Our time in Bangkok has come to an end and I can’t say we will be shedding too many tears over it. Over the past three days we’ve been on quite a wild ride through the chaos that is Bangkok and are looking forward to heading North tomorrow to the calm of Chang Mai. This is not to say that we’ve not enjoyed our time here; we’ve learned a LOT about how to get around the city, picked up a few more Thai words (e.g “no” and ” too expensive”), seen some incredible sights and have gained the confidence needed to survive all that is so unknown. Today we ventured out of the Khoa San Rd. area and went and explored downtown Bangkok; it was like visiting a totally different city. In the backpacker areas you become accustomed to being constantly hastled by tuk tuk drivers and wary of anyone who is too “unusually friendly”, but downtown we were able to walk freely around without any worries and ask questions of strangers without being paranoid of being led astray. One of the most enjoyable things we did today was to take the river boat ferry downtown. The boats were crowded and the river itself was murky Mississippi brown, but it was the most opportune place to people watch and see the whole city pass by. From the boat, we hopped on the skytrain which seemed all the more futuristic after the boat ride experience. The skytrain offered an awesome birdseye view of the city that, if we had not already experienced the grittiness of the streets of Bangkok, might have led us to believe Bangkok to be something totally different. From the skytrain we went on an epic two hour walk zig zagging through the streets (JB all the while declaring that “the map is wrong”) to find the U.S embassy to register. When we finally arrived we found out that you can now conveniently register online and that it is no longer done in person. D’oh! Oh well, no matter…I think we both kind of enjoyed being lost in this crazy city. On our way back home we winded our way through markets brimming with stunning flowers, fruits, trinkets and, to my “surprise”, baskets of live, slithering snakes. You don’t see that everyday. We arrived home exhausted and in desperate need of a shower but with the feeling that we might be getting used to all of this.

Tomorrow we are taking an overnight train that leaves Bangkok at 7:30pm and arrives in Chang Mai at 9:20am the next morning. We’ll post again when we get there.

-Meg