Sawadee Kaa

Bangkok
Day One and Two

I think the thing I love most about Thailand (besides the food, a whole other post) is that everyone here smiles. When I first moved abroad, the very first time, fresh from Iowa and straight to Spain, I had to learn not to go around grinning at everyone. I quickly found out that a smile can easily be misinterpreted and had to spend some time retraining my face. But here! oh here, everyone smiles all the time. If you catch a stranger's eye, they smile at you. On the train yesterday a man smiled the whole way across town. A great big, toothy grin.

So, yes. The people here are friendly. And they have good reason to be. Bangkok is awesome.

We got here early Saturday morning and made our way to the apartment we rented for the week. The taxi dropped us off at a building, so we got out, paid the driver and walked into the lobby where no one knew who we were or what we were talking about. But a friendly bystander stepped in, took our printed directions and then led me by the arm to a rickshaw. She gave the driver directions, bargained down the price and then ushered us in. A few minutes later we arrived here, our 23rd story apartment with spectacular views.

After some showers and a quick nap we headed out on our mission: shopping. For the trip I packed underwear and socks. So with the clothes on my back, that meant I had underwear, socks, a pair of jeans and a tank top. Finding western clothes in Chennai is neither cheap nor easy and I had an inkling I'd have better luck in Bangkok. Of course, :) I was right. We took a taxi to Siam Center, three connected malls of various price levels. I made the smart choice and avoided the one with Marc Jacobs, Hermes, Chanel, Prada, etc...and went to the other mall full of cute little boutiques and much more reasonably priced clothing. Brad was a good sport and let me shop all day. We fortified ourselves at the food court where we were baffled by a thick menu full of clean, delicious food.

That was sort of the running theme of day one, It's so clean! It's so nice! It's so....clean!

At the end of the shopping excursion, we made our big purchase: a tiny yellow netbook that will keep us connected throughout the trip.

That night we made our way down the street, stopping at every food vendor (there's one about every 5 steps) sampling chicken satay, grilled bananas, dim sum, and noodle soup with dumplings, tofu and pork. Our last stop was for 6 dollar, hour-long massages.

You see why I like it here?

Yesterday we went to the weekend market where they sell absolutely everything. There we sampled even more street food. Afterward we both got manicures and pedicures. Then Brad spotted an A&W, so we each had a huge root beer, enough to make up for all that time without it.

Dinner was at a sit down restaurant by the river and consisted of tiny softshell crab that you eat whole. Just pop them in your mouth and crunch away. We also ordered spicy pork balls and beer. On the way home I noticed that the lights were on at the massage place, so we shelled out another 12 bucks for an hour long facial for me and a Thai massage for Brad.