The unusual becomes routine; Bangkok

After two full days of travel I landed in Bangkok the Venice of the east. I dropped my bags off in the bunked room at NapPark hostel and immediately started to walk around the tourist infested Khao San road. The heat wasn't as much of a shock as the symcrinized chaos of traffic that ebbs and flows with pedestrians, tuk tuks, and taxis all streaming like blood cells to their next point of rest.  That rest may even consist of tuk tuk drivers stopping mid ride to use a public toilet. But that's beside the point. I then ran into a friend from home and we swam in a roof top pool that was vibrating in melodic prayer from the wat next door. I had arrived, and the adventure was starting to become real. 

After my mock swimming pool shower, I met up with another friend from Alaska and was given a street food tour, and I was getting into the grove of living the travelers life. After a delicious Pad Thai dinner we headed to a local jazz club. I lasted about 10 minutes and could have fallen asleep on the street contently, but decided a bed was cleaner. I woke up at the crack of dawn and awaited going to the JJ market one of the worlds larger market at 27 acres. We saw anything and everything from pashminas to baby squirrels on a leash for sale. My favorite of course were the baby Pekingese. I the met up with some Germans who were fresh off the boat for dinner. We talked about the Thai protest and the demands for less democracy. 

The next day was the big move out of the comfort of white backpackers and into concrete jungle, and thank god for that. My taxi driver was from Laos so long story short communication was a bit mmm nonexistent and I ended up driving in a circle twice. After settling in at Boxpacker I hopped on the BMT and meet up with some friends in Nana. All of us are sociologist and we were bursting at the seams to see the notorious lady boys of Thailand. After exhausting the gender vs sexuality subject, peeing next to a man...girl... nope lady boy, and watching too many over 50 men hitting on teenagers we decided we were done. But not before some much needed soul cleansing, in the form of dance. We went to LEVELS club where we had to rent shoes because flip flops were inappropriate. The Thais have some fairly strange rules about what they consider to be the dirties part of their body. For example, you should never hold the door with your foot, and if you step on money you will offend someone because you will be stepping on the kings face. 

The next morning we headed to the snake farm which was closed but we snuck in and saw some boas anyways. We then decided to take a river boat through the eastern part of Bangkok. Monitor lizards soak up the sun along the river entrances awaiting and unlucky catfish to emerge from the brown trash filled water. The children who also sat along the rivers edges waved with gap toothed grins from there teak wood houses. We ended our tour around the grande palace which was the home of the kings of Siam.
The next day I met up with Lucy a Slovenian woman who was going to be in Kuan Mia Bong with me. We toured around the markets eating dragon fruit and jasmine bubble tea. Later, we at cucumber salad and headed to the Jim Thomson house. A beautiful teak wood house that has been restores from the early 1920's. A hot day lead to a much awaited goodbye to Bangkok and Lucy the Slovenian girl and I headed out to Hat Yai to start our journey south.