One Night in Bangkok

We arrived at Bangkok airport at 1630 local time, anxious to move our legs. Once through border security, we found our guide and took our first steps into the humid heat that would be our home for the next two weeks (here's us, waiting for our transport)

On the ride to our hotel, I looked through my lonely planet, pointing out interesting factoids and local prices. The driver has three little lucky cats on his dashboard. We watch as we spend some time driving in the gutter, around and nearly through some motorcyclists. We can tell as soon as we get to Chinatown, the location of our hotel; there are billboards everywhere advertising shops and profucts, people on foot and on motorcycles crowd the street, and buy food from street vendors. A line from my book that stands out is as follows: "It doesn't matter what time you're hungry or what you're craving... this city will feed you". I can see people eating at vendors all along the street as we step into our hotel lobby. This is going to be great.

After a short break to dump our bags, we meet up with our tour group, amd walk through aromatic streets, full of street food and interesting smells that represent sides of thai food I've never seen, despite eating thai regularly. I'm so excited for this trip. We stop at the underground for our train ride to dinner. We pay cash for small nfc tokens that act as train tickets here (see below).

Our tour guide likes my hair. It makes me findable in a crowd. We step out of the station and nearly straight into our restaurant for the evening, i recognise very few items on the menu. This is amazing.

I order the "Nam Tok" with chicken, which is a grilled meat salad with rice. I order it "Thai spicy" as our tour guide reccomends. This is a bold choice. The parents and i all split one massive thai beer. It's pretty good. I have discovered, unsurprisingly, that "Thai spicy" is pretty hot! It's also very tasty. I ordered a crispy chicken with orange sauce to share, as well as my spicy dish. Both are amazing.

I steal a lot of Mum's rice to counteract the chilli. It doesn't help.

We walk back from the restaurants, in and around crowds, and walking confidently to avoid getting hit by cars and motorcycles. What a great first day in this city.

I get out some pocket money, and break the 1000 baht note at the 7/11 on a type of candy i haven't seen before 

It is now 9pm Bangkok time and we're all exhausted, it's been a good day, with hope for many more. For today though, I bid you so long and good night.