Welcome to Thailand

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We arrived to our hotel in Bangkok at around 3 AM from the airport. Getting here was pretty painless actually. The taxi was only 450 BHT and we'd been told it would be around 500 BHT so we were pretty happy with that. Our hotel is called Sunflower Place. It's a nice hotel even though it's located down a sketch alley that's hard to find. The staff are super helpful and the room is nice. It's well located too!

After catching some sleep we woke up early to get some real Thai street food and explore the city. We didn't have a lot on our agenda for today - just book a bus ticket to Koh Chang for tomorrow, see Wat Pho and the Grande Palace and explore the city. If we saw some ladybois along the way, all the better. We met our first scammer at breakfast. He drove us to the pier for 20 BHT (good price) and then his "friend" tried to get us to take their private boat to Wat Pho for 1500 BHT. Hells to the no! We walked to the legit pier and got on the water express boat for 25 BHT. BIG difference in price!

Wat Pho was nice but I was more interested in the art on the walls. It was pretty cool and each one told a different story. I ended up taking a bunch of pictures so I hope they turn out! In our wanderings we ended up running into a fellow Canadian travelling by himself. We were both searching for how to get to the Grande Palace but it was a bit of a maze. We ended up finding our way there but they wanted you to wear long pants and sleeves to get in, which we had none of, so that was that. It's too hot here for sleeves or pants!

The weather is warm and humid, probably around the early 30s. Still better than Japan in August and there's a nice breeze!

We saw no shortage of lady bois today. They were EVERYWHERE in this city! It helps that our hotel is sort of in a lady boi district, which is pretty awesome. We went for a walk through gay town while searching for a place to eat dinner and wound up at a Mexican place that had lady bois for waitresses. The food was alright, but honestly the street food was waaay better for the price! A plate of street food is only 53 BHT (with a drink). My plate of Kaoh Pat at the restaurant was 230 BHT plus tax and tip. Again, BIG difference!

After dinner we got a Thai Massage. AMAZING! My guy was super cute too so it was even more enjoyable hahaha

Once we were all relaxed we toured the Pat Phong (?) night market and got dragged into a Ping Pong Show. Of course we knew it was a scam. The guy said it was 100 BHT - lies! They came to us after 10 minutes with a bill for 3, 900 BHT. Like hell we were gonna pay it. We had had a drink which was 100 BHT each so we talked them down to 500 BHT which was still not awesome but better than 3, 900! In the end I think it was worth it for the experience of watching a girl burst balloons by shooting darts out of her hoo-hah.

We already had tickets to Calypso Cabaret so we headed on over there with our new Canadian friend. It was an amazing show! The tickets were 800 BHT for just the show & a drink (no dinner) and it was totally worth it! We got to take pictures with the "girls" after the show too for no extra charge. It was a lot of fun! Totally over the top and awesome - just what you'd expect!

Drinks and more street food followed. Tomorrow we'll be catching the bus at 0830 to go to Koh Chang and our beach destination. Wish we had more time in Bangkok, but am SO looking forward to relaxing too! Don't know if they have any internet at the beach but will do my best to update if they do.

So far, Thailand is exactly what I'd hoped it would be. Thanks for being such a blast, Bangkok!

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