One weekend in Bangkok

New country, unliveable climate. The nights here are unbearably hot, inside with a fan. I don't want to ever go outside. But of course I have and will. What's the melting point of a human?

Other than the temperature, the most striking change has been my living conditions, which I find amusing. I went from a guided tour, staying in nice hotels, to a youth hostel hanging out with Peace Corps volunteers. As Yake pointed out, this fits me better. Here half of the people are living out of a backpack, as opposed to me being the only person without wheeled luggage.

The first night here was pretty amusing, since I did basically nothing. Yake's luggage had been lost, so my Saturday consisted of landing at the airport, going to Bed Station, the hostel I'm staying at, seeing Chris and David, going back to the airport, and going back to Bed Station. At that point we went to get dinner, where we confused David by wanting Thai food. He had just come from central Thailand to meet up with us, and wanted anything but Thai food. He was a gracious host and showed us to a cool restaurant right by the hostel.

At that point we basically just bummed around and hung out until the wee hours of the morning, listening to music and playing Fifa. Hence my previous post being written hungover.

Sunday was a more active day, but we were all moving pretty slowly due to lack of sleep. I chose to blog instead of sleep, which caused me to fade throughout the day. Brunch was just 7-Eleven microwave meal while me and Dave waited for Yake to get up.

We then motivated ourselves to move by getting coffee. The BTS (transit system in Bangkok) is awesome. Smooth trains, fast, handles high volume well, cool inside. The elevated platforms help by catching some breeze while waiting for a train in 100 degree heat. I'm gonna hate the T when I get back. Blackbox Coffee was pretty good, and we got smoothies after coffee. Yake also got a meal there, which I got a taste out of. It was probably Pad Gaprao (romanization sucks just as bad in Thai...), which we've both really enjoyed every time we get it.

Yake was 100% ready for the photo I took of him.

After caffination, we went to Chatuchak Market, at the end of the BTS (Mo Chit station). It was a very different feel from the markets in Taiwan, which was cool. Much higher density of things to food, and much larger. We wandered around for an hour and a half, and barely scratched the surface. The picture is of one of the "roads" through the market. Most of the shops are within the structures along the road, in narrow alleys. 

Once we got back from the market, I died, and slept from 7-7 again. Sleeping 12 hours at will is one of the best parts about being on vacation. It really shouldn't be that hard to do at home... Yake and Dave had a fun time at a bar with a really good sax player, or so I heard. Monday morning started off with some coffee at Di Cafe, which was about 100 feet from the hostel. They had a cool Singer footwheel that I played with incessantly while enjoying a morning affogato.

Monday we had a proper tourist day, now that we were slightly more acclimated to the heat. Started in the morning with the Jim Thompson house, a house created in mostly the classic Thai style by a Delaware architect. There were guided tours available in English, Thai, French, and Japanese, which seems like an odd language collection.

We then hopped a riverboat to get to the Golden Mound, which is a cool elevated temple. We stopped a couple of times to get some skyline views, and the inside was undergoing a paint job, so we didn't stay there too long. New paint smells just as bad here.

We then got some lunch, and hopped a Tuk Tuk to Wat Pho. I learned that Taxis are generally cheaper than Tuk Tuks in Bangkok, since  Tuk Tuks are such a tourist-centric mode of transit. Well worth it for the death-defying experience.

Wat Pho was absolutely beautiful. We spent a bunch of time just wandering around. The Reclining Buddha was worth a drive-by (walk-by), but it was honestly just too big to get a view on. It was all of the small engravings and statues that added up to make Wat Pho so cool looking.

We also waited in a surprisingly long line just to see a monk praying in the central building. I'm guessing we would generally be allowed to wander in, but couldn't because of the ongoing prayer. Or something. I barely saw the monk in time to get a picture, so that's going to be the blurriest one I post, hopefully.

 

We then decided to walk to the Grand Palace, at which point a certain scam starts getting entertaining. Basically a guy in a Tuk Tuk will tell you that whatever you're going to is closed, but he knows something similar or cooler that you can enjoy instead. I don't actually know where it goes from there, having not fallen for it, but a Peace Corp volunteer mentioned on hearsay that you end up getting fit for a suit you don't want or something like that.

It's relevant here because parts of the Grand Palace actually are closed, due to the ongoing mourning period for the late Thai king. (Who's name I have a 0% chance of spelling. You can google it. He was an awesome king.) So me, Dave, and Yake ignored people telling us it was closed and just walked around the outside, which boasted an impressive wall, some mounties, a couple of cool views, and food overpriced to near American levels.

