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Other entries in Lop Buri

Greetings from Monkey Town

So despite the disadvantage of having to take the 5 hr train back to BKK, and some other mishaps, I have arrived in LopBuri - town of monkeys. I had lunch in the BKK train station, called Som to invite her along but she was visiting her folks, saw some guy spazzing out at the police station kiosk. I think he had been robbed and was upset, but in anger smashed the wooden front of the booth with his boot. This really got the polices' attention. He looked possibly Israeli but had a Limp Bizkit Tshirt on, so while I was tempted to intercede, 'Hey man, calm down, as bad as this, is your day could get a whole lot worse', I decided to let him follow his own path, come what may. Caught the train north, and while 'helpful' folks told me when my stop came up, they were wrong and I was in some town other than LopBuri, not on my map, and without a hotel. So I had to buy another ticket to go the next few stops. No biggie, just infuriating: BKK to town x cost 28 Baht (currently 38 Baht to the dollar) and I had to pay 66 bh to get here, even though I had been given bad info. Still, big picture, I got here from Bangkok for under $3 and I shouldn't be bitching, but it's the principle......
It's obvious when you do arrive in Lop Buri as there are giant golden monkey statues at the train station. I got a good room, bought some shirts, borrowed laundry soap from my German neighbors and washed some funky undies (the rest can wait for Chiang Mai tomorrow), and set out to see the simians. There is this one main area where they hang out, but it's quite urban and they are like squirrels up phone poles and into things, actually quite aggressive, one tried to grab my pepsi. Apparently there is a restaurantuer who throws a big feast for them once a year with table cloths and napkins and all, that must be quite a site....
So I head to this net cafe, once again only running '98, so shots still must wait. The kids here are all into online games called Ragnarok, and Nage, which run fine on '98 so they couldn't care less. But the guy at the head desk, with the only XP OS is currently in the middle of Half Life2 (shout out to ya, Pickle) and won't come off it. I'm only being charged 25cents and hour for net access, so text and surfing will do for now. I'm sure Chaing Mai will have BKK style ammenities, so you'll get monkey shots then. Saw some in Angkor WAtt too, but while whizzing by on the back of a motorbike you don't really get good shots. So picture me here, surrounded by thai teenage boys killing fantasy monsters, terrorists, and virtual versions of one another, sipping my rum and pepsi, watching for falling monkey shit on the walk back to the hotel-

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