South East Asia: Part 1 - Bangkok, Thailand

I arrived in Bangkok on May 19th after the 12-hour journey with one stop over in Copenhagen, Denmark. The flight was really comfortable and I slept most of the time. The first thing I noticed was the extreme humidity. It was at least 45 Celsius with the humidity. Erik, a friend from University, met me at the airport. He was really easy to spot as I believe he was the only 6’2’ white guy amongst many Thais at the gate.


The first thing we did was head to Kao Sarn road which is a very busy tourist spot in Bangkok where there is many bars, hostels, street vendors, shops etc. We then sampled several Thai beers and then tried a bucket of booze, which is basically a huge pale of slushy (in several flavors) with the booze of your choice. When then headed to several bars in the area to finish the night.

The following day we went to the Grand Palace. Before we got there, some crazy lady with pigeons all around her harassed us with popcorn seeds to give to the pigeons. Scared out of our minds, Erik and I took the bags of popcorn seeds that this nutcase was forcing on us and fed the pigeons. Little that we knew, she was charging 5$ for these bags of seeds!!! We got screwed, damn! In retrospect, we should have ran away, but you never know in a foreign country. Lesson of the day: don’t trust crazy pigeon ladies! When we finally got the Grand Palace it was great. There is beautiful royal residences and it is home of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which I didn’t get to see because the temple was closed for repairs unfortunately. After the Grand Palace, we crossed the river to visit another temple, which had more amazing monuments. We then headed to a temple that is host to the Reclining Buddha. I was told that this was the world's largest Buddha. This thing was huge and very beautiful, and pictures don't do it justice. We finished off day 2 by meeting up with Erik’s friends and headed to a karaoke bar. This karaoke was different from what I am used to because each group of friends had their own private room and you could make a play list of the songs you wanted to sing.


On the third day in Bangkok, we went shopping on Kao Sarn, went for a Thai message and went to see some Thai Boxing. Shopping in Thailand is quite the experience. The vendors know that you are tourist and practically drag you into their shops. All the shops sell the same things so if they try to rip you off, you can easily bargain with them to get the lowest price or go to the next shop. After the shopping we went for a Thai message. We went to a very decent place and there was NO happy ending, haha. The message was nice but the girl had hands like vice grips and at times it hurt. Afterward they served us a snack and tea. I felt pretty loose afterwards and then we went to Thai Boxing. There are matches almost every day and I think there are more than 60 000 Thai boxers in Thailand, so it’s a very popular sport. The boxers are actually pretty small (no taller then 5’8’ and not over 140 pounds) and quick, which made for some great fights. During the event we got to see 10 fights and 2 knockouts! It is illegal to gamble on boxing in Thailand but that didn’t stop the few thousands of fans that were there from doing it. I couldn’t figure out their gambling system, as it seemed very random with a lot of yelling at each other. We then went back to Erik’s place and ordered McDonald’s of all things. That’s right, McDonald’s delivers in Bangkok… I couldn’t believe it.

The best way I could explain Bangkok is that it’s organized chaos. If you walk down 10 meters down a street you will get 10 different smells. It is very crowded and hectic and is very different of what I am used to from the other cities I have traveled to. It was great to experience Bangkok and it really took me out of my comfort zone. In my next post I will talk about our next stop in our journey: Singapore.

Take care,

Jason