One Day in Bangkok ...

I found the lost post!!!! Hooray 30 baht was not wasted.

Here it is, now kinda redundant. Sorry.

Our first day in Bangkok was super successful. To be honest, I had really low expectations-- we had been told to get out of here as fast as possible, but after 20+ hours of traveling the day before, we wanted to take a breather.





First, it's hot. Really hot. As in, it's 7:46am and I'm sweating already. Phew. I feel like I'm doing Bikram yoga when I move in any direction.





Anyway--Cody, Marshall and I wandered down the streets of Bangkok in search of food-- and found a backpacker eating something that looked good at a stall. We just pointed at his plate and told the lady 3 of those--turns out it was chicken and rice--and it was good (and 30 baht, which is about a dollar)! We navigated the subway AND the skytrain to get to the Vietnamese consulate to apply for visas (you have to get it well in advance). It takes a few hours, so we set out on the streets again...and got super hussled. When we re-read our guidebooks later, it was classic--well-dressed guy approaches, asks where you're from, says he's a policeman and the site we were looking to visit was closed due to a Buddhist holiday and gets us a tuk-tuk to the travel agency to book our trip to Chiang Mai. It wasn't a total waste--the tuk tuk ride was pretty interesting--but once we got to the travel agencey (It was supposed to be government run and it was clearly not), we saw through it pretty quick. The lady there hates us now cuz we got out of there so quick (especially Cody, haha!)





Knowing that we must exude a smell of fresh "hussle us" that clearly everyone we passed smelled, we learned not to talk to anyone else who promised us anything and decided just to walk. We found an awesome lunch cart and a really pretty public park to hang out in. We hung out on the bank of the lake there and I drew. Very relaxing, until we noticed a gigantic crocodile-looking thing swimming towards us. It was the biggest lizard I've ever seen in my life. Seriously alligator-sized, with a long, black tongue. And he smelled me. I swear he made a beeline right for where I was sitting, and hauled out of the water. Of course, by this time I had climbed a nearby tree. Marshall and Cody had to be all manly and stand their ground, but I guess somebody had to take pictures. Turns out I was sitting almost directly above his little tunnel hole that he crawled into. Yikes. Will post pics of him soon.





After almost getting eaten, we returned to the consulate, collected our visas, and set off wandering again. We decided to travel down a canal by boat, which was kinda a local thing, I guess-- we got a lot of funny looks. It was awesome. We even had to do a boat transfer at one point. At the end of the line, (We were headed to "Old Bangkok" area...) we got out and started crossing the street-- a huge intersection-- but got stopped by a guy with a walkie-talkie. All traffic was being held, even the pedestrians. Turns out, we timed it perfectly-- the KING was about to drive by! The city completely stopped as his 30-car/motorcylce motorcade drove by. A lot of people bowed to his Rolls-Royce. It was really exciting!





I've got 3 minutes left of my 10-baht internet session, so I've got to wrap up this post--





We then found a huge buddhist festival with 3 stages of Thai dancing, singing, and music. It was incredible. We took a seat in the middle of the field as the sun set and it was magical. Behind us, a huge golden temple/palace lit up.


We ate great street food and went to bed.

All in all, one night in bangkok...the world was our oyster. The bars were temples, but the pearls weren't free.

Plus, we woke up this morning without Mike Tyson tattoos on our faces. That counts as success, my friends.

Love,


T