All Roads Lead to Bangkok

25 hours from JFK airport to Bangkok. It was cold and long and uncomfortable and if not for stolen airplane blankets I do not know how we would have survived. I must say, the Japanese airline food certainly seemed exotic to someone who has only flown as far as Chicago before.

Immediately ripped off on an overpriced taxi to Bangkok from the airport, we went straight to Khao San Rd, sort of a backpacker central. Everyone I've talked to said to avoid the area(or Bangkok in general) and we wished we had listened. It was dirty and loud and the only Thai people there were selling things to the farangs. Too filthy and tired from travel, we took the first reasonably-priced room we could find at the Green House right off of Khao San. While the small, bare room and shared shower made us feel like we were in prison, the place actually had a really good free breakfast and fun common areas. Had we not been so shell-shocked figuring out Bangkok we may actually have met some people, perhaps at the arcade-machine Guitar Hero or in front of the big-screen TV playing bootleg Thai-subbed American movies.

We must have walked 30 miles our first day in Bangkok, from Khao San to Siam Square and everywhere in between. The city became much more palatable once we were in between the heavily touristed areas and got to see real neighborhoods like Chinatown. There was much street food eaten, and it's amazing the meals you can have for less than a dollar here. The first thing that struck us was the fresh-squeezed orange juice, available at every corner and putting Tropicana to shame. It was almost like orange syrup, and it was fucking good. Another high point was the vendors grilling a million different proteins and serving them in a plastic bag tossed in sweet chile sauce.

Notes about Bangkok... There are stray dogs and cats all about the place, but they're more well-mannered than any house-trained dog I've ever known. People feed them scraps and none of them looked emaciated, though there was plenty of mange. As much as I wanted to cuddle them, I didn't want lice. The traffic is crazy, as in there are no traffic laws in effect that I could observe. There are invisible lanes between all other lanes on the road that everyone uses as they please, with tuk-tuks and motorbikes buzzing in between cars and buses. It's a wonder that we didn't see a single accident or vehicular manslaughter the whole time we were walking around. Pictured at right is where we had to cross the street to get to a park where a handful of Thai children played naked in a fountain. There was no street light or stop sign or anything, and we found that the best way to cross safely was to just wait for a Thai to cross the road and let them run interference. Lord knows how the elderly get around the city. Lastly, people in Bangkok sleep everywhere. In the park, on a bench, on the ground, in the street, in a garbage basket(right), in their cars and on their bikes.

We set up a bus ride to Kanchaniburi province to the west of Bangkok for our third day here, eager to get out of Bangkok because it smells like pee and is way too expensive. There's plenty of temples and culture to absorb but there will be time for that later if we even have the cash to be in the city. Thanks to Larry we called ahead to a guest house on our cell phone and we boarded the bus(van) on a relatively quiet side street(right) to laid-back Kanchaniburi at 9am.