Bangkok, Day 1

Wow….just…just wow. Where to begin. I think Thailand takes the cake so far for the coolest place I’ve ever been. Spending 37 hours getting here wasn’t the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever had to do, but now that we’re here it has definitely made up for it already. This is about all I ended up seeing of Hong Kong because I didnt' realize we could LEAVE THE AIRPORT so I spent 8 hours wandering. Things were super expensive so I didn't bother buying anything but dinner. Fast food in Hong Kong consisted of a bowl of noodles and beef with dumplings on the side. And chopsticks. No fork. And a sprite, which actually tasted a lot better than lame Canadian sprite. When she arrived on her flight from Vancouver after I'd been at the airport 5 hours, Janeen was also able to find Beijing Roast Duck Pizza for dinner. It was....interesting. This was about all I was able to see of Hong Kong (NOTE: Click the pictures to see them full sized), there were high rises and mountains surrounding the airport, but you could hardly see them. On our descent into the airport, I wondered why the clouds we were going through were thick and greenish grey instead of fluffy and white until I realized it was actually the smog. It wasn't foggy there, the smog just meant you could barely see anything.

We arrived around 1 last night, and were picked up at the airport and taken to the hotel. When I say we, I refer to myself, Greg, Sam (who are all going to Chiang Mai to work with NEED) and Janeen who is also from my program at UofT but working in Mai Sariang (next province over) on a different project. We had today to sort of get our bearings and rest off the jet lag in Bangkok and are expected to be at our in country training session tomorrow morning at 10. Janeen, Greg and Sam have all been to Thailand before in different capacities which ended up being a good thing because they knew where to find all the cool things to see on a day in the city. We started off by going to the...(Sathiyap?) weekend market which was really really cool. It’s this MASSIVE outdoor marketplace that springs up every weekend. You could get anything from paintings of the Buddha to pet squirrels to cheap tshirts to food to dress shorts. After getting lost in there for a while we took a taxi to another street (the name of which I’ve forgotten…I’m going to have to work harder to remember these things) which is supposedly one of the central tourist areas in Bangkok. As you can see in the picture it too was lined with tuk-tuks, taxis, motor scooters, shops, restaurants and stalls selling everything and anything. (The taxis are fluorescent pink here instead of yellow...go figure)
After stopping there for a bite of lunch and a few minutes at a net café we wandered over to the Royal Palace, but unfortunately there had been a death in the royal family recently so it was closed to the public. The rest of the day was spent wandering around Bangkok and we ended up at a nice little restaurant in a quiet corner of town for dinner before taking the taxi back to the hotel.

Things here are super super super cheap, and the food (from what I’ve had thus far) is amazing. I tried the pad thai for dinner (it came out to about 1.10 canadian) and it was really tasty. Also, there are food and clothing stalls all over the place, so I’m definitely not going to starve to death. Cooking at home is one of those things I’ve realized isn’t a universal norm. Many of the apartments here don’t come with refrigerators or stoves either.

Thailand is sometimes called the land of a thousand smiles. I’d say that was about accurate. Everybody smiles at you, and you smile back. It’s great. A cheerful ‘sawatdee krab’ (hello) or a ‘sabai dee mai krab’ (how are you?) is easy to come by. Anyway, it’s starting to get late (it’s almost midnight here even though everyone back home is likely about to sit down to lunch). Looking forward to training tomorrow and then taking the overnight train with Sam and Greg to Chiang Mai. Haven’t seen any massive bugs yet, but I hear they’re out there. Wait, I lied, there were two pretty big cockroaches on the street this morning.

Thus far, I think I’m going to like it here in Thailand.