It's early in the morning and the sun is reaching through the smog, crowning the city with a brown halo. Holding on tightly to the railing of the express river bus as it spews down the Chao Phraya river, Abram and I are watching the shores of Bangkok shake off theirsleep. I grin at Abram and repeat a phrase we've become accustomed to telling eachother during the trip: "We're in THAILAND!" In a few short hours, we'll be on a plane back to the sanitized West. But for now, we are both intent on engorging ourselves on the final pleasures of Thailand.

As the boat chugs along, I turn and grimace at the ramshackle homes along the river banks. Inside are families -- fathers, mothers, daughters, sons -- preparing for another day on the sidewalks, selling cigarette lighters from a small towel. Maybe that women who approached us the other day with an offer to ride her longtail boat was a mother too. We turned her away -- the river bus was so much cheaper. A couple of monks, they could have been older than 12 years, are huddled together right in front of me, also watching the river scenes dribble by. I wonder what they see, how they interpret it. Was such poverty and destitution normal for them? Had they become desensitized to it, or was it even something they evaluated?

Abram moved towards the edge of the boat, signaling to the attendant that this was our stop. The captain, a little man sitting in a weathered chair at the front of the boat, threw a switch and the diesel engine grumbled to a stop right along the pier. The boat bounced a few times on the tires hanging off the side of the landing, and we alighted, avoiding the long fall down into the grimy water.

The delicate spires of the Wat Pho served as our navigation beacons. There weren't many street signs in Bangkok, we had discovered, so we had learned to navigate using landmarks. Maps, the free ones at least, were practically useless since they managed only to show the major boulevards and avenues.

The Wat Pho is the national headquarters in Thailand for teaching and preserving traditional Thai massages. To keep their students busy, the school keeps the prices low -- 180 baht ($4.50) for 30 minutes. It goes without say that Abram and I were eager customers.

A line of dark Thai women dressed in orange suits waited by the door of the Wat. We ventured into the hut and, after paying, werve invited to prostrate ourselves onto a sheet. Nearby, a steaming pot of camomille radiated a sweet scent through the room. The hum of overhead fans made my eyelids heavy, and it was tempting to close my eyes. But, I never feel quite comfortable on a massage table. Something about having a strange women contort your body while you essentially let her have her way with you.

She did have her way too. I've never had a massage like it -- she used her feet, her legs, her elbows and her hands to poke, push, rub, twist, pull and do things to muscles I hadn't even used in 20 years. Halfway through the massage, she flopped me forward and I heard my shirt tear at the seams. The masseuse gasped in horror and covered her mouth in horror. I opened my eyes and tried to comfort her with my smile -- there was no rip, just a few strained threads, I'm sure.

Abram and I walked out of the Wat Pho Massage School with satisfied smiles on our faces and our arms hanging uselessly down at our sides. It was one of those moments again: "We're in THAILAND!"