Right now, we're staying at the New Siam II guest house (A, clean, with pool, "information" desk, perfect location) in the Banglamphu area of Bangkok (which is in Thai-land). Its within 8 minutes' walk to Khao San road, which is always hoppin'. Formerly 100% shoestring gringo backpackers (think old vegas, but trashier and on a more narrow strip), now its more like 25% shoestring backpacker, 25% nuclear family from Germany, 25% kids spending daddy's money drinking beer and buying fake international driving permits, and 25% young locals. This can be fun for a while, but I'm glad we chose to stay somewhere else.
We're also close to the two main cultural sites of Bangkok: Buddhist temples and frickin' huge shopping malls. Generally, both of these places give me hives; all filled with religion and people, but I had a great time. In fact, I think I love malls now. They have the most incredible food courts I have ever seen and they were always full. There's a whole floor dedicated to arcade and computer games. I got torn apart playing Counter Strike with a bunch of kids and my Guitar Hero skillz are crap, but our photo booth stickers (near the ultra modern karaoke pods) came out great. The movie theaters have a couch option and the Pizza Hut sells an "American" pizza (4 meat pizza with cheese hotdog-filled crust). At the food court, we had a clay pot of this ultra beefy soup that was hot and awesome. For dessert, we had sticky rice with durian. I don't remember ever gagging from food before, but this stuff was nasty. It kept coming up every so often too. Glad I tried it, but never again.
The temples provided a keen insight into Japanese tour group culture, complete with flag-toting leader and attendant hordes. When you see the head of the train, you better get moving or you're going to be waiting a long time to get anywhere. While cultural must-sees, visiting temples also gave us an excuse to ride the boats on the Chao Praya river and wander in to new places.
We've been a bit surprised at the high cost of food, taxis, and drinks. Right now, 1 USD will buy 30 baht. Beside the falling dollar, we blame clueless gringos for driving prices up. An air-conditioned taxi costs just under 70 baht from our guest house to MBK center using the meter, but a tuk tuk driver, who should cost about 30% less than the taxi, will ask 200 baht or more and won't even pretend to negotiate. He knows some other dumb gringo will come along two minutes later and pay it. That means we have to go through 5 or 6 cabs and tuk tuks until we find someone willing to give us a fair price. I don't know if this affects other relationships as well, but it seems like Thais are generally colder to foreigners that I expected. Never downright evil or aggressive, just dismissive and often with mocking laughter. I'll have to pay attention next time I'm in the states, but I don't remember the opposite happening.
It is incredibly hot and muggy here, so we've instituted a modified siesta schedule to cope. Sometimes we hit the pool and read before taking a nap (I know, life is rough), and other times we hit an air-conditioned internet cafe to do the work of travel; emailing the next destination for a place to stay, booking a train trip, looking up various skin conditions, writing a travel blog, and organizing photos to be sent home.
At night, Bangkok is the greatest boardwalk you even seen. All alive with food stalls and markets, fruit carts and crazy people, wandering blind singers and drunk English kids, ladies of the night and katoey, and always more awesome food. As Kiima says, I love me some noodles. We've also gotten to see some Muay Thai and make new friends. On Christmas eve, we hung out with Angele and had some welcome third-party conversation. She's from the US and lived in Amsterdam for several years before moving to Bangkok, so she was the perfect brain to pick.
In Bangkok, people love the King (It says so on their shirts). We're off to Chiang Mai by train tonight. I wonder if its the same there.
We're also close to the two main cultural sites of Bangkok: Buddhist temples and frickin' huge shopping malls. Generally, both of these places give me hives; all filled with religion and people, but I had a great time. In fact, I think I love malls now. They have the most incredible food courts I have ever seen and they were always full. There's a whole floor dedicated to arcade and computer games. I got torn apart playing Counter Strike with a bunch of kids and my Guitar Hero skillz are crap, but our photo booth stickers (near the ultra modern karaoke pods) came out great. The movie theaters have a couch option and the Pizza Hut sells an "American" pizza (4 meat pizza with cheese hotdog-filled crust). At the food court, we had a clay pot of this ultra beefy soup that was hot and awesome. For dessert, we had sticky rice with durian. I don't remember ever gagging from food before, but this stuff was nasty. It kept coming up every so often too. Glad I tried it, but never again.
The temples provided a keen insight into Japanese tour group culture, complete with flag-toting leader and attendant hordes. When you see the head of the train, you better get moving or you're going to be waiting a long time to get anywhere. While cultural must-sees, visiting temples also gave us an excuse to ride the boats on the Chao Praya river and wander in to new places.
We've been a bit surprised at the high cost of food, taxis, and drinks. Right now, 1 USD will buy 30 baht. Beside the falling dollar, we blame clueless gringos for driving prices up. An air-conditioned taxi costs just under 70 baht from our guest house to MBK center using the meter, but a tuk tuk driver, who should cost about 30% less than the taxi, will ask 200 baht or more and won't even pretend to negotiate. He knows some other dumb gringo will come along two minutes later and pay it. That means we have to go through 5 or 6 cabs and tuk tuks until we find someone willing to give us a fair price. I don't know if this affects other relationships as well, but it seems like Thais are generally colder to foreigners that I expected. Never downright evil or aggressive, just dismissive and often with mocking laughter. I'll have to pay attention next time I'm in the states, but I don't remember the opposite happening.
It is incredibly hot and muggy here, so we've instituted a modified siesta schedule to cope. Sometimes we hit the pool and read before taking a nap (I know, life is rough), and other times we hit an air-conditioned internet cafe to do the work of travel; emailing the next destination for a place to stay, booking a train trip, looking up various skin conditions, writing a travel blog, and organizing photos to be sent home.
At night, Bangkok is the greatest boardwalk you even seen. All alive with food stalls and markets, fruit carts and crazy people, wandering blind singers and drunk English kids, ladies of the night and katoey, and always more awesome food. As Kiima says, I love me some noodles. We've also gotten to see some Muay Thai and make new friends. On Christmas eve, we hung out with Angele and had some welcome third-party conversation. She's from the US and lived in Amsterdam for several years before moving to Bangkok, so she was the perfect brain to pick.
In Bangkok, people love the King (It says so on their shirts). We're off to Chiang Mai by train tonight. I wonder if its the same there.
2 comments:
Merry LATE Christmas you two!
Thailand sounds awesome and I'm SOOOO jealous of the tasty food you are having :(
Merry Christmas Keith! How's the wedding coming along? Or should I ask Kristin?
What Lee forgot to explain is the 2 pictures of an asian boyband in the mall on Christmas! What's more Christmas than that?
Post a Comment