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Temple
Randomly found this temple, it wasn't on our map Sa-wat-dee kraup from Thailand!
I am writing to you from the Soh 1 Guesthouse in the Sukhumvit district of Bangkok. My friend Brian and I are spending our second night here after spending our first night in Bangkok off of Khao San Road. I arrived last night after a full day and a half of traveling. The flight from Dulles to Tokyo was a little rough as I happened to get a seat next to a rambunctious 5 year old named Jason who's favorite games were adding sound effects to the already full volume video games he was playing and then punching my arm whenever he felt like I wasn't paying enough attention to him! Needless to say I didn't sleep nearly as much as I had hoped to, especially as I had stayed up all night on my birthday with the intention of sleeping for the majority of the flight. It seems that Jason had not heard of this idea called sleep but I was able to sneak in a few hours when he switched seats with his mom. I then switched planes at Narita Airport in Tokyo and slept for most of the second flight into Bangkok. I
Jason and Kyle
My neighbor for 15 hours... arrived in Bangkok a little after 11pm local time last night. My plan was to meet up with Brian at a predetermined location, however that plan fell through when no airport officals had heard of our meeting place! I was a little stressed, so after going through customs I decided to try to find a way to page him. On the way to the information desk, I randomly ran into him, so everything worked out surprisingly well with that!
From the airport we took a cab the 40 or so km into the city to Khao San Road which is known as the backpackers Mecca. The actual road is really crazy and loud so we took a room at a guesthouse a few blocks off the main stretch called the Thai Cozy House. After dropping our bags off we went out to see the sights of Khao San for a little bit before retiring to sleep.
This morning I woke up around 7 and went out to explore our neighborhood. Our floor had a beautiful garden porch that overlooked a Buddhist Temple so I spent some time exploring that before Brian woke up. Then we got breakfast at
Our Porch
Where I spent my first Thai morning our Guesthouse and around 11 decided to move to a different district of the city to expand our experience of Bangkok. We chose Sukhumvit because it is a bit more relaxed than Khao San while still offering a wide variety of experiences. After checking into our new guesthouse we explored many areas of the city. My feet are telling me that I walked about 20 miles today, but they are just a little bitter today. We made use of the Skytrains that run throughout the downtown area as well as the river boats which took us to several temples. At the Grand Palace, we were convinced to take a ride in a tuk-tuk, essentially a three-wheeled death trap. Tuk-Tuk drivers are notorious for ignoring every law and conventional wisdom when it comes to driving. If they feel like they want to suddenly go the other way on the street they will suddenly do a 180 with traffic and motorbikes bearing straight at you. Very exciting but I think that will be my last tuk-tuk ride. Also, the drivers get commissions when they take tourists to certain stores so he kept trying to get us into tailors and tourist offices but
The View
From our porch we weren't having any of that.
Everything is super cheap here! Our guesthouse is about $10 and meals usually run to less than $3. We went down to the train station today to buy our ticket to Surat Thani for tomorrow night. Tomorrow we plan on spending the day in a park as well as doing a few more sightseeing things before boarding the overnight train at 6:20. I will be happy to leave Bangkok. I am constantly harassed to buy things, take rides in more tuk-tuks, come into shops and so on and so forth, non-stop. It is very tiresome, and I look forward to lying in the sun and snorkeling when we get to the islands. There are many less than savory going-ons in Bangkok. However, it has also been an eye-opening experience, I feel incredibly lucky and amazed by life and how it is lived by people in such a different area of the world.
I probably won't be making my next entry until we arrive at Koh Samui, but I look forward to sharing more with you then!
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Sammy
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You Are One Great Writer
I am so impressed with your writing! I read your most recent entry before the pics went up. You writing style was so vivid and active my mind was visualizing everything! I have a job for you when you get back. I can't wait for more of your entries. I so want to be there!