tuk tuk adventures

Hello again!

It's day 2, we are still in Bangkok, and we had some fun adventures today! :)
We got up very early, around 6am, and the city was very much asleep. We wandered around for awhile, trying to find a place for a good cup of coffee to start the day.

On our quest, we found a shortcut alleyway, filled with the most amazing, eclectic collection. Street vendor carts parked alongside the walls, waiting for the days to begin. Some with food still on them, food that hadn't been sold, and would likely be sold today. Stray cats and dogs wandering around in search of scraps of food. Heaps of garbage, right next to little huts where people lived and slept. We stumbled across a Thai boxing gym, where you could pay for lessons, and where they held matches. The owner of the gym lived in a little room above the gym, that he accessed with a rope ladder. We saw pots and pots of lush, green, very healthy plants, and teak wood carved doors, that led into somewhat sketchy looking laneways. There were beautiful shrines, decked out with fresh offerings and burning insense. Quite a mixture.

After finding a place that served a delicious breakfast, we decided that we needed to book a train trip and some accomodations for the Full Moon party happening on the island of Ko Phangan on the 29th of July. It's a wild party, sometimes up to 4,000 people attend, and the available rooms on the island are hard to find. We met a man at the Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT) office named Ninja, and he helped us book our train ride to Krabi (the west coast of Southern Thailand) and some additional transport to and from islands, as well as for the Full Moon Party.

After negotiating and booking, we tuk tuked our way back to the road we've been staying on, called Soi Rambuttri. We found a slightly better room for tonight, and moved our gear to there. Then we decided that we wanted to experience what is known as the Weekend Market (Chatachuka). We had no idea where this market was. We hired a tuk tuk for 150 Baht (approx 5 dollars) which weaved us through the city for about 30-40 minutes. These tuk tuks can MOVE quickly, and the drivers think nothing of squishing themselves in between cars and trucks and other vehicles - even oncoming traffic! - to go as fast as they can to get to the destination.

The market is HUGE! It's like the size of a couple of football fields, packed with every kind of thing you could ever possibly imagine. There were rows and rows and alleyways filled with stalls. Food, drinks, wood carvings, clothing, silk, lingerie, jewelry and beads, purses and bags, hats, sunglasses, art work, those were just some of the things we saw. We wandered around for about an hour. I found a few sundresses to help keep me cool and Jack bought himself a pair of ganja shorts (Bob Marley inspired with the Jamacian flag colors of red, green, and yellow!). We sipped some lemonade, found ourselves getting very sleepy in the heat and the hustle and bustle, so we decided to head back to Rambuttri.

We found a tuk tuk willing to take us the distance, and settled in for the bumpy and harrowing ride back. The skies decided to open and we were immersed in a downpour. It felt refreshing, and we quickly got very wet. We hit some major traffic jams which left our driver increasingly aggitated, and it wasn't long before he was holding his head in frustration. As it turned out, there was a demonstration going on, which blocked all access to Khao San road. He got us as close as he could, and with a lot of grace and weary smile, he shook Jack's hand as we paid him and said thank you. So we hoofed it in the general direction, getting absolutely drenched, hoping that we were going in the right way, and not recognizing anything that we saw. We finally passed through the demonstration, across a bridge, and hailed another tuk tuk driver to take us what ended up being 5 blocks to our road. Wet and sleepy, we decided to have a quick shower and take a snooze.

We ended up sleeping for 6 hours straight. With only a couple of grumbling bellies to rouse us out of bed!

Tomorrow, we plan on taking in some other Bangkok sites - the grand palace, the Chao Praya river, maybe a longboat ride to see a floating market, and a Thai massage (or two). We catch our train at 5pm. It's an overnight train, 14 hour trip, to Krabi. And we will get to see some of the Thai countryside.

Until then! : )