Khao San road makes a bit more sense after a couple of beers. I stop for a banana pancake at a different stall than usual. The Red Bull man makes the best pancakes but he's not out tonight. Kiran and I have names for the familiar faces on this road and our favorite pancake man wears a Red Bull apron smeared with condensed milk. I could use a Red Bull energy drink right now. I get a smile from a baby perched on the shoulders of a man who looks like he's been at every full moon party since 1973. The baby seems very comfortable in this chaos. I wonder what he'll grow up to be.

"Hello tuk tuk?"

A tuk tuk driver pulls his tin can tricycle up beside me and matches my pace as I walk with my pancake back to the guesthouse. He doesn't believe that I don't need his taxi service until I disappear into the lobby. As I climb the stairs to go to bed I hear him rev up and circle out to the road to try someone else.

Yesterday we called Frank and Kaoru's friend Saowalak to find out if it would be possible to set up a buddhist ceremony; minutes later we were discussing where it should be held. I sense that Saowalak is really excited. She is married on paper to her Canadian husband Jeff, but has never had a formal ceremony. She keeps repeating that she would love to get dressed up and have photos taken.

Today we are looking for clothing. These days most Thai women prefer western-style dresses, but I am set on keeping the style as traditional as possible. They have modernized dresses from the Ayutthaya Period (the second capital of Thailand, before Bangkok). The dress shop people keep handing me pink dresses but my tolerance for the color is in the negatives. It is a lucky color, but for me, blue is just as lucky. The dress I choose goes over one shoulder and under the other, and has a lot of gold detail on the long skirt. Geoff looks trés sexy in a Manchurian-collared cream suit top and material that he wraps around his waist and through his legs. We have ourselves some wedding outfits.

During the day, Saowalak reminds us of some basic customs. Don't touch anyone's (even a child's) head as it is the highest and therefore the holiest part, and likewise do not touch anything with your feet as they are the lowest. A couple of times I've had to stop myself from moving things out of my way with my feet. I am surprised how many times I have to remind myself.

I wonder if Thais come here to interact with the falangs (foreigners) and experience us like a carnival attraction. It's definitely surreal enough. I'm standing on the balcony of the guesthouse as an old man passes slowly beneath me with dozens of balloons. He looks frail enough to have lift-off if a breeze picks up. Something has started the stray dogs barking. They relay their message from one street corner to the next and it doesn't take long for them to cover the King's land. All of Banglamphu, including Khao San Road, is actually the King's land leased to the people. The dogs don't seem to care.

It's Christmas Eve tomorrow. I don't really feel the holiday spirit. Every year I feel the anticipation less and less but this year tops it. I only remember the season when the shopkeepers trill 'Merry Christmas' with their sing-song accents. It takes me a moment before I realize what they're saying. There are a few sad looking Thais walking up and down the strip with elf hats for sale. The hats have red flashing lights along the trim and I have yet to see anyone buy one.

A lot of the Thais seem a little weary on this strip of road. They're probably sick of the endless haggling with ungrateful falangs. There's one sweet older lady who seems to still live in the Land of Smiles. Her shop is a jumble of incense, sandals, lighters and electrician's supplies. It seems like she has everything in there but twice we've asked for something specific and she hasn't had it. She shyly hides her face and giggles nervously when she has to say no to us.

For Xmas we got a virus. I opened up an email attachment and our little notebook got infected. Of all the things that could go wrong on our trip, that is probably one of the worst. But of all the places in the world it could have happened, Bangkok is definitely one of the best. There is nothing you can't find here. Everything is cheap, hip, black market, fake designer label. There are girls available, boys available, lady-boys available, all kinds of services and activities to keep the visitor entertained. There are highrise shopping centers that specialize in providing copied music, games and software. Order what you need and ten minutes , and $5 later, it's been burned from the master copy in a dark, secret, basement room.

Our problem solved, we head for dinner on Khao San Road, which is becoming less enjoyable each day. It seems as if the road exists only for the travellers, who seem to forget they are guests in another country. Many of the street vendors and waitstaff have the same face of indifference, a result of an eternally recurring scene: crowds show disinterest, crowds bargain, crowds buy. The banter goes back and forth like this:

"How much?"
"250 baht."
"Oh." Shake head and prepare to leave.
"Ok, I give you discount. 220 baht. This very good price. "
"No." Shake head again.
"How much you give me?"
"150 baht."
"I give you for 200 baht, best price." (If their English isn't so good, they use a calculator to demonstrate these steps.)
"180."
"Please, more 20 baht."

