Bangkok

The plane lands, we shuffle out. inhale, and there it is again. A new smell. The smell of thailand. Customs and immigration was super fast because I'm american, so you basically just smile at the wee camera and they say have fun for 30days! (Which by the way freaked me out since my flight home is in more than 30 days, but apparently if you leave the country, for even just an hour, and come back in, you get a new 30 visa. I can't imagine you could do this forever, but still!). I took 3 different trains, all easy to use and cheap (the first one, the mrt, uses little plastic tokens as tickets, that scan at the machine and get sucked back up at your destination) and then made it to my stop, surusak. The whole way I was drawn to the little tvs on board showing commercial after commercial, selling random crap in thai, mostly shown off by beautiful girls. I tried to follow the directions I read online, but immediately realised I was lost. I asked people for help and no one spoke english. I knew I was in the right area, just not where the hostel was. After mild (like 5 minutes worth of) panicked searching, the text of saphai pae was clear. I walked into the beautiful airconditioned lobby, checked in, and put my stuff upstairs. I came down to use the free internet and figure out my plan for the next month, and met a wonderful trio of similarly lone travellers. Otavio, vesselina, and nick. A thirty year old italian, 29 year old canadian, and 19 year old australian. After brief chats we were off to a little alleyway food market for dinner. It was great. You sit at a wee table, order from the lady who's cooking right next to you at her stand, and minutes later you have your plate, all for 50-100 baht (30 baht is one usd). We also got beers, chang being the desired, and ended up splitting 6 dishes of ricey/vegetabley/chickeny deliciousness. Figured it would only be appropriate to get pad thai as my first thai meal, and fuck yeah was that correct. Best pad thai ever. Once full we walked to 7/11 to get more beers (one big beer was 40 baht. Crazy!). Vess also got some sort of tiny yogurt culture drink that I tried. It was awesome. Though I didn't invest in any chips, the chip selection had everything from sushi flavoured to shrip flavoured lays.
When we got back to the hostel we met up with a whole other crew of people, drinking on the outside terrace. The plan of the evening was quickly determined to be one of going to see a pingpong show. If you don't know what that is, take caution in looking it up. We made our way out there and got pretty ripped off, paying 600 baht, but since we were all mildly terrified of getting robbed inside, we had no complaints. The show basically went for 30 minutes and then looped. It was... something. Feel free to ask me about it, for more info, but there were pompoms, fluorescent strings, darts, candles, and bottles. Be creative. It was especially funny to hear the opinion of our german gynecologist team member.

After the show the now 7 of us got into two tuktuks and essentially raced, in the terrifyingly dangerous ride that is in tuktuks to a club, because the red like district area we were in was skeeving us out far too much. After standing outside a mcdonalds, getting eaten for ages, we finally went towards it. The recurring theme of the evening up through to that pont was with otavio buying street food from almost every vender we passed, filling himself with sausage bits and whatnot.  Damian, the awesome dude that seemed to get us where we needed to go without fail (born in chicago, lives in ny, been travelling for more than a year so I guess it all makes sense) felt that bathroom urge I've grown to be so accustomed to since coming to asia, so I waited with him in a restaurant for a while before going in. The club was pretty expensive, and not too filled, but we all got our dance on, dancing on a massice stage in the center. Eventually we trekked back home.

Come morning I struggled to wake up, lost in the comforts of the great bedding, with no squeaking of a topbunk, and a real duvet for once. When I did make moves, I had been planning on going to pattaya as a day trip, but realised it was close to 3 hours each way. I decided to waste some time on the computer, booking more trips and actually looking at a map for the first time to actually map out where the hell it was reasonable to try to go in the month I have left. I met up with the german gynecologist again and followed him out to chinatown for some wanders. To get there we took the sky train and then a ferry, taking us through the water and to a chinatown pier. Right after getting off the boat I was 3 inches from getting hit by a massive backing up bus. Terrifying.

It was really crazy there, packed with people, motorbikes, and tons of crap on sale. We picked at street food and fruit while wandering, and when he tried to buy a single pen, found out you had to but the entire pack. After getting lost a bit (he was freaking out, cherishing the warmth of his lonely planet book, we went to a few temples.

They were gorgeous to walk around in, and we went to one with a massive golden buddha. You had to pay to get in, and I had to pay to borrow a cloth to cover my bare shoulders. Barefoot inside we went and took pictures with monks. I had to also borrow the pair of pants in his backpack since my shorts were too short. It was crazy to see and very interesting to watch people praying.

Post temples, we were off to the pier again to catch a longboat tour. By this time I had eaten some sort of squid on a stick, a mango, and something else that I couldn't identify. I thought it was chicken when I bought it, but it was way too not chicken like, being very cartilage like, and reminding me of ears. Oh well.

