This morning I checked out of my middle-of-nowhere hotel and into a kick-ass hotel a couple miles away. Before doing so, I visited a landmark near my old digs called “Golden Mountain”. Its another temple as you might guess from the “Golden” name. It was a 15 min walk from my hotel. When I got there, a sign said I needed 20 baht to get in (about 75 cents) and I didn’t have any money on me.
Golden Mountain looked kind of like they’d started building a big white lighthouse and then stopped 1/2 way up and put a flat golden roof on top with a golden pagoda on top of that. The entrance was a switchback staircase on the exterior. I walked around to the back and found the beginning of a spiral staircase that wound 3/4 of the way around the outside. There wasn’t anyone asking for 20 baht there, so I proceeded up. I did notice that most people were coming down these stairs and I was the only one going up. Then I noticed arrows on the stairs pointing up with a red circle and a slash through them. So i guess you were only supposed to exit via those stairs. I was a good ways up though, so I just looked down at my feet and kept going. It was a long way and I passed a lot of people. I felt like a lame-ass, bullheaded american (which I was) but no one stopped me. Thais seem too laid back to care that much about policing people and telling them what to do or not do like they would in the U.S. (Lucky for me!)
The roof of the Golden Mountain had great 365* views of the whole city. The skyline was a couple miles off in the distance, but despite that and the veil of smog, I recognized the tower where we spent New Years Eve and was amazed at the extent of the skyline. It really makes SF seem like a “boutique” city compared to this mega-opolis
After a look inside the temple and a few obligatory turns around the roof’s golden pagoda, I descended the stairs without shame and headed back to catch a taxi to my new place on Sukhumvit Soi 19. This new room is truly kick-ass with a couch, coffee table, bar, big fridge with a good sized freezer, kitchen (sans stove), bathtub, staggering floor-to-ceiling views, pool on the roof, gym, and all this for $25/night. And to top it off, its strategically located 5 min from a dual Skytrain/underground subway station meaning that I can connect easily with several other areas of the city. So its really quite stellar.
I had missed my new hotel’s free breakfast (most hotels offer a free breakfast), so I went on the hunt for street food straightaway. What I found nearby was grilled chicken and green papaya salad. I was hoping for more of an adventure, but being hungry, this would have to do. Everything was great except despite my request for “medium spice” on the salad, it proceeded to burn a hole through my tongue. But despite that, I couldn’t stop eating it, it was so good.
I have started carrying a toothbrush around with me in my backpack because most thai food has sugar in it and I’ve never had such bad and constant tooth sweaters in my life. The other thing Ive noticed, food-wise around here, is that on virtually every corner there is a busy pizza place (usually Dominos). When I first got here, I wondered why on earth anyone would come here and want to eat pizza (and worse yet, Dominos)?? But slowly, I realized that yes of course, there is zero cheese in thai food and after weeks on end of no cheese, the pizza cravings inevitably start. It’s happened to both me and Penny.
After an afternoon siesta in which I reveled in my soft bed with flat, not cylindrical, pillows (I figured, with a western name like Best Comfort Hotel, the odds were Id get a western bed), I was up again and determined to have an adventure. I wasn’t sure what it would be, but I was going to find out.
Right out the door, just as it was starting to get dark, I came face-to-face with a guy that I swear I knew. He looked at me as if I looked familiar too, and then turned and started walking away. If it was really who I thought it was, it was a gay guy named Ben who I knew from 20 years back— a not very savory character who I never really liked, but still it would be cool if it was really him. So I tailed him. He took me down Sukhumvit a ways, then down Soi 11. He didn’t do anything scandalous or shady as the old Ben would have, but still I scandalously followed him for about 20 min until he stopped and I asked if his name was Ben. It most certainly wasn’t, he said in a british accent. I said ok, sorry.
The thing about Bangkok (and all of Thailand really) is that it is incredibly hot. That must be why everyone drives and no one walks or bikes. I heard somewhere that Bangkok is supposed to be the hottest city in the world, which I was skeptical about since theres cities in the Middle East which must surely be hotter, but then I thought that those are desert places and they probably cool off at night like California does, whereas Bangkok stays hot all. night. long.
At least at night the sun goes away, and thats when the city seems to wake up. During the day, you wouldn’t think much about this area— its fairly ugly actually, with lots of towers and not that many people out and about. But at night it transforms into a Las Vegas-like glam fest and the streets get so crowded and stifling and noisy and suffocating that sometimes I start thinking that Armaggedon could happen at any moment.
So after my adventure with “Ben”, it quickly got dark, all the neon lights came on and started flashing, hordes of people came out and I quickly got overwhelmed and my head started spinning with everything to look at, all the lights and people, zero empty space, the heat and general confusion. And my determination to have an adventure eventually transformed into a determination to find food and then figure out how to get home and go to bed. I settled for some so-so pad thai (nothing has yet compared to the 50 cent plate that I had under the freeway by the ferry terminal on the last visit), went into a 7-11 for a couple $3 Belgian Chocolate Haagen-Daaz mini-cups to drown my disappointment in, and slumped back to the hotel room determined to try again another day/night.
