January 17, 2008 Thursday 11:24 am
Malachi and I have made it to the metropolis of neon lights and tuk-tuks, also known as Bangkok. We spent 21 hours getting here from Cali and when we finally arrived we lost a day and threw our internal clocks off. We flew in at midnight on separate flights from Tokyo and amazingly enough we found each other in customs right away. The crowd of people yelling out taxi rates in front of the airport was a sensory shock. All of the cabs are bright neon colors and about the size of a small sedan. Pink cabs and green cabs pelt by on the amazingly pristine paved roads. We split a taxi with a young guy from Vancouver, Canada and an older couple from Quebec. It cost us about $4.50 each to drive the 45 mins to Khao San Road. That gives you a bit of a gage on the price of things. Cheap. Cheap. Cheap. We wandered around Khao San Road for about 45 mins until we found a nice budget guest house tucked out of the hustle and bustle. It was clean and quiet, perfect by our standards even if the toilets reeked of backed up sewage.
Khao San Road is known as the backpackers’ haunt of Bangkok. You see more white faces here then any other part of the city. Even at 1:30am, the road seems like a permanent carnival. Lots of bars and late night snack food. Balloons being sold to drunk couples stumbling out of bars, and young women sitting on the sidewalk amidst rubbish cooing babies to sleep. Dogs lay in the middle of the street and cats roam free, unconcerned about the people or auto traffic. It’s all rather surreal. We haven’t seen the real Bangkok yet, but we have plenty of time. I’ll post pics tomorrow. There is an Internet cafe downstairs from our room. Right now it’s time to go eat. I had fresh pineapple this morning from a street vendor and it was delicious. ( clean street vendor, for those of you who’s first thought was nasty bacteria…. you know who you are). There are beautiful things everywhere, hopefully we’ll have room in our bags for everything. If not, Mom and Dad you’ll be receiving packages.It’s hot and sunny, last time I checked it was 85 degrees and humid. I think it’s comfortable, wonderfully warm. Malachi is dying already and our first shopping stop is for a pair of shorts.
PS.
Mom and Dad: we are safe and healthy, we’ll keep you posted on where we are heading. For now we’ll be in Bangkok for a few days.
Love to you all,
Kenni and Malachi