Monkey Counting and other Shenanigans

It's been a busy last few days. I made it well off of Koh Tao although it made me very sad to leave. I indeed took my fish some farewell sesame crackers was floating above them, enjoying their little frenzy when i hear this gnoshing sound. Suddenly, this giant school of tuna like fish sweep in and maw my crackers! That was unsuspected. So, good for me, bad for littler, weaker fish.
A 3 hour boat and a 7 hour bus later and I got to Bangkok. A friend had recommended this hostel, Soi 1, and it turned out great. I now consider it my home away from home. I went on a couple day excursion I will mention in a bit, but all I could think about when getting off the sky train was "Man, wonder who's at the hostel? It'll be swell....". but I get ahead of myself.
Nicolle and I spent the next day getting lost in Bangkok. Canal boats, touts, a few metro rides and a crazy amount of walking and I think we only managed to see one neighborhood. It's a really easy city to get insanely lost in. It all turned out ok though; I got my dimsum finally in china town AND converted Nicolle while I was at it. Few can resist the custard ball. Oh yeah and saw a wat or 10. We went to Wat Phra Kaew which is the primary wat in the city and connected to the Grand Palace. The latter was unfortunately closed for the next week or so as the King's sister had passed away and the whole city was in mourning. (They absolutely revere the king here. His image is literally everywhere: on walls, in train stations, in vehicles. You stand to his image before watching a movie and you stop what you are doing every day at 6pm for the national anthem. ) We also saw Wat Po with its 150 foot Reclining Buddah.
Got to see the infamous Khao San road and yes, it is like in The Beach. Went clubbing in a huge thai club called Dude and crawled out of bed the next day to go get glasses. $80 for new frames, lenses, and the exam. I love thailand.
Managed to scramble down to Ayutthaya and LopBuri with this guy I met in the hostel named Daniel. Ayutthaya is a the old khymer capital and is full on ruins. We rented bikes and rode around for a bit then killed the night in a jazz cafe (me? jazz?) where I did Eric Clapton a disservice on the karaoke machine. Sorry, sir.
Next day, we went up one stop to Lop Buri where the town is overrun with monkeys. You pay about $.30 and get a monkey whopping stick and a bag of seeds and you can walk around a feed them. Cheeky monkeys really. They'll climb up your damn stick to get at you. Can't hit the monkey with the stick when it's latched onto it. Yes, they are wild monkeys but they have been rather tamed but copious amounts of sunflower seeds and whacks with a stick.
I took an over night train up to Chinag Mai in the north, which turned out to be a great nights accommodation. I've found a room here and plan to spend the next 6 days or so. The big draw around here is trekking in the local mountains so I am off to pretend I'm in to that kind of thing. I am also going to do my laundry, maybe take a nap or two. I have a very busy life.