And on and on. The Thailand that is the "Land of Smiles" is waning here. We have a quick dinner of green curry served by a lady-boy (boys who dress up as girls are a common sight) with stunning legs. All the restaurants show movies (burned Video CDs) to lure their customers. Yesterday we saw The Grinch, the most Christmassy thing we did all day in balmy Bangkok.

Today we take a taxi with Saowalak's sister, Pi-Sit, to her home in Pathum Thani (translated, means 'lotus city'), half an hour away. There we meet the 3rd sister, Pi-Sat, as well as other relatives. Sao & Jeff arrive soon afterwards and we start with the decorations as the family prepares the food. They have ordered pink and green styrofoam letters that read (in Thai) "Happy wedding day 12th month, 29th day, 43rd year Geoff and Kiran, Jeffrey and Walak." The Sao part has broken off and can't be found. Saowalak cuts off the 'wa' and leaves 'lak,' her nickname, which means 'love' in Thai. On the ceiling we hang a colored paper ball with streamers. The place looks festive and smells like we'll be well-fed.

We eat dinner together, on the livingroom floor. Saowalak's sisters have put a reed mat down for everyone to sit on. The food is spicy and delicious.

We wake up at 6:00 am for our second wedding in December! We're not the first ones up- Saowalak's sisters have been cooking since about 5:00. I try to help, but am mostly useless with my stitched-up right hand. One of the family friends is arranging nine pillows on the floor for the nine monks, a shrine, bowls, incense and other ceremonial objects. I am called upstairs to have my makeup done: foundation, concealer, eyeshadow, browshadow, mascara, eyeliner, blush, lipliner, lipstick... on my face, chest and arms. It's thick like butter. I'm told I shouldn't put all of my hair up because my face will look too small, and my lipstick should be a brighter red. For the photos. Everyone seems preoccupied with looks. My reflection smirks at me.

A kid yells, "the monks are here!" in Thai. A pickup pulls up and all of the monks pile out of the back, a cloud of orange. They walk single file into the house and sit down on the 9 pillows, looking quite serious (and somewhat curious) while Geoff and I sit on our heels on a carpet before the monks nearest the door. Jeff & Sao sit in front of the farther monks. It is humbling to be displaying such a fancy dress when their aim is to rid themselves of all things material.

Click here to read on about our Buddhist ceremony.

We have been invited by a couple from the wedding to have dinner at their Bangkok apartment tonight. It is beautifully decorated with Asian art and crafts and has a great, 19th floor, city view. Thierry, a nurse, checks my stitches and says they can be removed after 7-10 days.

After dinner we are presented with some traditional snacks.
"Have some," Sak offers as he pushes the dish my way. I look closely at the strange treats. They're fried bugs.
"Bugs?" I ask, mentally preparing myself for the inevitable taste test.
"Actuallly, half of them are crickets, the other half is... I don't know the name."
"A kind of burrowing insect." Thierry provides assistance. "They are delicious." Sak and Saowalak grunt in agreement through their chews. I decide to give one a try but don't have the courage to feel it with my fingers yet, so Sak puts a cricket in my mouth. It has been marinated in soy sauce and deep fried. I can feel every one of its six legs as I crunch on its belly. Sak is throwing them into his mouth like popcorn.

"It's a Thai aphrodisiac," Thierry says, and smiles.

Thai New Year is a Buddhist celebration sometime in April, but January 1 is celebrated here as well. We have drinks with Sak & Thierry, and then go up to the rooftop for the countdown. We reminisce about the millennium bug paranoia just a year ago, and remind ourselves that this is the actual coming of the new millennium. Fireworks crackle in the sky. We clamber downstairs for more celebratory drinks, and I ask everyone what their 3 most meaningful experiences of 2000 have been. For me, they are: having had a challenging job where my input was respected, marrying Geoff, and realizing our dream.

We wade through the thick crowd of street partiers to a rooftop nightclub and spend the rest of the night shaking our butts to house music, wishing 'sawasdee bi mai's (happy new year) on everyone.

We are at a temple in the center of Bangkok devoted to a tree goddess. A sign says that devotees leave gifts behind for her.

"Chao Mae Tup Tim has received yet another rather less conventional kind of gift, phallic in shape, both small and large, stylized and highly realistic. Over the years, they have been brought by the thousands and today fill the area around the shrine confronted by the extraordinary display, the shrine has automatically been concluded to be dedicated to fertility."

