November 19, 2007. Bangkok, Thailand.
(notes from my journal)
We’ve been sleeping and waking up quite early here, in Bangkok. Many people would say we’re crazy to do so since we’re on vacation and we should relax, take it easy and sleep in. We prefer it this way, however. Whenever we wake up late (vacation or not) we feel horrible and end up having an irritable day. Waking up early makes us feel we have so much time in the day and get much more done. Not to mention that our mood is upbeat throughout the day! Besides, someone truly said: Early to bed and early to rise makes one healthy wealthy and wise. Why take a risk!
I was up by 4:30 am and tried to be as quiet as possible so Heena would get some sleep, but she was up by 5:30 am as well. We enjoyed our favorite pastime in Bangkok: gazing at the river. At 6:30 am we went down for a swim in the pool. It was really good to stretch the body and the swim was refreshing.
On our way back, we saw a sign saying “Private Event: Indian Vegetarian Breakfast” near the pool (where the Italian restaurant is). Could we resist? Nope. We just walked in and figured that we’ll ask them if we can have some Indian breakfast since we were truly tired of the regular egg, noodles and cereal. Indian food in America is pseudo-Indian. I asked the guy who seemed like the manager there if we could dine, even though we were just regular hotel guests and not part of any event. He said please go ahead. I really have a feeling he did not quite understand and just assumed that we were a part of the private Indian event since we looked Indian. We had a really delicious Indian breakfast. The chef who cooked it was flown in from India, so it was the closest we were getting to real Indian food. We got talking with an elderly gentleman there and it turns out we were gate-crashing a wedding! Oh well, we were embarrassed, and to top it he was the bride’s uncle! He immediately put us to ease by telling us that we reminded him of his younger days when he would bet with his friends if he could successfully gate-crash weddings and private events.
After breakfast, we took the Chao Phraya river boat to Chinatown. I tried to map our way as suggested in the Lonely Planet, but as expected we got lost. Not really a problem since Heena was having the time of her life trying to convince me to let her buy junk (her choice of description, not mine. She actually used the word “bhangaar” – which translated from Bombay-Hindi means junk) . She did eventually buy a cloth handbag that was nice (not junk). We also got ourselves some fresh orange juice to refuel. The only reason I went there was for the hustle and bustle, which was immense.
By 1 pm we were done with Chinatown and our stomachs were rumbling. We fixed that by taking a tuk-tuk to Khaosan road and headed to May Kaidee – the vegetarian Thai restaurant that we could not find on our first day here. It’s in a sub-soi and we found it easily by asking around. The food was good and the Tom Yam soup hit the right spot. We met and chatted with a couple from Oakland, CA. It’s a small world.
After lunch, we took a tuk-tuk to Siam Discovery center hoping to catch a movie and sit/sleep in the Gold box (you can recline or lie down in your seat). There are theaters of this kind in Bombay and my mom and friends’ rave about it. This was the closest I was going to get to that experience, at least until I decide to visit India. Unfortunately, they did not have a show for another three hours. We just walked around the mall and found a music store, where we bought some traditional Thai music CD’s, and then headed back to the hotel.
We spent some time at the towers lounge but got bored soon enough. When I asked one of the hotel employees what’s on the other side of the river, apart from a Hilton, he said that there was a local market (not touristy at all). Awesome! We took the boat across the river and walked about in the market. The vendors were not pushy at all and it was very relaxed. Suddenly, out of nowhere it started to rain really hard. We took shelter in the many food stalls and asked the lady if she can make vegetarian, almost expecting she would not understand us, but to our surprise she knew exactly how we liked our food. Before cooking our food, she even cleaned the vessel in which they cooked our food. We had one of our favorite meals so far, consisting of thai style fried rice and 2 noodle dishes.
It was almost 9:30 PM, the rain had subsided and we had a flight to catch early next morning, so we headed back to the hotel, packed up and fell asleep by 10:30 PM.
Tomorrow, we head to the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai!
This post is a part of the Thailand, Laos and Cambodia 2007 itinerary
