Valentine's Day - celebrating my love affair with Thailand

This morning I took an excursion to a floating market about an hour away from Bangkok. It was a photographers dream, but the actual boat ride was a bit of a rip off as they only paraded past souvenir boats and very few food boats. I was still able to manage some good fun food boat shots. There were a few cute Koreans in my group- including this couple. The girl was named “Sally” and I couldn’t pronounce the boy’s name so I called him Clark Kent (due to the glasses)

I ate delicious soup with pork and vermicelli which was made in 60 seconds on a boat (I taped him making it- it's cool, but too big to post onto blogspot). This woman sold me dumplings with chili & coconut. In the afternoon I did the obligatory loop of the Grand Palace – here there are 3 styles of domes- I think I understood fromthe tourguide that they are Cambodian, Sri Lankan and Thai. They are constantly renewing the gold paint on the King Rama paintings. The roof decorations are supposed to represent long, elegant hands. Then I swung over to the famous reclining Buddha which is 46M long. Big feet too, inlaid with mother of pearl.

Here people are praying for luck with candles & flowers, and something I've never seen before was that the worshippers were adding flecks of gold leaf to the buddha statues to "placate spirits and request favors."

I LOVE BKK!

Thank goodness my Rough Guide recommended getting around by bus in BKK- it was so easy. So easy in fact, that my 1st bus was free (saving me approx 21 cents). I thought it was because it was intended to schlep workers to a big shopping mall, but it was just because they were doing some census work on the number of people getting on & off. Take a look at the size of the gearshift on this baby- it's half as tall as the driver: En route I came across this Tailor- perhaps if I had gotten a suit made there my chances for a job will be better when I return? Upon my friend Carlos’ recommendation, the Jim Thompson house was the first real stop of the day. It’s a beautiful former private home that was created from 6 “typical” Thai houses from the countryside. The gardens are beautiful: The home is furnished almost exactly as it was in 1959 when it was built by the architect/Thai Silk entrepreneur Jim Thompson. His whole story’s pretty intriguing- check it out here: http://www.jimthompsonhouse.com/

In a special AC area upstairs they had a well-done exhibition by Xawery Wolski http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xawery_Wolski Upon my foodie friend Andrew’s recommendation I headed to the mall, yes, the mall to check out their food court. It exceeded expectations.

At the entrance to the food court one buys coupons, and then can go hog wild. As the pictures below will attest- I went happily overboard.
First stop coffee Then some dried fruit for later- who knew that pomelo is exquisite when dried? Then green curry, eggplant, greenbeans, iced cantaloupe juice, followed by durian with sticky rice. To. Die. For. Here’s my favorite shot of the King & Queen that I saw on the trip- it was in the window on on the bus home. I love her outfit. Then I rounded out the day with a passionfruit & ginger shake. I branched out from Pad Thai!

Arrival in BKK

This morning I flew Air Asia to Bangkok. The boarding passes are hilarious- they look like supermarket receipts!

My first impression of Bangkok was of the air. When I looked out the plane window I thought I was looking at the grey sea (the ocean can sometimes look grey in Bali) but it was actually the smog.

The other big impression was of the size of the roads- there are few highways in Bali, and in Bangkok there are elevated superhighways- I forgot was it was like to roll at 80MPH!

Before leaving, I was told there were still protests going on at the capital. Well, this was the closest that I saw to protesting – perhaps I didn’t have the right eye out for the news:

First order of business upon arrival was a Thai massage since my shoulders were surfed out. A tiny woman hoisted and stretched me all over the place.

The evening was capped by Pad Thai- pretty good, but not that different from NY Pad Thai- perhaps I’ll need to branch out a bit more culinarily to be wowed.

Next Stop, Bangkok

Just as I was starting to get a good feel for my board, I'm going to spoil it by heading to Thailand tomorrow for a visa run. Here's to green curry, stretchy massage, Buddhist temples, snorkeling, and sea kayaking!

On my owwwwwn

Sunday was supposed to be my first day out on my own, but the wind, swell, and rain combined to create a sloppy stew of bad waves. I waited all day with a book to no avail.

Though at dusk the break just down the street from me filled up with crazy groms (read: young surfers) doing 5 second spins on the beach break. I thought about joining them, but then realized I didn't have the speed to do the beach break, especially if I didn't want to end up with a face full of dirty sand and a cracked board.

So Monday was my 1st day, ever, surfing on my own. Got in the water, called out to everyone I met and asked them where they were from or commented on their board so that if I was carried away by a rogue wave they might actually notice.

Met 2 nice German longboarders, and a sweet Brit who said that he was also stationed here for a while. Wasn’t really the place to exchange phone numbers so I hope to run into them again!

Brown Snakes vs. Yellow Snakes with Red Tails

Until today, the largest snake I ever saw in the wild was the kind that runs along the lines of the the gardener snake variety. That all changed when a 3 foot long brown snake hauled itself out of a rice paddy to cross the road right in front of my bike. It made me think of Roald Dahl's memoir where he explained that one should NOT run over snakes in military jeeps because they fly up in the air and land in the back. So I slowed down, backpedalled, literally, and waited for him to leisurely cross the road. Later I learned only the yellow snakes with red tails are dangerous, and that the brown ones eat rats in the rice fields and aren't dangerous to humans. Phew.

Ubud which was mostly Babi Guleng

I headed up to Ubud to meet Andrew in the pouring rain. I got some pics of the palace, including my favorite goddess, the Goddess of Education Saraswathi.

Then we decided to take shelter and get Ubud’s famous Babi Guleng- roasted suckling pig. Super salty & spicy, I think I'll stick to Nasi Campur.