The last entry (the Happy New Year one) was written by Penny but she got a phone call halfway through from the front desk saying her taxi to the airport had arrived, so she didn’t have time to finish (hence all of my interjections and a few small edits).
So begins PART 2: "*Just* Ace at Large". Im here in Bangkok until Friday, and then I take a big step and depart for India (after an unsuccessful time trying to get a visa through the Indian embassy in SF, I got one easily while traveling in Myanmar using an online agency!)
After tucking Penny into her taxi, and waving a teary goodbye as they drove down the street, I went back to the hotel room and got a daypack together and went for a walk to get my bearings in this particular neighborhood and find out is within striking distance. Im located on the outskirts of the Khao San area, which is the “backpacker” area, full of cheap hotels. Unfortunately, I seem to be in a bit of a desert zone as far as street food goes, but Chinatown is within a 15 minute walk. So I headed there through a bunch of quiet alleyways.
Bangkok seems a bit cooler temp-wise than it did 3 weeks ago when we were here last. Then, you couldn’t be out for more than an hour before rivulets of sweat were running the length of your body.
Bangkok’s Chinatown goes way farther than the Chinatowns back home in terms of the exotic sorts of food on parade. I walked down an narrow covered alleyway which was a marketplace for food vendors. I gaped at the amazing array of 100s of kinds of meats, veggies, teas, fruits that were completely foreign to me. Half the time I couldn’t even tell if something was a veggie or a piece of meat. Everything from fresh sea cucumbers to flattened dried squid, to bowls of marinating tentacles, to a huge variety of mushrooms/fungi, dried flowers, bulk teas, and just about every kind of meat and every animal part.
One thing that seemed popular was freshly roasted chestnuts. They were roasting them in big mixing vats filled with black pebbles (?) and the nuts. I figured the pebbles stored the heat and helped spread it through all the surface areas while everything was being mixed (?) (see photo). I’d never had chestnuts before so I bought a bag and they’re actually pretty tasty — they’re soft and a little sweet, kind of like sweet bean paste. I was eyeing some dried kiwis too because Id never had those before, but when I tried one, they were a little salty, so I ashamedly snuck away after asking to try a sample!
I decided Im going to have to get adventurous with food this week, since it would be a shame if I just ate Pad Thai, coconut milk soup and green papaya salad every day of the week. I decided to try the Chinese noodle shop across the street from my hotel for lunch. All the clientele were asian and nothing was in English. Also, nothing there was vegetarian, so I got the fish noodle soup on recommendation from the server. They put some kind of sauce in it that turned the soup an artificial red, but aside from that, it was good! It was rice noodles in a sweet and spicy red broth with various types of fish cake, fish balls and maybe a pork ball or two and a couple pieces of chewy squid and one piece of some kind of sea sponge. Definitely out of my comfort zone as far as food goes, but it was good and a fun experience!
Next it was siesta time. Pretty much whenever I lay down these days I fall asleep almost instantly, so thats always nice! I also started trying to register to buy train tickets online for India (which so far is not happening easily).
At around 6pm I got up with a mission: to go downtown to the mega mall area (40 min walk from hotel) and buy some much needed clothing accessories to avert a wardrobe malfunction. The mega malls here are insane. I didn’t even scratch the tip of the iceberg and my mind was completely boggled by the enormity of a single megaplex. The malls here are not just shopping, but also concerts, movies, rollerskating, bowling, restaurants, and who know what else. I went to the one thats supposed to have the best deals which was 6 stories high and when you looked down the center it was hard to see the end. I got my cheap bras and I was out!
Next, I took the BTS skytrain from downtown to the Sukhumvit area. Sukhumvit is the name of a very long street that has all kinds of action on its alleyways (“sois”). Supposedly it has some of the best street food too according to my travel guru www.nomadicmatt.com. I took the skytrain to the outside border of the area and thought I’d try to walk all the way back (the great thing about walking here is you can always just bail and take a taxi since theres usually one within 10 feet and its very cheap). Sukhumvit is an area of giant fancy hotels, street vendors and mega bars. I basically walked back to downtown on Sukhumvit (2hrs?) and didn’t go very far down any of the Sois. By 11pm I was too tired to go any further, so I took a cab back to my hotel and fell asleep but not before witnessing a cockroach as big as a mouse in the bathroom! I will probably change hotels to the Sukhumvit area soon since its more interesting and theres way more street food!
