Bangkok ending and favorites

T&C’s Bangkok, Thailand, Favs and update…

We enjoyed Bangkok immensely. If you’ve seen the movie “The Beach” with Leo Dicaprio, I’d say the first part of the movie captured Bangkok pretty well. Lots of people, crowded, kind of dirty but great “public places”, chaotic, bustling with absolutely everything here you could ever want, and I mean everything. If you want to shop till you drop or party your face off and meet people from all over the world, Bangkok is the place. Shop shop shop, eat eat eat, party party party, temple temple temple = Bangkok in a nutshell (4 days gets it done and we’d highly recommend to anyone). We stayed 4 days ourselves and the total cost was around $350, including buying a new phone, some silk bed sleeping liners, all food (bfast, lunch and dinner), lodging, activities, tuk tuk/cabs, several massages and many many beers/drinks.

A big misconception we had was the safety factor. It was very easy in Bangkok, everything you need is available right at your fingertips…almost too convenient. It was much easier getting around Bangkok than LA. Nobody was “pushy” and outside of just being aware of yourself and wallet, it’s not unsafe in any way at all. No different than just watching out for yourself as though you were walking Michigan Ave. in Chicago. I’d easily take my mom here and feel at ease.

Todd’s tops

• 1 hour warm oil massage - $6 (by far, best massage ever had)
• 1 hour foot and leg massage on the street (while drinking beer) $5
• Spicy Papaya Salad and sticky rice to dip (nose runny goodness)
• Public Park not too far from Grand Palace that we ran across while on morning runs (beautiful,         people doing thai chi, free weights, exercise areas, ponds, lush trees, great track running)
• Reclining Gold Buddha Temple (3 story tall, 100 yards long, golden Buddha- astonishing)-pics coming
• Bonus- Fake Ray Ban Sunglasses- $5
• Never ending supply of fresh cut cold fruit servings- $.30 cents

Not so favorites: The distinct smell of urine on some of the public walkways (9,000,000 people and yes, some of them are homeless), cold showers, and if you can’t stand crowds and intense traffic- this would be rough to overcome here.

Christina’s tops

• Tom Yum Kung Soup (aka-Spicy Shrimp Soup)—damn hot
• Sharing time with Ben and Denaree, our new couchsurfing friends.
• Funky pants purchase from street vendor- $8 and super comfortable
• Reclining Gold Buddha also
• Mother Earth- Wat/Temple (wringing water from her hair, fountain)
• Fried rice and vegetables for breakfast (3 mornings), add some thai chili soy sauce and bammmmmm----goood.