After that, we hopped a riverboat to Chinatown, which we were told was closed. We almost fell over laughing at that guy, wondering how the entirety of Chinatown could even be closed. Once we got there, it felt oddly comforting. Not like home, but just a familiar sight in a new city. Of course, we got there a bit too early for most of the food places to be open, so maybe that scammer had it right all along. As we decided to leave, places started opening up, and I got my first mango sticky rice in Thailand. Delicious.

I will admit to have entirely failed at the next part (in terms of photos), but it wasn't as cool, so it's OK. We ate dinner in Terminal 21, a pretty awesome mall. Each floor is themed as a specific international city, including Paris, Istanbul, Tokyo, London, San Francisco (there were actually 2 San Francisco floors). I spotted an anime and manga store. I debated buying Psychopass on DVD, since I've been meaning to watch it. However, the entire case was written in Thai, so I couldn't tell which audio tracks and subtitle options it had. Oh well. I did get some coffee in "London", though.

For dinner we met up with Molly, one of David's Peace Corps friends. We got some good food at near-extoritionate prices. (Or so Dave claims, I'm fine with paying $7 per person for food at dinner.) Meeting her was fun, and she had the same biting humor as Dave does, at least once she warmed up to us enough to drop the Midwestern niceties.

The last stop of the day was a bar pretty close to Bed Station, next to the Hungry Nerd. We worked through a couple of pitchers, and were generally enjoying the atmosphere and the terribleness that is Thai beer. The waitresses were also all pretty cute, which helped. Especially the one in the green Heineken dress. It was during this time that I realized that I can get dehydrated enough in Thailand to have a hangover while I'm drinking, which is really not a nice feeling. During our long day of touring, I had only drank about a half gallon of water, which is about half to a third of what I needed based on how hard I had been sweating all day.

So I begged off of our drinking expedition and drank a 1.5L bottle at Bed Station faster than I would have thought reasonable. I then crashed, and woke up an hour later in a puddle of my own sweat, which was pretty gross. I opened up a second bottle and sipped on that during a much more relaxing sleep for the rest of the night. On the plus side, I woke up feeling great, since I had already had my hangover the night before.

On Tuesday we went to David's site in Suphan Buri, which will be it's own post. I find it amusing that this post covers almost 3 days, but 95% of the post is devoted to Monday. That's been about right for the entire time here. It takes a large amount of motivation to do anything in the heat, so when things happen, they happen. Otherwise, we're laying down in the AC, enjoying a few beers and watching or listening to whatever.

RIP Taiwan

Since we had already filled out our tour reviews by this point, lunch was scavenged from a convenience store. (It was actually due to a reroute on the way to Taipei due to a construction notification or similar.) I enjoyed the opportunity to fill up with garbage, which was a terrible idea based on the crazy winding bypass route we ended up taking back to Taipei. (Pacific Coastal Highway?) Beautiful views, but extremely winding, especially on a tour bus.

Once we got into Taipei, we hit the city for my final night. After getting dropped off by Chris' grandfather (who I really need to learn enough Mandarin/Taiwanese to thank...), we (me, Chris, and Chris' dad) wandered around Taipei 101 for a while. The building was impressive, but there's only so much to do other than going to the top (which we decided against), and shopping luxury brands wasn't on my short list.

We left and hit Taipei's night market. i got to use the subway system in Taipei, which was absurdly smooth, fast, and clean. Keep trying, MBTA. You're not terrible. It was the right time to see a couple of high schoolers transit-ing home, which I found surprisingly entertaining. We just wandered the night market and ate food, which I'm pretty sure is the thing to do at a night market. There are non-consumable things to buy, but I barely saw anyone actually browsing those. (Somebody must buy some, though...) I finally go to try some shaved ice! (Pictures depict less than half of consumed food.)

We then went home pretty early, since I was on a old person schedule, and had a morning flight. The bus system was also incredibly clean, modern, and smooth. I had fully intended to crash immediately upon getting back to the apartment, but realized it might be rude to the people hosting me. After I decided to hang out for a bit, Chris' grandfather whipped out some impressive (prepared?) English, asking me if I wanted a beer. I actually just wanted to crash, but I wasn't going to refuse a beer. (Chris and I were the only people who drank in the apartment, so I got the impression this beer was specially bought for me.)

I then got to try Taiwan Beer's honey beer. It was a great decision to accept. I don't think I had had a honey beer before, but I'll definitely be looking out for them now. This was probably the best beer I've had since leaving America. And went surprisingly well with cherry tomatoes, which were also offered to me. After drinking the beer and being amused by conversation and a TV drama that I understood neither of, I slept.

