't matter' and 'don't bother' being the ones I deferred from it. "Nothing," I said, and smiled because that's all I had planned for the day anyhow.

 Bangkok is like no other place on earth. I arrived yesterday, pulling up to a busy tuc-tuc filled curb after riding on a bus for 15 hours from the south of the country. Tourists loaded off the bus and immediately, in the 6am morning light, began haggling over rides to various hostels. "No, no, no. I said 30 baht." or "I'll carry you for that price pal." People were grumpy and tired, no one smiled and the tuc-tuc and taxi drivers used every trick in the book to get the most from their wealthy western friends. Eventually I jumped into a tuc-tuc (vehicle of hell, I'll call it) for about a dollar and took off, swerving inside and out of traffic, nearly loosing my bag and my self a few times.

Lucky enough to have a quiet place to stay in the middle of Bangkok I've started to prepare for the duration of my trip -- learning my way around the city and sampling as much of the Thai cuisine as possible. I learned that the Thai, quite a nationalistic group, even teach cooking as a main subject in their elementary schools, so the art form is well cultivated.

Hopping on a bus that takes you nearly two hours outside the city limits I was expecting to see lush jungle and scenic river views. What I got instead was one long suburb. Bangkok has done what every other major city in the world has done: sprawled. The sprawl to Ayunthiya though, is justified since, for centuries, Ayunthiya was the capital of Siam (Thailand) and now the present and the past have simply merged together. I get this feeling often in Thailand. Only seeing the country for less than two-weeks I don't have too much to go by but first impressions are of a very nationalistic country battling to preserve its heritage (current travel ad: Amazing Thailand) and scratching at the door to development. Can they co-exist in a healthy form of globalization?

This was just one of the thoughts pouring through my head as cement strip mall after cement strip mall after 2000-year-old Wat, or temple, passed by the bus window. Out at Ayunthiya I rented a bicycle and peddled first around the city -- in search if the illusive night transport to the north of the country, to the Golden Triangle. Cell phone shops and internet cafes, garages and grocery stores lined the roads. The train was booked, so was the bus. Giving up that search I headed out into the UNESCO World Heritage sanctuary for a look at the old Siamese capital. Small Thai women dressed in pointed farmer's hats worked on the broken brick streets; dug trenches. Pointed Wats jabbed into the sky, a bit sideways because time had pushed them over some. Green clung to everything. I was with a friend of mine who had flown in from the States. "Now this is what I thought Thailand would look like." She said and I agreed. A large 30m stone Buddha resting on his side smiled.

We biked along for a few more kilometers and we could see in the distance elephants dressed in red and yellow robes rocking their way along the paths. From a distance the picture fit -- elephants, Wats, blue sky that felt as if at any minute it would rip open with rain. But approaching the beasts the Japanese tour group the clung to their backs sort of popped that bubble. "You know, now that logging is pretty much banned in Thailand so they have to do something with the elephants." And of course this made perfect sense but in my western romantic head something felt lost, or maybe that I felt I was just too late.