Bangkok

Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

Bangkok is a crazy place.  One of the largest cities in Southeast Asia, it is an exhilarating attack on the senses. Food vendors line the streets as motorbikes and tuk tuks whiz by your nose.  There are stunning golden temples everywhere and streets filled with bars and restaurants all ready to get you drunk.  Crowds are a mix of tourists, locals, ladyboys and monks.  And with temperatures in the upper 90s and above, it’s enough to make your head spin (and sometimes your stomach turn)!

Upon arrival from a long day of travel from Turkey, we were swept up in our first (and only) tuk tuk.  Hold on to your butts!


Our first order of business was to escape the heat and eat delicious food. We headed to the MBK mall food court.  Here’s our first authentic pad thai and fried chicken, which made even the best Thai takeout in NYC seem like P.F. Chang's.  This first course was followed by about 5 more dishes.


We were staying close to the “backpacker’s ghetto” which is situated in and around the famous Khao San Road.  This photo doesn’t quite do the street justice.  It’s a pedestrian street lined with vendors of all types.  It seems to gather every single (drunk) tourist in town, so we did a quick walk-through and headed elsewhere.


Bangkok bottle service!  We started with some Thai whiskey, which is actually rum, but as they say in Thailand, "Same same but different."  After over a month of rarely talking to strangers in Turkey (since they didn’t understand us), we finally made some friends.  The first guy we met was a Brit living in Abu Dhabi who had traveled to Bangkok on a spur-of-the-moment decision to drop in on his flight attendent girlfriend and propose.  We asked how it went, and he told us that it didn’t go at all - upon arrival he had found out she was here with her other boyfriend!  Joe bought him a drink and tried to give him a pep talk, but fortunately a couple on our other side (Dan and Suzi), passed us two shots and rescued us from the awkwardness.


An enterprising young lady selling roses challenged Joe to a game of rock paper scissors.  She cleverly took advantage of his inebriation and rigged the outcome in her favor.  If she won, it was 5 roses for 200 baht (about $7).  If Joe won, it was 5 roses for 100 baht.  The Thai performer singing Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," in the background of the video really amps up the excitement.


Like many young men in Bangkok after too many drinks, Joe and Dan dared each other to indulge in a Thai delicacy – fried scorpion.  They took those suckers down while the horrified girlfriends looked on.  Crunchy.


The heat never let up in BKK, so Joe decided to shave his head.  After his lovely locks were shorn, the hairdresser said: “he look better before.”


There are over 400 Buddhist temples in Bangkok.  We stumbled into this one on an evening stroll and were amazed that a temple of its size, beauty, and popularity barely garnered a mention on our map.

Bangkok is famous for its street food.  Carts literally pop up around lunch and dinner time, set up tables and chairs and voila.. you’ve got yourself a restaurant.  We set out on a street food tour one night, which ended in Chinatown.  Here’s our first dish of fried rice. We promise we got more adventurous as the night progressed - we were just too busy eating to take photos.

The next morning we took our still-full bellies for a walk to the Grand Palace.  There is a strict dress code, as outlined by this sign.  Please note skin-color tops and husky man legs in mini skirts are not allowed.

The Grand Palace is a complex of buildings that has served as the official residence of the Kings of Siam (and later Thailand) since 1782. The king, his court and his royal government were based on the grounds of the palace until 1925. The Grand Palace is currently partially open to the public as a museum, though it remains a working palace as several royal offices are still inside.

Scattered in the temple grounds are numerous interesting sculptures of artistic value, including the fanciful animals in mythology, the fierce-looking giants standing guard at the gates, the six pairs of Cambodian-style bronze lions and the stone figures from China.

Grand Palace

Grand Palace

To avoid heat stroke at the Grand Palace we took refuge in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  We noticed a ritual where people were dipping flowers into water and gently dripping it on their heads.  We did our best not to dunk our heads right into the holy water.

On the inside walls of the temple's compound, there are extensive mural paintings with gold inlays depicting scenes from the famous epic Ramayana.  It is the longest wall painting in the world and was our favorite part of the Grand Palace.


This mythical elephant wreaked some havoc.

These muay thai monkeys are sporting some strikingly modern gear, including some nice tail-fitted boxing trunks.

Here’s Ashley in the standard issue blue button-up required to cover her shoulders.  She somehow got away with showing some leg.


Bhumibol Adulyadej – the King of Thailand.  He’s going on 86 and he’s been on the throne for 66 years.  His portrait is all over Thailand.  He’s a gold medal-winning sailor, jazz musician, boat designer, published author, accomplished photographer, patent-holding inventor and has a net worth of 35 billion dollars.  It's illegal to publicly criticize the monarch in Thailand, but what criticism could you possibly make against this badass?

Close-up on the face of the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, which measures in at 15m high and 43m long!

Another delicious food court meal of spicy papaya salad, Tom Yum and fried chicken at the Chatuchak market– the world’s largest weekend market with over 5,000 stalls.  Since we have limited baggage space, we bought nothing we couldn’t eat.

At the market we saw this amazing cat with a ridiculous expression frozen on its face.

You can tell people get up to some crazy things in Bangkok from this “do not” list on every taxi door.  From right: no smoking, no fruit, no beverages (standard), no coyotes, no sexy time, no assault rifles (I should hope not), and certainly no drugged-out horned beasts.

On our last night in Bangkok we met up with Dan and Suzi and found beer giraffes!  It was a glorious evening that ended with a sketchy walk down Khao San Road at the wee hours eating suspect street food and chuckling at some “ladies” with husky legs walking in mini skirts.

But the cat got the last laugh!

The rest of the Bangkok photos are here.