The Original Budda Day

We were SUPER excited! For our honey moon we backpacked through SE Asia. We did the loop: Thialand, Laos, Vietnam & Cambodia. But we started in Bangkock. A whirl of new faces, new scents, new visions. Everything was so new. And we were...tourists. We hit the main strip on KoSan Road where we found a cheap place to stay. I kid you not, it was like the room Leonardo DeCaprio stayed in on the movie The Beach. Dingy, dirty, noisy, stains on the wall, no sheets on the bed and stains on the bed. We didnt sleep well that night, but it was late when we got in and I think this was the only place we could find a room.

The next day was our first real day there and we were so thrilled! We only had about a total of 3 hours sleep in the past two days with travel time and a NEW time zone chane...but we were ready to explore this forign land. Some nice local saw us walking and informed us it was a special government holiday, Budda Day, and the TukTuks were cheaper on this day, but only the green ones, b/c the green ones were government owned. He asked if we had seen much so far and was telling us a couple places we had to check out. "WOW, the people here are so nice!" we were thinking. So what did we do?? Flag down the next green TukTuk we saw! We were off on our adventure to see temples. It was amazing...everywhere our driver took us, it was like the people knew we were coming. They would make a comment about the holiday and told us it was good luck to donate to the temple we were in on Budda Day. At the time we had no idea...but we were taken to a few really cool, known temples, and a lot of little ones. It was only at the little ones, where most of the tourists WERNT that they knew we were coming....and they all told us one more new place we needed to check out, like a special store, b/c it was Budda Day and there were "special price"...so we did. First we wound up at some secluded gem shop where they really wanted us to buy something. When we said we were waiting till the end of our trip, when we were back in Bangkock, they told us we could have "Sale price only today, on Budda Day." Then it was off to another temple where they too referred us to a shop with "special prices for the holiday" then to a market with a travel agent, trying to get us to buy a package for while we were there...we didnt do this either b/c we just wanted to be uncommitted and be able to go from one place to the next...lucky us that this is what we WANTED to do...how we wanted to experience this trip. Then off to a few more temples, then to a suite shop. Now, Craig DID want a tailor-made suite, but again, the plan was to do this when we got back to Bangkock before we left back to The States...but they had us, "Special price today only for Budda Day." They had Craig standing on a platform measuring length, height, shoulder width, wiast, etc. He was getting spun around and whirled from one side to the other while they took all his measurements. It was exciting, and fun to be cauht up in this tailor made suite thing. We walked out with a recipt for a suite that would be ready to pick up when we got back. Now off to another temple...and this time, we started to realize things were a little strange...the people at the next temple knew things about us they shouldnt....we just bought a suite, it was our first day in Bangkock, we just got married...things like that. Wierd...then we were off to another place and we heard the TukTuk driver talking to someone, we decided it was a heads up to the next place. By now, we were tired, hungry and done with this. We just wanted to go back to Khaosan Road, get a bite to eat, a drink to sip and enjoy the day/eve. Our TukTuk driver wouldnt take us back. He insisted we had to make one more stop to another store. We eneded up going to the last place, a jewrly store, but quickly decided we were done. They kept saying, "Oh, Look, so pretty!" UGH! We were HAD! Damn Budda Day! So from then on, we referred to Craigs suit as his Budda Day Suit. It is a nice suit, and still fits...