Thailand: Bangkok

At the SLC airport ready to go!

On May 2, Mike and I left for an amazing trip to Thailand for 3 weeks! It seems like a dream now. Things have been a whirl wind since we got home and I feel like I am just now unpacking some of my stuff. I want to be able to blog about the trip, but it will definitely be in increments!

First off: Bangkok!I am glad that we went to Bangkok first, because otherwise I think I would have liked it less than I did. To get to Thailand we had to take 3 flights. SLC-> LA->Taipei (12 hr flight) -> Bangkok (4 hr flight). After all the travel we crashed as soon as we arrived.

First impressionsStepping off the plane everything was so humid and muggy! We decided to travel in the middle of their summer. The one benefit to this was we didn't have to fight other tourist for any bookings etc.
 
Bangkok smells. Bangkok is dirty. I would think that those monsoon rains they have every year would get off some of the grime. The canals smelled like poo- I can't imagine being someone living next that!

Bangkok has so much life to it. The streets are lined with vendors. I couldn't believe the type of meat and food they would have sitting out in the hot sun all day- and people would buy it! Not me! I became quite picky after our first "fine dining" $1 meal ended with rats running past where I had seen meat out.



I loved that Mike spoke Thai. I love that people would look at me wanting me to speak it too. Nope. 




Dogs. There were mangy looking dogs everywhere. They lay out all over the place. They must learn early on not to bug people because I never heard one bark. 



Driving. They are all crazy drivers! We used taxis and Tuk Tuks all the time and I never had a seat belt. Yet, I felt safe because they are driving so crazy they have to pay attention to what they are doing (right?)


The white people. Well, I should say the white people in comparison to the Thais. Thai people are very modest and the typical white Thai tourist is not. It is a backpacker destination and so most of the people we saw in the places we ate and visited were the typical backpacker type. The guys had dreads, went shirtless. The girls wore skimpy frumpy outfits, no make up, sandals. The Thai women even wore their shirts over their swimsuits when snorkeling. The exception were the cute Thai girls with old white men. :P

The bathrooms. All of the places we stayed except for one, the bathrooms were like big wet rooms. The showers had hoses and there wasn't a shower door or curtain. You could shower yourself on the toilet if you wanted to. There was just a big drain in the middle of the floor for the water. Also you can't flush toilet paper!? What?! The dirtiest places were usually the ones you had to pay a couple Baht to use at the train station etc. They was a bucket next to the squatter with a plastic ladle to clean yourself off with. I did see the coolest toilet in Bangkok though. At a shopping center- I was literally laughing out loud when I tried to figure out why I would need 10 buttons to use the bathroom. I mean, it was like a car wash for your bum- dryer and all!