I've been doing a lot of traveling in the past few weeks and it's kept me from keeping my blog up. But all stories will be told, one by one. So we'll start with this, the story of a weekend in Bangkok:
In Asia, a lot of companies circumvent a lot of visa renewal paperwork by having employees leave the country for at least one night so the social pass can start while the professional visa is processing. As my initial work visa expired on August 19th, I had to leave the country that day. The easy option was to take a cheap bus ride to Singapore; however, I’ve been there before. Therefore, I wanted to see something different, hence a trip to Thailand. So once we convinced the big boss man to pay for part of the plane ticket, we decided to take a weekend trip to Bangkok. We arrive and head to a known ‘back packer’ area called Khaosan Road. I like such areas because there is good but cheap accommodations, locals anxious to present local food to foreigners (such as pad thai and cow pai), and street vendors selling various kinds of hand made goods. There are street vendors everywhere, but they displayed a new product that I’ve never seen hustled on the street before – tailor made suits. Instead of displaying all products on their cart, they were trying to usher you into their shop full of fabrics so they could start taking your measurements. It’s a unique experience, much different from the fake clothes and illegal DVDs you can get anywhere.
The tuk tuk – a motorized cart named for the sound the older engines used to make when it ran - is a unique trait of Bangkok. You can name several different locations you would like to see and it will provide you transportation for the entire period to all the locations you outlined. Pricing depends on whether you’ve gotten intel from locals about what is reasonable and what is not. We quickly found that Bangkok is full of con men and they will take you for as much money as you agree to pay them. Also, some of them are working for suit makers or jewellery stores and plot all along to take you there and convince you to spend money there. Most likely, the stores are paying them some kind of commission. It’s so elaborate in some places that locals in public places are participating to send people to these stores. We ended up in a suit shop this way, but we didn’t buy anything. Despite that, I saw several Buddhist temples, and landmarks this way. After coming out of one temple, the tuk tuk had ditched us, probably for the prospect of a higher pay day. But he had not received any money yet, so it was not such a big deal. The next day, using cabs instead, I saw more monuments to Kings and Generals, a precious art exhibit, the National Elephant Museum (Thailand markets itself as the Kingdom of Elephants), a historically significant mansion and more.
As for nightlife, it was a very refreshing weekend of interesting experiences. We met Americans and Germans there who convinced me to try locusts while out on the town; actually tastes like popcorn really. We experienced the Thai live cover band experience also. Even further, I met up with a friend from middle school who I hadn’t seen in about 10 years for drinks. Random sidenote: It’s magical that through the gift of Facebook, people whose paths have gone so different places can reconnect seamlessly. I won’t go into detail, but after catching up, we experienced some of the legendary Bangkok night entertainment. Although it was entertaining, it was disappointing in some ways. It’s still an experience I’d recommend though. I’d like to go again at some point when I have more time. The only downside was, due to being congested when I got on the plane, the pressure as the elevation changes in the plane caused the phloem to clog up my ear. I mean, my ears always pop on a plane but usually chewing gum or swallowing hard would relieve the pressure; this time was different for some reason, the ears were agonizingly painful. The ears were blocked like this much of the time there and started up again during the trip back unfortunately. But I got it largely taken care of before my next trip. See various pictures below:
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