Bangkok, Day 1

---

We arrived in Bangkok at midnight, hands and feet blown up like doughy balloons from 20 hours in flight. The hostel boasts a sixth floor rooftop bar with a stunning vies of a communist era skyscraper being rehabilitated by the hand of the tallest cranes I'd ever seen. An ageless Japanese woman with a charming brace-y smile speaks perfect English as she checks us in and directs us to the "night market" - a street lined with exhausted apathetic vendors hawking the cheap Asian crap on display in Chinatowns world wide. The highlight, of course, is the food. At 1 AM we settle down at an unsteady plastic table squished between two tents to enjoy a large bowl of "noodle soup" full of UFOs (unidentifiable floating objects). The UFOs are delicious, whether they be spherical or disturbingly perfect squares; peanuts and cilantro are in high supply; god, I love Thai food. The bowl (a sufficient meal for the two of us) costs roughly $1.33. We make friends with a Burmese man who, upon finishing his soup, proclaims a little too loudly, "I am in this country secretly. I don't have visa! Come visit me! Bye!"

---