Bangkok

So basically I spent three days walking around the city of Bangkok. Not the most efficient means of transportation by far, but I got to see some fun, interesting and different sides of the city. I walked a cumulative 34 miles in those 3 days! This trip is certainly going to put me in shape, if nothing else. I loved my time here and could’ve definitely stayed longer, but here were some highlights!

So I thought I’d take it slow, easy myself into the city. I didn’t want to get overwhelmed all at once with city life, so for my first day I visited Lumphini Park, and the Chatachuk weekend market.

Lumphini park was a pretty standard city park, full of early morning runners and families of joggers getting their exercise in.

What I wasn’t expecting were the resident monitor lizards. I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw one the first time. I kept trying to convince myself it was some kind of turtle. But no, it was just a giant freaking lizard living in a park in the middle of the city.

One of them fell down from a tree and gave an older man quite the fright! And I don’t blame him, they were intimidating! But thankfully, wary of humans.

I moved on to the weekend market. Something I learned quickly about Bangkok, everything is huge. The markets, the malls, the airports. There is so much to see. And I’m the kind of person who likes to start at one end of a market and methodically work my way through the entire thing. About ten minutes in I had to abandon that plan and just minimize the number of times I got lost. It was great fun though. There was so much to see. They sold everything there! Not just souvenirs for tourists, but things like furniture and bathroom supplies and a food market, and they even had a whole pet market with all kinds of fish, rabbits and lizards for sale. It was overwhelming in a good way. I spent a solid two hours simply getting lost, winding up in some new corridor of the market and then trying to wind my way out of it. If anyone has the opportunity to visit Bangkok on a weekend, I highly recommend checking out Chatachuk Market.

I headed back to my hostel for a relaxing evening, watching the sunset, and enjoying the heck out the adorable hostel ‘security’ dog, Chatree.

And after a thoroughly exhausting first day I decided that wasn’t enough. For my second day I figured I’d try to see some of the sights you normally come to Bangkok for, the temples and the Grand Palace. But I got there and found out that everything cost money to get into. Not that I was surprised, but decided it wasn’t worth it and instead spent that money on lunch instead.

I had lunch/snack time (cuz let’s be real, 98% of my eating is snack time) at the CentralWorld mall. A giant mall that had a huge street-stall-food-court that took up an entire floor of the mall. I waited out the hottest part of the day with a blue pea & lime juice drink and coconut ice cream with black tea jelly. I was surprised at how good each of those combinations were.

While waiting for the day to cool off, I explored the mall. Which I think is always fun to do in a new place. You get to see so many kinds of people going about their day, doing their shopping, hanging with their friends. Its a different side of the city, and there is always something to be discovered.

For example, I found my all time favorite childhood gummy snack: gummy hamburgers!

And other random stuff like an asparagus plushy

Once evening had set in I headed off for Chinatown. Apparently Bangkok has the largest Chinatown in the world, so I had to see it for myself. Once the sun set, the streets lit up in typical chinatown style and it was very charming. Exactly the sort of thing to experience in Bangkok.

With one day left I wasn’t sure what to do, so I asked the host of my hostel for recommendations for my last day. He suggested an area of town called Bang Krachao, for a wilder side of Bangkok. And by wild I mean nature.

To get there I took the bus. Which maybe wouldn’t be exciting for most people, however, I love seeing the city from local transportation. And it gives me a certain sense of satisfaction to successfully navigate the public transportation of a new city.

After the bus I had to catch a tiny longtail boat across the river to get to Bang Krachao. I wish I could’ve gotten a picture, but I was doing my best to just stay in the boat. And then I arrived. It truly felt like I wasn’t even in Bangkok anymore. Just a few minutes away were huge skyscrapers and buses, and thousands of motorbikes going about their day, but I was in a world of winding streets through tropical forests, floating tree farms, and peaceful parks. There were few homes on these meandering roads and almost no people. Like most days, I wandered around for a few hours until I got hungry, before heading back to the city to fulfil my quest of consuming as much boba tea as I could in 3 days. Boba tea is so cheap here, compared to the states and I took full advantage of this fact. My eating on this trip is kinda out of control, but honestly it is so much fun trying all kinds of new flavors and foods.

And then my time in the city came to an end. I absolutely want to come back to Bangkok some day. With a full belly, sore feet and freshly self-laundered clothes, it is time to take a trip! Next up: Elephants!