We follow the path and are surrounded by hundreds of penises of all shapes and colors. We stop in front of the red laquered shrine, and I stop to make a small wish that someday, when Geoff and I have children, they will be healthy and happy. Looking on, we see ledges crammed with 1-foot high penises beside elephant statues. There are some as big as cannons, and positioned as such. In the background is an old mannequin with no head, in a traditional Thai dress, and a tree with phallus-shaped growths. Our prayers made, phallus experience saturated and film finished, we head back to our hotel.

The tourist brochure reads, "The 16th-18th century temple ruins at Ayuthaya, 86km north of Bangkok, date from the most flourishing period of Thai history. Ayuthaya was the Thai capital from 1350, and 33 kings of various Siamese dynasties reigned here until the city was conquered by the Burmese in 1767. The old capital was, by all accounts, a splendid city which was courted by Dutch, Portuguese, French, English, Chinese and Japanese merchants. By the end of the 17th century, Ayuthaya's population had reached one million and virtually all visiting foreigners claimed it to be the most illustrious city they had ever seen."

Now a World Heritage Site, we are intrigued to walk among the ruins of this once-illustrious kingdom. We meet a tuk-tuk driver that will take us to 4 sites for 300 baht. Our first stop is Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol with a huge reclining buddha. Each of the toes are longer than my arms. Behind is a large compound with a staircased pagoda in the middle, guarded on each side by two huge (at least 5 stories high), seated and peaceful-looking buddhas. Lining the outside wall of the compound are hundreds of seated buddhas, side by side. The ones in the nearest corner have their eyes closed.

I think I've figured out the rules of driving, Thai-style. The road is wide and wherever there is a space that will help your vehicle to move forward, you fill it. Lines? You straddle them to make 3 lanes. A combination of headlight flashes and short honks signal, "I'm going to overtake," and "thanks." Scooters put-put by, never less than 2 people on them, sometimes families. These deserve a honk and dodge. It begins to rain, hard, and all the scooter people disappear. I find them again, huddled under bridges.

The houses nearer to the border are well-worn and dirty. Bricks stained, rotting wood. Each of the houses has an immaculately maintained spirit house, a small temple on a post with fresh offerings of flowers and sweets.

We leave our minibus and wait in an office for the next one. It is filthy inside, the reason in a small frame on the wall: an aerial photograph of a huge flood, the muddy water inundating everything below the ground floor windows. Cars in the photo are reduced to colored rectangular islands. The date: December 23, 2000. Monsoon season in Southeast Asia. Now it makes sense that all of the hotels were displaing big banners that read, in bold print, "Hat Yai is back to normal. Tourists welcome."

The next minibus arrives and Geoff's long legs are cramped again for another 4 hours. When the ordeal is over, we are standing at the Malaysian border! Gerald, a foreigner from our minibus tells us that the border closes at night. If someone comes after the closure, they can pay a boatman to cross the small river to the other side. In the morning they can come back to go through customs. Why don't the border guards get wise to the illegal crossings? Because they run the boats after their shifts are over, of course.   

We're back in Thailand after being in Malaysia for a month. Our days are spent on the computer, turning our adventures into HTML. Today I ventured out to Damnoen Saduak, two hours outside of Bangkok, to experience the talaat nani (floating market). I met up with a Canadian girl, Jo, and together we rented a motor-powered longboat to take us through the market.

The entire community is situated alongside muddy khlongs (canals). Much of Bangkok used to be based along canals like this, and was referred to as "the Venice of the East" by Europeans. It is easy to imagine what it would have been like. We pass a man brushing his teeth over the edge of his deck, and a woman deep in the water facing away from us as she works up a soapy lather. Behind them are wooden houses, some with people sitting in the doorways, taking in the activities of the new day (it is only 8:00 am).

The locals conduct their business right on their boats. We skirt past the tacky and out of place souvenir boats to the fruit and vegetable market. This is the most colorful area, with wrinkled, smiling women in woven straw hats, fruits and vegetables piled in front of them the whole length of the boat.

"Coconut? 10 baht."
"You want banana?" The women nod and smile, holding out their treasures for us to want.

Along the sides of the canal are walkways with more vendors and some places to eat. I get out of the boat and walk up onto a bridge to see the sights from above. Each boat seems to be fully self-sufficient. If you want noodle soup, a boat will eventually float by with a gas canister, burner, small pot and utensils, smiley cook, and ingredients: noodles, water, ground chillies, oil, bean sprouts, sliced meat. The wide-brimmed hats and fruit glide past each other. On the side, three boats have joined together; one boat owner eating, two chatting and a third sprawled out asleep with his hat over his head.

On the bus back to Bangkok, I nod off, dreaming of what it would have been like to grow up along the khlongs.