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Published: April 21st 2016
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Hello all,
After a long 2 days of travel, we have made it to Bangkok. It is the end of our first day here, and we are sitting in bed at our AirBnB. It was quite the adventure to get this far, but now that we are here we are ready for... well, nothing. We are ready to sleep. They say that the number one rule to adjusting to a new time zone is that you absolutely must not sleep until it is nighttime. We failed. But will it matter? Probably not. It is 3am here in Bangkok and we just returned home from dinner. The city is bustling, street vendors still peddling their wares, and of course the bar girls are hanging off the arms of middle-aged white men. We found a street stall serving cold beer, green curry, whole fried fish, and then moved on and topped the night off with a dessert of banana-custard-chocolate fried dough (roti).
First impressions of Bangkok? The smells! Every ten feet brings a new odor, most of them pleasant, some deeply horrifying. The air sits on the city like a warm, wet blanket. You could stir it with a
ladle at noon. Perhaps in a few months we will be able to name every spice that fills the air, but for now it's a potpourri of confused, intriguing, mouthwatering scents. Sizzling sticks of skewered meat, little fried balls of fish, stalls heaped with ice and fresh fruit in plastic bags, the world-famous FROZEN ORANGE (it has a straw frozen into it), cockles and oysters and a hundred other animals we can't even identify. American air seems dry and antiseptic by comparison.
We arrived here early this morning, around 6:30am. Unfortunately our room wasn't going to be ready until 12. So we spent some time sitting around at the Baang Rai Cafe drinking intensely sugared green tea and planning the rest of our time in Bangkok. We didn't pack light, but there's still 101 things to buy in the city before we move on to the islands of Koh Lanta and Phuket. When we met the boyfriend of our AirBNB host at 12PM, we were ready to collapse, but he told us to return in 2 hours after he finished cleaning the room. So what better way to spend our time than begin the shopping? We caught
a cab (less than $3 to get anywhere in the city!)
It blew us away! A palace of commerce and an oasis of AC, the Center shopping mall is six massive stories with an indoor train and rollercoaster, as well as rooftop water slides and more discount handbags and shoes than we've ever seen. There is an open floor plan with few distinctions between stores - it is easy to wander with your shopping basket into the next outlet and not even realize it until the angry store clerk catches up with you! And you can buy *anything*. Furniture, cosmetics, electronics, massage chairs and spa treatments, and art supplies so cheap that Kendall almost broke down in tears... Although watch out for the cosmetics, because they all contain whitening acids to bleach the skin. Not something Kendall needs!
With a good meal in our stomachs and a bag full of loot, we returned to our room and promptly fell into a deep sleep. Our two hour nap lasted just under eight hours.
It is hard to imagine that just 48 hours ago we were still in Belmont. This is going to
be the trip of a lifetime. We are stressed, anxious to the point of nausea, and unsure of where to go, how to get there, or how to speak the language. We are just two young, ignorant white doofuses trying to navigate a city so full of culture that we might drown in it. But the people are friendly, the heat is surprisingly tolerable, and the food is worth the price of admission by itself. This truly is the Land of Smiles.
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K&V
non-member comment
Greatness!
Glad you got there safely, and that (after some delay) the Airbnb is working out :-) Thanks for checking in, and letting us travel vicariously through you! Lots of love, K&V