Bangkok- I was warned, but didn't believe...

Just a quick note- I got to Bangkok okay yesterday afternoon. This place is ridiculous. I was warned that I would immediately feel like a guichet (ATM) after debarking (is that a word in English?!?) the plane. And it's true. I quickly learned that instead of cutting the price by 20% when bartering like we do in Korea, 50% is perfectly acceptable and all it takes is an impulse to walk away and they've agreed to your price. I hired a tuk-tuk (taxi on three wheels) to take me to all the key places in the city. It cost me 40 baht (about 1$) for four hours, but amazingly he dissapeared after we stopped in at the jewelry center he insisted on taking me too (apparently he gets money from the government just for dropping me there). The next tuk-tuk I hired actually followed me for a few blocks when he finally agreed to my price. That was that- I found the Lucky Buddha- called so, I believe because the Burmese once cut off his golden head and tried to melt it, but it only blackened and didn't melt. Made my way to the Grand Palace and was totally overwhelmed. I hadn't expected it to be so beautiful. There's too many tourists here, so I'm booking it up to Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) tonight. The train was full, so I'm stuck bussing up there- a miserable 12 hour bus ride... uggh. Gotta run, bus leaves in five minutes. A bientot!