The boat tour was pretty cool, and went through a crazy canal filled with jumping fish and interesting housing structures. It was nice to see that side of bangkok. Kids were constantly waving from their backyards. Mid journey we were stopped by a floating market boat dude trying to sell us souvenirs, food and drink. It never ends. After the ride we took the subway the wrong direction without realising and wandered around the wrong town for an hour, but all good. When we finally got back I went up to slip a note under damiens door to beg him to come out with us at night, and ended up meeting two friends, traveling around as well. Alex, a finnish chick, and frederick, a dutch dude, both 21. With mild convincing they decided to join us on our next mission, to see muay thai. I took a quick shower, finally using some shampoo (there was a wee bit left in a bottle someone left there. Yay!) And we were off. During the train ride I asked a guy for directions, and after, again, minimum chat, he decided to join us on our journey. 19 year old german robert. We got to the boxing stadium, paid for the cheapest seats (standing, but still pretty expensive) and went in. The battle was crazy to watch, with some fighters looking 14 years old, and one mental knock out. Its a bloodsport.

We then went back and had beers at the hostel, though frederick was feeling iffy and went to bed. Somehow my note had worked and damien found us outside. We dwindled down to four, alex, robert, damien and me, and after a few beers (I also at this point realised why I kept getting so quickly drunk from chang. It's 6.4%, and tastes amazing) cabbed to kho sam road for some clubbing. We played drinking games at an outdoor bar, and then picked a club. On the way I noticed stands selling all different kinds of cooked bugs. You had to pay to take a picture, and I quickly convinced damien that if he bought me one I'd eat it. Though the massive scorpian was way too expensive, we went with a 50 baht cockroach. It was surprisingly meaty, and pretty good. Alex had a bite too (good bitch.) The club we went to was packed and we were dancing on an epic platformed bit. Dudes were kind of skeevy, and we all nursed tequila sunrise after tequila sunrise. It was prettty epic but closed at 3. We got pancake/crepe things and sat in subway for a while, as I was fighting to stay awake. When we got back I passed out hard, from another epic evening out.

In the morning I was woken up by a chick who works there (not the ladyboy. Okay, side note. Thailand is filled with ladyboys (dudes that go on as women) and they're usually pretty gorgeous. There's one that works at the hostel and was a real character to someone the night before, before I realised her deal, and then noticed her hands and voice. They're all over and we made an effort that night to try to find as many as we could) because robert stayed over in the bunk above me since he wasn't from our hostel, and I knew my room was pretty empty. He got locked out of the room (silly, I gave him the key) and was trying to get helped downstairs. I rescued his bags and went back to bed. Just before noon checkout I finally mustered up the strength to get up, and I went downstairs for brekky with frederick and alex. Omlettes (as well as pancakes) seem to be made differently in every country. Here they are fried in a weird, unhealthy tasting way. I then reminisced with damien about the pleasures of american foods, skyped for an hour, and booked various flights and a diving course. Woo! All coming together.

Eventually I finally made my lazy way to MBK, the massive shopping center of bangkok. It was a city. It was ridiculous. All I wanted to buy was a headstrap for my go pro, and after about 60 camera stores and stands (I jest you not, they have a whole area designated just to camera shops (and another to mobile phones which was fucking terrifying and I could barely navigate)) I still couldn't find one. To wash away my grief I went back to a sushi place that struck my eye earlier, fully packed and with a line of people. It was all you can eat (in an hour fifteen) with a pot of soup to cook things in, a conveyor belt of things to be cooked, a sushi section, assorted other asian food section, and drinks/ice cream area. Alone, I didn't have to wait very long and I sat at the bar with no idea of what to do or what the soup was for. Afte collecting a heaping plateful of crazy delicious and varied sushi I came back, now with a girl next to me, who showed me what the point of everything was, and how you cook things in the soup. She's from just outside bangkok and was super sweet, albeit there was a wee language barrier. She said she used to come to this place 5 times a week, and it's crazy addicting. For $10, I don't blame her. I filled up fast, cooking shrimp, clams, and crab (there were a lot of meats I couldn't identify and thus avoided) and a hilarious amount of sushi. My body said no more so I only had a few spoonfuls of icecream. I clocked in at 1 hour and was off, trying not to puke, back in the city of a mall. I found a great fanny pack to better secure my stuff, and contemplated buying mesh man-thongs to send as christmas gifts back to new zealand (don't worry, I didn't.) One annoying thing was that it was 2 baht to use the bathroom. Lame.

When I got back to the hostel I said some goodbyes, grabbed my shit, and was off looking for this bus station to get me to chiang mai. It was easy to get to (even though the metered taxi driver definitely drove out of the way a bit from the skytrain stop to the nearbyish transport center. Dicks) and when I got there the VIP bus that I wanted to take was about to leave. Perfect! I got the last seat on the massive double decker 24 seater for only $20, for a 9 hour night ride to chiang mai. The difference in price between a shitty regular bus, and this bus with massive reclining seats, blankets, pillows, a bathroom, a tv, and free snacks is about $5, so there was no reason not to splurge. we got a little sandwich which sorta looks like uncrustables, with the crust cut off, filled with tuna, a water bottle, and a soy milk juicebox. The tv played horrible thai game shows and then a movie.. All in thai, so it's merely background noise.