{"id":16906,"date":"2014-04-25T10:37:45","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T15:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=16906"},"modified":"2014-04-26T04:14:24","modified_gmt":"2014-04-26T09:14:24","slug":"bangkok-day-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=16906","title":{"rendered":"Bangkok Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Train to Bangkok<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I slept relatively well for being on a train. Much better than my previous overnight train experience in India from Delhi to Varanasi. RL on the other hand did not sleep very well at all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe were woken up by music inside our cabin’s PA system. We’ve arrived in the outskirts of Bangkok!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAt 6am, breakfast was brought to us. We had ordered and paid for the breakfast last night while we ordered dinner. Boiled rice with shrimp and pork. YUM!!<\/p>\n

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\nGive your kids sugar.<\/p>\n

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\nLots of temples here in Bangkok.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nHahaha. Halfway through breakfast, an attendant came by asking if we needed anything. Eh?? We said that we were ok, then he clicked off the call button. Haha. We had pushed the call button last night because we wanted our beds made early, but they never came. Finally they came to answer our call…12 hours later.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nBangkok on one side, and Bang Sue on the other side. Hah.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nTrain is running just a little late, but not too bad.<\/p>\n

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\nTired.<\/p>\n

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\nThe slums next to the rail tracks.<\/p>\n

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\nA slum restaurant, cool.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe’ve arrived.<\/p>\n

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\nYou shall be named Thomas.<\/p>\n

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\nDidn’t expect to see a Dunkin Donuts here.<\/p>\n

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We came out of the station, and as expected, we were swarmed with touts asking if we needed a taxi. All the taxis are lined up literally right in front of us, but people still swarmed us anyway trying to scam us into more expensive taxis, etc. Anyhow, we walked into the line of waiting taxis and got into the first one in line.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe taxis here use natural gas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nFare starts at 35 baht, about $1.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nHere! If I remembered correctly, our taxi ride here was under 100baht, so it was under $3 and took maybe 15 minutes. Taxis are really cheap here in Bangkok.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWhat the street looks like in front of our hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWhat happened in 2012?!?! Anyhow, we checked in…but we didn’t. Our room wasn’t ready yet since it’s only 7:30am. Shit, we are tired and we feel disgusting from not showing last night. Everything feels grimy. Ugh.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nOur room will be ready in a couple of hours, so we had no choice but to head out and explore a little around the hotel. We booked a hotel kind of out of the city center of Bangkok because they’ve been having protests here. Well, the protests have died down, but we still got the hotel a little farther out…there’s basically nothing that caters to tourists here. Could be a good thing, and could be a bad thing I guess.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nFried dough for breakfast, they also have this in Taiwan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nNearby is a local market, or what Americans would call Farmers Market. Here, it’s just market.<\/p>\n

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\nI believe these are lottery tickets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nOHHH, YUM!!!! I was hungry, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat something unknown so soon into getting here. I plan on coming back though.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nLots of stalls selling their food.<\/p>\n

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\nFresh seafood, makes sense, we are close to the ocean.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAh, unrefrigerated meat.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nThose catfish are still alive…but not for long.<\/p>\n

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\nBeautiful.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nEggs. I guess you can’t break the eggs this way. I love how all the yolk naturally arrange themselves into this pattern.<\/p>\n

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\nWe are going to eat you while in Bangkok.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nThis is a little scary…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nDurian. They smell bad.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nA giant traffic circle photo taken from atop a pedestrian overpass.<\/p>\n

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\nThe early morning Bangkok traffic is starting to pick up.<\/p>\n

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\nFried chicken!!!<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nThis station is no longer used.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe got tired of walking around, so found a coffee shop nearby our hotel to chill out. This is literally the only shop around our hotel that has AC.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nYes please. It’s early in the morning, and it’s so hot already. I think Bangkok feels even hotter than Chiang Mai. It feels more humid here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nPortrait series.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nUsed this time to write out some postcards. If you didn’t receive one, then we don’t like you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSuper strong coffee. It made me all jittery.<\/p>\n

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\nFinally, got into our room!!! This is what $37 a night gets you a little bit outside of city center in Bangkok.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nGot a room facing the back of the hotel, so it’s nice and quiet.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nNo durians allowed inside due to smell.<\/p>\n

At first our internet was going REALLY SLOW. Shit. We asked the front desk, and finally they put in a password for us to use their business center’s wifi which is plenty fast. Solved that issue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nNot durian, but dried mangoes. Delicious.<\/p>\n

We are exhausted from the train ride, and from the heat. We stayed inside the hotel until early afternoon. Time to go out and do something.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe stairs leading up to the BTS station, elevated trains.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt’s about a 10 minutes walk for us to get to the BTS station from our hotel. This walk is gonna suck later on when we are even more tired than now. At least it’s shaded.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nGot our single way fare, paid by distance traveled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe AC feels AMAZING in here. It’s so hot here in Bangkok.<\/p>\n

