(day 3) bangkok

Started the morning off bright and early cuz we're motivated travelers (jet lag). Planned to go check out a temple before all the tourists got there, but wanted to grab a tiny breakfast to settle our stomachs. Got this little bread at 7-11, it's just wonderful soft delicious asian bread with butter spread in between! They heat it for you if you want.

We wanted to go see Wat Pho, about a 20-30 min drive across Bangkok. Unbeknownst to us, most cab drivers aren't willing to take you that far during rush hour, since the way the meter increments, they profit most from distance traveled, less so from time spent driving. One guy laughed us right back out of his cab. After some trouble, found a guy that offered a flat 300 baht fee ($10).

Wat Pho is the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, it's smaller than the temple from yesterday, and much more enjoyable to see, I thought. The Buddha himself is HUGE.

He looks pretty chill.

There was a line of bowls down the length of the hall, you can pay 20baht to get a little container of copper discs. Then you go down the row and drop a disc into each bowl. Again having done little to no cultural/historical research, I have no idea what the significance of this is. :) Just saw it being done.

Pretty fountain/garden arrangement on the temple grounds. 

The style of this temple is really different from the last one, less iridescent shiny glass pieces, lots of colorful opaque clay bits. I think the last one was more "magnificent", but not really my taste. I like the style of this one better.

The geometric shapes...the repeated patterns and tessellations on each spire, and then the repeated arrangements of the spires themselves is just really mesmerizing and cool.

I don't know why but I like this picture a lot. As you can see, much emptier than the last one.

There were also many courtyards that were lined with Buddhas. The Buddhas all looked slightly different; different materials, faces, sitting positions....

So picturesque!

After another couple hours of poking around, we thought we'd take a ferry to a different area of the city for street food (again somewhat randomly picked).

Figuring out the ferry system was.......not so easy. Found the pier easily enough, but it was not straightforward to tell how much and whom to pay to go where, and the hardest part was figuring out what boat to get on. There are different "colors" of routes, and the boats on those routes will have that color flag tied to them. We weren't sure and just tried to board every boat that came by -- they ask where you're going when you get on and if it's not right they tell you to get off and go back to the pier.

We definitely attempted to board at least 3 different boats that turned out to be Korean tour boats.

Finally got on our boat! They're quite large. They are not just tourist ferries, many locals use them to commute every day. It was suffocatingly hot outside, but as soon as we got on board and got moving, the air became really comfortable.

Nice scenic views, there was even a person at the front that explained some of the buildings.

Disembarked and started walking. Noticed this cool dilapidated building and we were wondering about it. It's a huge towering skyscraper right in the middle of the city, looks like an expensive housing development, but there was graffiti all over it, making it look abandoned. Very dystopic and cool!

Dylan did some research later, apparently two such buildings were constructed, one was finished, the other was abandoned, and people could go in and take pictures for a while until some foreigner committed suicide in there. Now they keep guards posted around the building, some say you can bribe them to let you in and poke around, but the building is very unstable.

i <3 bkk covered in bird shit.

Stopped by McDonald's to use the bathroom. Dipping parade!!

Found a random restaurant called Queen of Curry to try. It did look a bit touristy but eh who cares. Got some sweet fruity alcoholic blended drinks.

Red curry with duck! Was pretty good, no Osha Thai though.

After lunch, back to Airbnb again to cool off, swim, shower, etc. This became a regular pattern for us throughout the trip, but most in Bangkok because it's just so damn hot and uncomfortable.

Went to another street food area for dinner. This one looked the most like what I expected of
"street food" (based on how it is in Taiwan).

Shared a chicken skewer, it was amazing!

More street food stands. There weren't a whole lot, maybe like 10 - 15 total. I don't know!! I know if you just keep comparing you'll never be happy, but it really wasn't what I had expected or hoped for in street food.

Mango with sticky rice stand (didn't try it).

Lots of stands selling roti (both sweet and savory). Thai cuisine, like most SE Asian cuisine, gets a lot of influence from its neighboring countries. I think the roti trend probably is from Malaysia?

Chicken curry roti, it was pretty good.

Got a seafood stirfry from another stand, again not bad but not amazing.

For our last night in Bangkok we decided to go check out a rooftop bar. There are a number of them in Bangkok, most at the top of fancy hotels or skyscrapers. The one we went to is called Octave 8. There were several levels, one is a rooftop restaurant, the others were more of a bar/chill space with a DJ. The view was amazing, drinks were good (but of course prices are raised cuz you're paying for the location).

Dylan getting drinks at the bar.

All in all? Bangkok was...interesting. Not what I expected. I usually love big cities, love the public transportation and the convenience. I did not love Bangkok. I only had a few days there so I admittedly did not get to experience much, but the humid temperatures, crowdedness, inconvenience of the pubtrans system, constant odor of sewage (it was really bad), dirtiness.....I don't know. There were a lot of things that were really cool, lot of stuff that was very unique and I'm of course really glad I went! And I haven't written it off entirely. But from my scant 2.5 days of looking around, Bangkok is definitely not a favorite so far. :) Hoping the rest of the trip will look up!