The Forang Tourista

I love Bangkok, really, I do, but I have the same problem with Bangkok that I have with New York when I am home... it is an amazing international city with sooo much to do and sooo many things to see and I waste my time going in just to party and see friends. I decided that this weekend in Bangkok was going to be different. Yes, it was Emily's birthday and we planned to go to RCA and go wild BUT I wanted to make this weekend much more about seeing the sights in Bangkok and so that is exactly what I did.

Friday night I took the bus in after school, headed to the Lud D (home away from home.. i actually love that place), then headed to the Landmark Hotel to get Barr Emily and Charlotte to go out to dinner! We went to Witches and got Margaritas and pizza! Yummyyy. Afterwards we went to this random bar with cheaper drinks and got a few beers to start off the night. A few more friends joined so we had a good group by that point and decided to head to Bangkok Beat! Best decision of the night! SOOOO much fun. The had these 2 live singers that were actually really good, sang top 40 stuff, and I would not be disappointed if the guy became my new Thai boyfriend. We partied it up and some other OEGers and had a fantastic little time getting back to Lud D at 4am. I tried not to booze too hard so that I could function in the morning and make it to all of my Bangkok tourist adventures! Success.

7am. too early. back to sleep. 9am. much better. Saturday morning Cortes and I went to Chatuchak Market off the to Mo Chit BTS stop to check out the merchandise. I am fairly sure that it is the largest outdoor market in Bangkok and maybe in Thailand. It is enormous. There is everything from funky little nic nacs to asian inspired furniture to taxidermy, jewelry, and textiles. Insane but so cool. The animal section was really sad. They had bunnies, puppies, kittens, and like random animals like squirrels, eagles, reptiles... you are not allowed to touch the animals or take any photos. The bunnies had on little dresses and the squirrels were on leashes, which was cute, but still upsetting. I think the part that bothered me most though was that they had sooo many animals in like one little cage and NO WATER!!! I don't understand. So we didn't stay in that section for long.

The clothes were pretty cool, decorations looked IKEA-esc but still interesting. I bought a really cool watch that is neon colored and AWESOME. One of my kids was wearing one this past week in class and I was really jealous of it so I was super psyched to find it at the market. We stayed there for a couple of hours but it was very hot under the tin roofs by noon so we got out and I met Katie LA and Lisa at Sala Daeng BTS for a afternoon trip to Chinatown.

Yes, like any great city, Bangkok too has a Chinatown. We arrived on the main road and all of a sudden the whole atmosphere changed; Bangkok went from a modern concrete bustling city to wide streets with red chinese lanterns, scattered bizarro market foods, and very pushy people! As I learned a few years back when I went to China, the Chinese have no reservations about bumping into you at full speed without acknowledging that anything happened. Haha. So we got a lot of 'friendly' bumps as we meandered through the markets and streets of Chinatown. I found a ring that I really liked but when I tried to ask the woman in the shop how much it was in Thai, 'Tow arai ka?', she had no idea what I was talking about. Great. I'm in Thailand with a woman that can't speak Thai or English. The whole notion just really flustered me as a racked my brain for any memory of Mandarin. Useless. I put the ring down and decided to stick with taking pictures.

Exhausted and sweaty (per usual in this sweatbox of a country) we stopped off at a restaurant to grab some dumplings and tea before heading back to the city center of Bangkok. By this time it was 3pm and I wanted to do a little more touring before going back and getting ready for the night but after consulting the others I just decided to go hang out with Barr and Emily at the Landmark hotel where they were staying. That was great to just relax for an hour or so before I made my way back to the Lud D to get ready for Emily's birthday dinner and RCA!

After getting ready to go out Katie LA Joel and I went to the Byoke hotel off of Phaya Thai BTS. It is the tallest building in Bangkok (84 floors) and has a rotating roof on top (and a bar!). We made our way there, slowly, unfortunately, grrr Bangkok traffic! but eventually made it on the late side of sunset and took some pictures before going in to get a drink. It was beautiful and a great chance to see the layout of the city. Bangkok is sooo big, insane. We had to pay 250 bhat each to go up the elevator but it was totally worth it especially since there was a drink included. Next time, we leave at 5 instead of 5:30 to make sure we get the full sunset experience :)

For dinner Saturday night Emily decided that she wanted to celebrate her roots as a Korean so we had Korean barbecue! Very yummy, even though at 640 bhat a head (food and 3 saki bombs later) it was my most expensive meal in Thailand as of yet. Afterwards we headed to our favorite go-wild-have-fun-crazy-time place, RCA. I was MUCH less inebriated than the last time we were there so I felt really good and we finally called it a night at about 3:30. Happy Birthday Emily!!

Before the weekend began I had had great ambitions to go to Chatuchak as well as the floating market (about 2 hrs outside of Bangkok). Definitely made it to Chatuchak, definitely not to floating and that was just fine. I slept in and headed to Lumpini park off of the Sala Daeng BTS for a walk with Katie. We bought some very colorful fish food that looked like puff-shaped fruit loops and rented a duck paddleboat to take on the lake and the fish!

Everything was going just fine until we saw a monitor lizard on the side of the lake. No big deal. We are far enough away. Oh wait, hold on, there is another one coming out of the drain... okay, 2 monitor lizards, cool! We got closer for some pictures then Katie decided we were too close and started to scream. So they get scared and get in the lake. Fannntastic. Now they are probably swimming underneath the paddleboat ready to attack at any minute. Or so it seemed to a couple of clueless Americans screaming about 4-foot lizards. We got over the first 2 lizards, were heading back to the paddle boat dock and passing back underneath the bridge we had gone through when WTF ABOUT 50 GIANT MONITOR LIZARDS UNDER THE BRIDGE!!!! Panic cannot even describe how I felt. I didn't even make a sound I was so scared. I just turned and we peddled as fast as we possibly could under the bridge and back to the dock. Phew, one more day not being lizard lunch! Success.