I'm writing this as my bus trudges through the busy streets of Bangkok. I'll start with Friday the 22nd.
On Friday I woke up in Samuel Woo's apartment with my head spinning from only 4 hours of sleep in the past 2 days- saying goodbye to my friends while simultaneously moving and trying to figure out my Beijing plans had taken most of my time lately. Three hours later I finally arrived at the Macau airport and was waiting for my flight. There I encountered a really nice Thai family. Nong, Nang, Neng, Nyut and their cousing Byut.
They had been traveling in Macau and were now on their way back home to Bangkok. We played some cards, shared traveling stories and pictures and they gave me lots of advice about Thailand so I could make a better plan of what to go do once I arrived. We shared a cab from the Bangkok to Nong's house.
Nong walked me to the bus stop and we stopped for dinner. This looked bad but it was a super tasty noodles in gravy dish.
At the bus stop I realized all my maps were with Nyut's stuff, so we walked back to their place and eneded up going out for dinner again.
The 2nd dinner was really good as well. Eggs, fried stuff, a vegetable with a dirty name, noodles and the works.
After dinner I headed back to the bus stop and slept the whole 1 hour ride to Khao San road, which I heard has a lot of lodgings for backpackers.
Here's a guy relaxing on the street.
This is the outskirt of Khao San road. I found some guesthouses, but it was already 11:00 PM and they were all full here.
The main part of Khao San road- thousands of people from all over the world gathered here- there were many interesting characters.
ID anyone? After walking around a couple hours I finally found a guesthouse that wasn't full for about $6 per night. I took a much needed shower and crashed hard, despite the music that blared all night.
Saturday 1-23-10
I wake up and wander Khao San road looking for a printer to print my China VISA forms on. I settle for B&W. It was weird to see this place in the morning- nearly quiet and empty compared with the blaring party from last night. I got in a Tuk-Tuk and headed to a Thailand Association of Tourism (TAT) to get my VISA.
TAT couldn't do student VISAs, so I walked about 1.5 hrs to the Hua Lamphong train station and saw some neat things like this market along the way.
The traffic signals here all countdown, pretty convenient, though I could see problems arising from people jumping the gun.
I got to the subway and met some Americans that were all teaching English in Korea. We took a subway, I got off near the Chinese consulate and had some BBQ beef. The consulate was closed, but I met a Japanese girl that had studied Chinese for 5 years and lived in BKK. It was funny that it was easiest to talk to her in Chinese. We walked back to the subway and she told me some places to check out in Thailand.
I took the subway to the Chatuchak weekend market and met back up with the Americans from earlier. The market is huge- 10,000 plus shops and still nothing worth buying. There were lots of colorful foreigners here and a few Thais.
This is a little pet stand.
Stuffed french toast?
There are lots of tiny bikes in Thailand. This is about the fastest at 150 CCs. Probably gets great mileage.
I got a call from Nong, so we relaxed in the park for a while before Nong and his friend Bang came to pick me up.
The english teachers.
A palace on our way to dinner.
Another palace?
Bang, Nong and I.
The Democratic monument.
We went to a restaurant on the river. Across the river is a 2-300 year old monument.
We had Nong's favorite food here, flaming curry prawns.
Thai food is always super spicy, they have a saying 'no spice no flavor.' It's all served with Basil to soothe the burn.
This is the vegetable with a dirty name.
A seafood medley.
And finally some delicious paste made from squid, shrimps, fish and peppers.
The boat here is a dinner cruise for about $150 per person.
We left and drove around to a few more palaces. This symbol means cool in Thailand.
I can't remember the names of any of these places, but I think this is where congress meets.
Bang dropped me off at Khao San road. I was supposed to meet with the Americans from earlier, but I didn't see they had messaged me until the next morning. Here's a cool little taxi.
This is 'Pad Thai' it's pretty much all there is to eat on Khao San road- tens of carts all serving the same thing in very small portions.
Sunday 1-24-09
I woke up and walked around looking for a sign I saw earlier for a bus to Chiangmai for about $11. All the other agents were about $17. I found it and was relieved to see an English guy behind the desk. We talked a bit and I decided to take a 3 day 2 night trek through the mountains in Chiangmai. I had some time to kill before the bus came at 6PM, so I headed out to see some sights.
Big Buddha
Some monks. I saw one with an iphone.
Sleeping Buddha
Sitting Buddha
Fried ice cream outside the temple. Much better that I expected... it only piqued my appetite though.
I got some wierd cracker tacos.
And these looked good but had a really salty bitter filling that ruined them.
A fried peanut butter cookie- like eating peanut cement. 3 strikes in a row.
Finally some decent food.
I had my lunch, read a bit and at 6PM hopped on the overnight bus to Chiangmai...
That's all for this batch. I have pages and pages left in my journal and hope to get them all up soon with some more pictures. I'm in Beijing now staying with Scott Powers and Justin Alters from UCI. I'm glad to be here and excited to discover Beijing, but it's so COLD and dry! Today was 23F. More to come soon!
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