An Oriental Introduction

After my incredible 2 month travel stint in India, I was on to the next part of the world and my first oriental country: Thailand. It was really a bit of a culture shock when I first arrived there from India. I don’t know yet about the rest of Thailand, but Bangkok is A LOT more developed in general than most parts of India, and after being in a lesser developed part of the world for a couple months it was a bit refreshing and overwhelming to be in a much more urbanized chunk of civilization. There were skyscrapers, fancy hotels, massive screens displaying various ads, and a plethora of visual media being consumed nearly everywhere you looked. There were sidewalks, gargantuan smartphones, and enormous amounts of traffic (which was nothing new, but nobody was honking their horn!) For me, it was serenity.

The craziness of Khaosan Road

I took multiple fancy automatic metro skytrains and a bus to get to the backpacker center of Bangkok: Khaosan Road. There were tourists everywhere! Another new site for me after my stint in India. A site for sore eyes? I’m not quite sure I’d put it that way. Somewhat unexpectedly I had actually become accustomed to being the center of attention during my Indian travels (selfish comment, I know). But in all honesty, being noticed by locals who are interested in your whereabouts can enhance the human connection experience of traveling. And because the locals here are so used to the saturated tourism that has been sweeping through Thailand for years now, you’re no longer necessarily looked at as a peculiar outsider. You’re no longer “special.” So not many stares upon my arrival nor did I really have anybody coming up to me asking me where I was from and what I was doing there, which was fine. But in Khaosan there aren’t necessarily any locals. This is where the backpackers go for cheap accommodation and partying. It was quite a change of pace for me but I embraced it as best I could.

Wat Pho

The irony in me staying at Khaosan Road during the first half of my 10 day stay in Bangkok was that I actually had only one night that consisted of really going out and drinking. I started out by myself and ended up meeting a group of random foreigners and a few Thais, where we had a great time in one of the nearby clubs. It was a lot of fun, but apart from that excitement the remaining days consisted of me locking myself in my hotel room and catching up on these blog posts, uploading photos, and planning my exciting detour to Myanmar, which I would be taking after my Bangkok experience.

Reclining Buddha with Selfie Stick

So Khaosan was fun during my limited exploration over the 5 days of staying there, but once I was mostly caught up on everything a change of pace and environment was needed. I felt like I was trapped in a bubble of tourism that was in a way detached from the real Bangkok that I wanted to see, so I found a hostel in another part of town and effortlessly moved to a new home. The second half of my Bangkok experience consisted of more sightseeing, socializing, and even a little partying, that permitted me to enjoy the city a bit more each and every day. Highlights included catching a very unsafe but way too exciting scooter taxi on the way home from the club after seeing a well-known DJ that I liked, going out again on Khaosan road for some drinks and eating a scorpion (which really didn’t taste that bad), and going to a ping pong show (which I will refrain from explaining in this blog, but trust me, it’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen).



So in the end, I really enjoyed Bangkok. It was reassuring to know that I would be back after my detour through Myanmar. From what people had told me about Myanmar it sounded like it could have the potential of being a top highlight of the trip, possibly competing with India. I couldn’t wait to find out why.

Bangkok street food is simply the best