Bangkok Day 1 - Shopping, getting lost, Water Taxis and cook you own BBQ!

Wednesday April 8^th

Exploring Bangkok was fun and driven by spontaneous whimsy. The tour book said getting lost was fun and underrated – so I tried not to be too concerned by the directions we took, which did bite us in the butt a little later! The day started at the Pridi Hostel, which we arrived very late at the night before. I will forever question if I know if I'm going in the right direction from a station, especially here where I cannot read most of the signs (google maps is also super unhelpful, not offering many words translated in English on their online maps). So on the first night we did get a touch turned around and locals pointed us in the right direction and we found the hostel with otherwise little problem. (Crossing the street makes you feel like frogger for sure..) But we woke up to a windy and dark Bangkok horizon. The weather said sporadic thunderstorms and as we took breakfast it surely did storm, with huge cracks of thunder. Once it settled down, we headed out in some casual clothing with weather proofed cameras. Although cloudy and overcast, the rain stayed away the rest of the day! So we bought a day pass (about $4.60) for the metro and rode around to a few stops. We looked around Central World (one of the largest malls in Thailand) and it was indeed a 7 story sprawling labyrinth of commercialism. We used it as our base line of what is “expensive” around here. Then we walked around the streets window shopping. We took the metro to the Central Pier and immediately got approached by a long tail boat tour sales guy. It was a very touristy thing to do, but I actually was game (it cost around $13.30 for an hour). 

He took us around the waterways of Bangkok and occasionally pointing out wildlife. He spoke no English, but he would slow the boat down when I seemed interested in taking a picture and I truly enjoyed the ride. At one point C asked me what I was thinking and I was too sheepish to say, “I'm afraid he'll pull up to a location and tell me that its over.” Our boat passed other tour boats in the narrow canals and everybody waved and smiled. A few little boats floated by with elderly ladies selling flowers and religious statues.

We had arranged for him to drop us off in China Town, which was my favorite location we saw this day. The booth vendors where much cheaper then the stuffy malls we had seen earlier and it was crowded and lively. We would look at each other and say “Down the rabbit hole?” and squeeze into a corridor of shops that were barely two people wide. We bought all kinds of delicious treats for under a dollar as we looked on. Collin for fresh squeezed pomegranate juice twice and multiple cooked meats. I opted for bubble tea and fresh mango that you dip in a spicy salt mix. 

Once we got out of China town we did get lost walking around for a bit. The waterways had twisted us away from the main stretch the Metro was on and so we walked threw many lazy neighborhoods before getting desperate enough to try the ferry system which was the quick fix from the beginning. The problem is that if you've never used it, its really intimidating. The signs explaining the fare system is in Thai and so we just walked up to the ticket vender and said the stop we needed and she gave us a ticket (about 50 cents). The issue was we were guessing which stop we needed (and it was a correct and lucky guess!). On the ferry, we weren't exactly sure at first how to know which stop was indeed ours. The signs at each pier do say the name and number of the pier along the route, but everything happens so fast, and it was all so new, that I felt a little over whelmed (we'd already walked so far). We probably would have taken a taxi – but traffic is so bad it feels like you'd just be sitting in traffic for many hours! Anyway, I was very happy to see the Metro and ride back to the hostel. The walk from the Metro did seem much longer then before on our tired feet. 

After a shower and change of clothes, we walked a few blocks to an all you can eat, cook your own BBQ place that was full of locals and smelled great. Although the explanation of what to do was lacking, we muddled through it and a lady from a table over laughed at us and told us our meats were on the wrong cooking devices!

 One grill was for larger seafood and the other was a dome, with coals underneath and you put a block of fat at the top to add grease to the skillet and cover the dome with your raw meats that you grab from the buffet. The meat labels were in Thai so it was all guess work and I stuck to beef marinades. I also had some fish, clams and squid which I thought was the best tasting of what I grabbed. It was a fun experience, although sitting at a small wooden table with your own personal grills blazing away is a warm dinning experience and is a little unpleasant. I wasn't in the mood to drink, but the water was so refreshing. We hobbled home on sore feet and grabbed some coffee from a nearby 7-11 convenience store. It made me miss the ones in Japan.