Monday, January 25, 2010

Together at Last...Day two in Bangkok

Our first night in Bangkok ended with a great dinner at the open air restaurant near the hotel. We had enough drinks to do us in, and since we had a day of travel ahead of us the next day, we packed 'er in. Here we are, bright and early on Day Two:


We were shocked to find, contrary to what everyone had told us, that flights within Thailand were not as cheap as they were when we researched prices two months ago (yeah, I know, we like to plan. So what. A lot of good that did us). So we were dismayed at a) the amount of time it took to find these, "super cheap flights" that everyone kept raving about and b) swallow the $250 pricetag that came with our flights to the north and the south. We were not happy. Lesson #2 Learned: Stick to your instinct. We are planners by nature, not backpackers (said with just a hint of disdain), so we could have simply booked our in-Thai flights ahead of time. We still carried the backpacks...I'm sure we still would have qualified, paid-for tickets in hand.

AND since it was less than 24 hours until we departed, we had to trek all the way to some unknown location (which turned out to be a mall in the downtown area of Bangkok) to buy and pick up our plane tickets. Certainly NOT the most effective use of time...we were agitated, but we were together, which is something. To make up for this, we ate delicious and cheap pad thai, or some variation of this, and drank in the city and all it's glorious colour.

Thai Mall:



Some sort of Thai-mall-festival?



And my favourite part of any city...the art. Here's a giant garbage can with corresponding trash:


Strange creature just having a seat:



The city is so incredibly colourful. Even the cars are bright and cheery :) Note this is the first impression I had of Bangkok. The clean, beautiful part of the city...later came the disgusting side. I'm shuddering.



We stopped into a museum whose name slips my mind. It was lovely:





Here was our first taste of elephants. The Thai people love their elephants. Leanne totally mocked me for taking this picture, but it was a forecasting image of our adventures to come!


The best thing I read in Thailand. Swoon...

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