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\nAt this hour there are so many more female riders than male riders.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nLumphini Park, this is where the protesters have retreated to inside Bangkok. While we were booking our trip, the protesters had shut down a good amount of central Bangkok and stalled traffic to a halt. It has also gotten violent at times and with some people getting shot. It has since lost steam and only smaller protests are called from time to time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe tents of the protestors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt’s so fucking hot here in Bangkok, I wouldn’t want to be staying in one of those tents. Must be hellish. Seriously, the heat here in insane, and I am used to Texas heat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThere’s money here in Bangkok. Unlike Chiang Mai, where I saw no luxury cars, I see plenty here in Bangkok.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nOur first stop is Jim Thompson House. For some reason, all the travel guides list this place. I tend to think it’ll just be ok, but we’ll see. We came here first because this area is where a lot of the past protests have happened, so we figured that we’ll come here first in case the protest gets underway again while we are here.<\/p>\n

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\nA short walk from the BTS station and down this small street.<\/p>\n

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\nNo, this isn’t it.<\/p>\n

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\nArrived.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nJim Thompson was an American born silk merchant who lived here in Thailand after WWII. His compound comprises of many traditional Thai houses interlinked together. He mysteriously disappeared in a jungle in Malaysia in the late 60s and is presumed dead.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSilk worm cocoons in boiling water with the silk threads joined into one.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nSilk worms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nArchitecturally, this place is pretty cool. Oh yeah, Jim Thompson is also a trained architect.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nOne of the presses used to dye silk fabric.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nLittle goat reminds me of my dog.<\/p>\n

In order to see the main house, we had to join one of their included organized tours. It was in English and everything here is super well organized. In fact, this place runs like a well oiled machine unlike most other tourist attractions here in Thailand. There were no photos allowed inside the house though, poop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMoss!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe only photo we were allowed was from the courtyard into the living room of the main house. The rest of the house looks more or less like this. Nothing too out of ordinary.<\/p>\n

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So, again, why is Jim Thompson house such a popular tourist destination here in Bangkok? I suspect it’s because it’s easy for people to visit here. There are tours in English and other languages. There are no touts here, it’s peaceful. It actually doesn’t quite feel like Thailand it’s so calm here compared to the rest of the country. But just because they pamper you as a Western tourist does not make the attraction one of the top ones in Bangkok. Our vote is, meh!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe still haven’t had lunch yet, maybe here…we passed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nStill wearing the same clothes from yesterday. We thought about showering, but seriously, why bother. It’s so fucking hot and humid here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWe visited Jim Thompson house because we were wanting to visit the malls here in Bangkok. This area has a whole row of shopping malls next to one another. We came here to find a Swatch store. We got RL a Swatch Skin and the dial has since been etched by some sort of chemical stain that won’t go away. It’s under warranty, so hopefully they can either polish it for us, or give us another one.<\/p>\n

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\nI’ve never been in such a hectic mall before.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nWhat would you like to drink? We’ve got Coke, coke, coke, coke and coke. Starving, so stopped to get some donuts.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nThe green one is green tea flavored. The chocolate one had Kit Kats on it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nNo Swatch store inside the MBK mall, onward to another mall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nFound a Swatch store at another mall. They were able to polish away the chemical etching, using an metal polish actually. Hopefully the stain doesn’t come back.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSome food at the food court on the top floor of the mall. The foot courts here are on the top floors of the malls, whereas in Taiwan, they are typically in the basement floors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nRL’s food compared to the display sample. Doesn’t look quite as good.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMY food compared to the display, this one is a little closer. I found my shrimps hidden away in the middle of my dish.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo tired, so hungry, so thirsty. Mango smoothie!!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt’s been too long of a day, time to head back to our hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nLots of people now, it’s traffic hour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThere’s a golf course in the middle of Bangkok. I wonder how much it costs to play here…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nOur hotel is located close to the pedestrian overhead walkway in the distance. That’s a long walk from the BTS station.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nNothing here caters to tourists. I am hating it right now. I just want to be able to buy food and eat somewhere really close to our hotel later tonight. Ugh.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWell, at least the front desk sells Singha cheaply. This will tie me over for now.<\/p>\n

Spent the afternoon napping and blogging. It’s time for dinner, gotta find something to eat. We asked the front desk, and they said that there’s a good Thai food place right across the street. Sounds promising. Anything close sounds promising right about now.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nTo get there, we had to cross one giant intersection.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt’s literally across the street.<\/p>\n

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\nSorry for the blurry photo, I was really tired.<\/p>\n

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\nMore beer. This spot is actually really awesome.<\/p>\n

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\nFresh seafood counter.<\/p>\n

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\nCrab fried rice.<\/p>\n

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\nGrilled prawns! Love this place and the street side atmosphere. I feel much better about our hotel now. All I needed was one good solid close by restaurant, and this place definitely fits the bill. Time to go home and go to bed.<\/p>\n

To be continued at Bangkok Day 2 Part 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Train to Bangkok. I slept relatively well for being on a train. Much better than my previous overnight train experience in India from Delhi to Varanasi. RL on the other hand did not sleep very well at all. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":16447,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16906","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16906"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17233,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16906\/revisions\/17233"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}