I rolled out of bed at 6:40 (which was pretty late for me this week, honestly), and made my way to the airport, again driven by Chris' grandfather. On the flight I read Out of the Silent Planet. I didn't know C. S. Lewis did sci-fi as well as fantasy. It was definitely early sci-fi, in that certain tropes weren't well defined yet. (There was a spaceship that had a gravitational pull toward the center. Everyone knows that it's either a centrifugal acceleration toward the outside, or else no gravity.) The Martians (sorry, Malacandrians), were pretty cool, and he really committed to how lower gravity and a thinner atmosphere shaped organisms and landscapes. (Oh, and there was also a decent plot in there, but I'm a sucker for worldbuilding.)

I also watched Your Name again. Great movie, better on second watch. All the little scenes that I didn't get in my sleep-deprived state on the first watch made perfect sense. The memory-loss thing still aggrivates me to no end, but I think that's the point. My only grievance with the movie is the last 40 seconds. Mild spoilers incoming: They should not have walked past each other on the staircase at first. It was stupid and just attempted to add tension to a scene that was already appropropriately climatic. And who runs a quarter mile just to look down and be awkward?

Taroko Gorge

I'm currently hungover at a hostel in Bangkok, but trying to catch up with the past before moving on to the present.

After lunch, we spent some time in Taroko Gorge, a really cool canyon. There's a incredibly dangerous-looking road through the canyon, which apparently has falling rocks often enough that helmets are required for wandering around the area. Our first stop on the way was Swallow Grotto. My phone camera really sucks...

We then hit up the Silks Place hotel in the gorge, at a cool area where the gorge opens up enough to have a small town inside of it. We ate at the hotel, and I took a short nap during an Aboriginal Taiwanese duet. I woke up at the end, when audience participation was required, about as confused as I could reasonably be. I didn't understand the language of the instructions, and I was asleep for the demonstrations. It was simple enough that I caught on pretty fast. There was a No Pictures sign, sadly.

The next morning I ate a fairly standard Taiwanese hotel buffet, which I already miss, honestly. Dried mango and dried pineapple definitely added to the meal.

Still in the gorge, we stopped off at a couple more viewpoints, which were all pretty breathtaking. Apparently there is a hiking path that you can take through the gorge, but it's dangerous (and popular?) enough that you need to get a permit to hike even part of it. One of the viewpoints we stopped at was Kind Mother's Bridge (TN: probably). Apparently at least 3 bridges have been built in this location, since it's an area that gets hit with some crazy flood waters.

We then left the gorge, sadly. These pictures really don't do the scenery any justice.

Taitung

When we last left our heroes, they had just enjoyed a few pit stops in Kenting National Park on the southern tip of Taiwan. After this success, they got in a bus for a few hours to come up the East Coast of Taiwan. (Which faced the Pacific Ocean, as our helpful tour guide Daniel liked to remind us every 45 minutes or so.)

After a long bus ride, we arrived at the Hotel Royal Chihpen, which began the hot springs episode of our tour. After a day of way too much food, we decided that a sweat in the sauna was appropriate. We then wandered aimlessly for a while until we discovered the outdoor hot springs. There are no pictures of this section, since me and Chris weren't clothed for most of it. I learned that I'm a child when it comes to hot springs, and mostly stayed in the 38 C pool, instead of the 42 C pool, which was where Chris mostly hung out. This process was made significantly less awkward by the fact that me and Chris were the only two in the hot spring at the time. It did start to rain on us at the end, and being in the warmer pool while the rain fell on my head was really refreshing.

On our way back from the hot spring, we watched some aboriginal Taiwanese middle/high schoolers perform some dances in traditional garb. Chris and I were still in our robes, so neither of us had our cellphone to take pictures. They were pretty cool to watch, especially the Shield Dance that we saw near the end. After the performance, Chris and I went outside to hang out and watch the rain fall.

This morning I limited myself to a reasonable amount of food at breakfast.

Today we toured around eastern Taiwan (Taitung). Our first stop was Turtle Rock, which was really just an excuse to play on the coast. I was amused by the sign warning against poisoning and/or bombing the ocean, but there's always someone... Chris and I just chilled and watched the waves roll in for a while. It was fun to watch them crash into the rocks. I tried taking a video or two, but they weren't good enough to bother sharing.

Our tour group timed the visit pretty well, because the crowds really picked up right as we left.

Our next stop was Immortal Island (as called by our tour guide, I only found it on Google as Sanxiantai). We only had a short time to spend there (30 minutes instead of the standard hour), and me and Chris only discovered the paths on the island too late to walk them. We ended up just going to the pavilion marked on the map below. The eight arch bridge was really cool to climb over, and you can see it in the distance in the last photo.

For lunch we had beef noodle soup at a place recommended by Daniel. Chris and I agreed that it was the best beef noodle soup of the 3 I've had here so far. Chris assures me he knows of better near L.A., though. I think he's just trying to get me to go to the West Coast.