Day Two - Bangkok

Hello from day two.
I'm giving up on posting for day one because it was all a blur of Tuk-tuk scamming, jet lag and the Kings sisters funeral. The funeral part was actually really interesting - everyone was wearing black and the streets and trees were all covered in black and white silk and flowers and there was a huge ceremony with flowers and the public paying their respects. A bit of an odd way to be first introduced to the city but it gave a good idea of how much the Thai love their royal family.

Anyway, Bangkok is a city full of smells - sometimes really good from food on the street and sometimes really awful from other things on the street . . . and sometimes the food too. It's also a city entirely full of stray animals which seems strange to me for a city so large. Just an interesting observation that I had not really thought about before arriving here.

All is going well for the most part. We went to this gigantic market today and walked around most of the morning. I bought some funky tie/Thai pants that however neither Kyle nor I can quite figure out how they work exactly. We also discovered that in the middle of the Venn diagram of Portland, Oregon and Bangkok, Thailand is hipsters. Much hipster wear was being hocked at this market but there was also furniture, used clothes, new clothes, food, art, small dogs and all sorts of plastic junk as you might imagine.

Anyway, after the market it was back to the hostel for some relax time, journal-ing and reading. It's pretty darn hot so it's hard to stay out all day without some sitting time. Then we went to "Little Arabia" which is the Arabic/middle eastern part of town that is just near where we are staying and sat and played cards and smoked hookah before a dinner of Indian food. It was much much better than our lunch at the market which was not too tasty. Food is hard to judge so we're still kind of feeling our way around in that department too. Now post dinner jet lag is setting in again so it's back at the hostel. We're both feeling tired and pretty ready to get out of Bangkok. It's just a bit much here in the city - too much dirtiness, too many tourist scams to watch out for, too much traffic etc. I guess we knew that and we've gotten our fill of the sights here. We're going to take a morning bus to this island, Koh Samet, for some relaxing. It's not quite as beautiful and touristy as the southern Thai islands will be but it will be nice to get away from the city and into to beach climate and atmosphere. It will also be wonderful to do some swimming - it's so hot and sticky here!!