One full day here and it's definitely different than what you picture it to be. Do honeymooners really come here? I haven't seen paradise yet but I haven't been disappointed either by any means. Finally getting into the heart of Bangkok tourism, Khaosan road, at around 1 am yesterday (after flying for more than 15 hours mind you) the first thing I wanted to get done was putting my backpack at a guest house and showering. This was only impeded by a Canadian lady who "comes to Thailand every year and spends 5 months" yelling at our cabby. Then an elderly gentleman decided to follow us to look for a guesthouse, until we finally ditched him to look on our own.
The place we settled at was the 2nd one we had a chance to look at--we had tried a bunch of others but there were no vacancies. This was a quaint room with a double bed and a/c which was key because at 1 am Bangkok was still in the high 80s and even higher humidity. The bathroom was a shared bathroom with individual showers which was nice and even nicer were full toilets as opposed to holes in the ground like at the airport in Beijing where we speed for our layover. I'm not yet ready to check my aim and open my cultural horizon with those toilets just yet (I've seen a couple already in Bangkok which I refused to use just yet, but am sure the day will come when I will use them on this trip).
After showering more than half a days worth of stagnant airplane air smell, we hit up Khaosan road to be part of the nightlife which we passed when we first got there; a bucket of "lady ga ga" (vodka, pineapple juice and their version of red bull) and a plate of chicken pad Thai with a spring roll was the dinner and pregame-all for about 120 baht or 4 dollars or something cheap like that. after enjoying my first of many street foods in Bangkok, we joined the crew of tourists in the street dancing to music that made me think of home-music I could fist pump to. Local break dancers in the street pumped up the crowd that was dancing to a mix of music battling from bars across the street from each other.
After a couple more beers and walking around, we went to 7 eleven, which are about as abundant as Starbucks are in NYC, for water. I decided to sample a sandwich one of the workers was eating right from his hand. I didn't know what it was but he fed me a bite. It was delicious--it was a sweet croissant with a piece of ham in the middle. Then we decided to retire for the night around 5 in the morning only to check out at noon the next day--great first impression to a four week hiatus from western civilization. Although it seems dirty compared to the spoiled standards of America, it was a nice change not to have a care and watching the Thai people do there thing without haggling the tourists too much unlike other countries I've visited to in the past.
During the day, we had a tuk-tuk (Thai taxi consisting of a motorized carriage) drive us around the town's sites. Looking back we probably couldn't have seen all we did for that cheap but we did have to stop at a couple tailor shops and tourist information centers so the driver can get his commission--after a while I got good at pretending I was interested in buying a suit and getting a train ticket for Phuket without having to buy anything. after stopping at the tall standing Buddha, we saw other temples and walked around these places where the monks actually lived. These monks, I later found out, were modernized, walking around the same markets we walked around and buying things from them and taking the buses--a lot different than what I expected monks to be doing (I guess that's my naivety *sp* kicking in). after seeing those sites we walked around Bangkok to places where we were the only non Thai people around--the road less traveled. taking away from this walk we noticed that any kind of meat served to us on a stick is the best idea, considering we had 4 different things all being delicious. on our walk we find ourselves on a university campus at some point. We also made it through a bunch of outdoor markets where noone questioned us or even looked at us weird, which I thought was amazing because we were walking through Thai people vending to Thai people. It was an amazing experience. We finished our walking tour heading back to Khaosan road, stopping at an eatery where finally other tourists were. Traditional Thai dishes on the menu was exactly what I wanted. I ended up getting a dish which I never expected to be so amazing--shrimp (large ones btw) with fresh pineapple bits, water chestnut, and these other fruit balls smothered in a sweet chili sauce. Like I said amazing. After heading back to get our bags we stored at the guest house, we got to the bus station to head on the bus to Chiang Mai. From there we are trying to find a place to swim in a waterfall in done jungle hike and then go to Laos before heading to Phuket for or similan island diving cruise (look it up on wicked diving's website if your interested). Hopefully this somewhat painted a picture of day 1 and 2 in Thailand. until next time!
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