Thai Purfume

Well my first few days of exploration were pretty amazing... But I think I should start at the airport. To begin with things seemed pretty similar to any city airport: there were planes trains and automobiles everywhere... I got a ticket and onto the train station bus with the greatest of ease, the entire time thinking to myself that there was no way my dad would have been so relaxed over the whole process. The train station reminded me of King's Cross in London, and apart from my butchering of the pronunciation of "Ayutthaya" getting on the train was again, surprisingly easy... That's when things started to change... As the train pulled out of the station I started to notice real differences between here and King's Cross, to begin with, the train pulled right through out into what was probably the poorest area I have ever been in my life... I am not talking about little houses or apartments, huts would also be a bit generous, I am talking more about rusty slabs of tin as roofs held up by odd bits of bamboo and twine. Trash was everywhere, massive amounts of it all over the place, bit unlike hoarders these people keep everything because a bit of plastic is valued as something which could conceivably be used... As we rumbled on a little further i saw multiple walled communities with names emblazoned in bronze like "nice village" and "modern houses" yet the walls which were there to separate the wealthy from the poor actually bought the poor closer by Giving people a very solid wall which they could create there homes against... Yet still, despite there positions of poverty, I am willing to bet that a great deal of these people were far happier than a great many Americans. Children where running around playing and laughing, mothers were cooking meals on makeshift stoves over fires fueled my bits of dung and other goodies, everywhere there were smiles, it was a pretty humblng experience... As we moved further and further out of the city, I saw how the Thai government deals with all the trash along the roads (I am fairly sure that most all trash ends up here from the city as opposed to a trash can becuase it was like all the contents of a dump, from bits of plastic to matresses and bathtubs) they rake it up and burn it, or they don't rake it up and just straight up burn it... I really think that a patch was on fire about every half mile. The smoke mixes with the sewage in the seeming never ending network of nearly stagnent pools and canals of water to make for quite the purfume which sticks to everthing thanks to the humidity... Welcome to the rest of the world little white boy... If perspective was my so called reason for coming here... I think that this trip will definatly achieve the said purpose.