As the sun rose over Bangkok on our 20th day of travel, we took a few minutes to reflect on how truly lucky we are to be able to have this incredible life experience. We decided to enjoy a leisurely day of wandering around Bangkok with no certain destination in mind..
We saw a lot of malls, fruit stalls, vendors, motorcycle taxis, tuk-tuks, and even a few interesting bathrooms or two (!)..
The next day we celebrated our trip's midway point (day 21) with a long tail boat ride around Bangkok with our friend Chatchai.. What seems like a tourist trap actually is a pretty efficient way to get around Bangkok. Since the city is built on a river, it's possible to zip down the river (faster than is probably safe) and get from one end of the city to the other in about 20 minutes instead of the several hours it might take by car. Plus, it's much more fun.
During the trip we passed important icons of Bangkok big and small..
We stopped by a floating market where the food is prepared on boats and then served up to the patrons seated on the dock. The Department of Health had somehow missed this place. I think it probably would have gotten a "C" rating from NYC.. But everything tasted great and nobody's throwing up so I guess it's all good.
The floating market didn't have any restrooms (except the river, of course) but as if by magic a port-a-potty BUS arrived! Right on schedule about 6 urinals and 6 stalls drove up like an ice cream truck for all the happy patrons that had been crossing their legs and jumping up and down from all of the Thai iced coffees.. (ok, so that was me)
On the 22nd day, it looked like Bangkok was being invaded by giant flying saucers. Silently and quite ominously, huge black clouds moved in over the city dumping huge amounts of rain and covering the sky with beautiful lighting. We decided to stay in and watch Thai TV (an experience in itself)..
We then wandered a few blocks down from the apartment to a Soi (side street) known for rows and rows of food vendors.. We pointed at things at looked interesting and voila, in a few minutes (and for about $4 total) we had a nice picnic dinner..
This morning the sun rose beautifully again over Bangkok. Tomorrow we start our LONG transit period to South Africa.. From here back to China, then Paris (overnight), then South Africa.. but we'll chat about that next time. =)
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