Thailand Top 10

Just arrived at our hotel in Bangkok, which is awesome!!! and in the fashion district. It's after midnight here, which means it feels like noon because of the 12-hour time difference. Before I attempt to get a good night's rest, wanted to share my top 10 list of things that I'm most excited/curious/freaked out about for this trip:

1. The exchange rate is 34 baht for every $1. The fact that mani/pedis are $3 was a big factor in planning this trip. Seriously!

2. It is impolite to point your feet at anyone in Thailand, so I'm not sure if people walk like ducks here. We'll see.

3. I can't wait to ride an elephant!

4. I most likely will be size XL in Thailand. Great self-esteem booster. The upside is that I'd most likely have a huge bra size too. :)

5. I also am out of luck with buying shoes since none are made above size 8, and I'm a 9. Phil is happy, but I am not.

6. Thailand is uber-patriotic. The royal anthem plays twice a day. TV, radio stations and train stations air the anthem and you are expected to stop and stand still wherever you are.

7. Traffic in Bangkok will be one way in the morning and then a completely different direction a few hours later. It's completely random. I plan to look left, ride, forward, backward, cross-eyed before crossing any street. I heard that traffic is like NYC on steroids.

8. Bangkok was once called the Venice of the East, but many of its canals have been filled in with cement to allow for road construction. Crazy!

9. Bangkok has Novemberfest...the start of Thailand's annual beer garden season, where tables and chairs are brought out onto the street and beers are available on tap. A large jug of Beer Chang costs $2. DAS BOOT!

10. Thai is a tonal language (there are five types of tones), so word meanings are partially determined by intonation and pitch. Basically hello and goodbye are the same word just said with different pitches. And, "ka," which means "yes," can also mean "to kill." I'm so screwed!

A royal funeral, silk suits, good eats & a curse

Today began a six-day royal cremation ceremony for the king's elder sister, so our plans to visit temples and the palace were derailed since they are closed until Monday. Although the princess died in January, the royal urn took several months to make and will house her bones. Her ashes will be kept separately. Very sad that the country is in mourning since it loves its royal family dearly.

We started off our morning with an awesome breakfast of pancakes, hash browns, sushi, dim sum, curried noodles and cheeses...can't beat that mix of Western and Eastern dishes. Then we explored the fashion district near our hotel. It's amazing how westernized Bangkok is...English is enormously prevalent. However, we learned quickly that people love it when you try to speak Thai because it gives them an opportunity to practice their English, which was much, much better than the few Thai phrases I've been able to cobble together.

We chatted with a pharma science professor and then a manager of a nail salon (you know we got manipedis on the cheap!), who were very helpful and kind with sightseeing suggestions. The manager told us he's getting married soon and wants to take his family (60 people!!!) to London for their honeymoon. He urged us to go to a tailor and have suits custom made, and went so far as to wave down a tuk tuk (a pimped out golf cart with A LOT more speed), negotiate a fare for us and send us on our way.

Mary and I hadn't discussed having suits made, but we figured what the hell and obliged. I picked out a pretty blue silk and a skirted suit design. We'll see how it turns out. We need to go in Monday for a fitting and they should be ready on Tuesday. Fairly reasonable, so if I hate it, oh well.

We ended up hiring our tuk tuk driver for a good part of the morning, and he would take us to a shop and then wait outside for us to return. He took us for typical American tourists and dropped us off at a few shops that ushered us into secret passageways to view "genuine" luxury purses. Funny, but no thanks. With a generous tip, our driver rental amounted to about $6. The exchange rate is crazy.

Riding in the tuk tuk was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time because of the awesome breeze and heart-attack feeling whenever our driver zoomed head-on into traffic, which was often. I have never seen traffic like Bangkok's. It's like Rome and NYC x 10. Oh, and the pollution can be extreme on the roads. Many people, especially motorcyclists, wear masks.

After a morning of exploring, we headed back to our hotel and grabbed a late lunch at Cabbages & Condoms, a quirky restaurant that promotes safe sex and helps fund Thailand's Population and Community Development Association. The idea is that if condoms were as prevalent in Thailand as cabbage, the country would a safer place. Male diners can score a free vasectomy next door at the clinic after their meal. Uh, no thanks.

Hysterically, all kinds of life-size figures are concocted out of condoms and birth control pills, even Santa Claus. All the light fixtures are made from condom designs, and they're actually pretty! The food was good too. I had a yummy tofu Phad Thai. And, unlike what I've heard, we rarely saw prostitutes...just a few on the walk home late tonight (where I also was cursed by a vendor for refusing to buy his cheapo elephant shirt...even though he didn't have my size and I said "no thank you" in Thai! It really bothered me.)

We power napped at our hotel (super convenient to the Sky Train...I love it even more today) and then wandered nearby. The streets we walked hours before were completely different...bodies were packed like sardines on the sidewalk and smells from food cooking in sidewalk stalls both delighted and disgusted me...not so crazy about fish-head soup.

The we wandered toward Old World Bangkok toward the west and went to dinner at Breeze in The Dome at State Tower, which was on the rooftop and offered spectacular views. I ordered us Shanghai dumplings, spinach tofu (not so good) and awesome beef hor-fun (okay, I admit I wanted to order it partly because the name made me giggle). The beef dish featured thick noodles and wok-braised wagyu. And, the chef gave us candied cashews to nosh before our meal and five dipping sauces with crunchy, clear veggie sticks (no idea what they were).

Bangkok reminds me of a cross between NYC because of its dense population and abundant sky scrapers and Vegas since it lights up at night with turbo neon everywhere. Such an interesting place. Tomorrow we're headed to the weekend market...15,000 stalls!!!...and maybe the beach.

Sawatdee ka!

A view of Mumbai from the movie screen

Last night I saw Slumdog Millionaire, one of the best movies I've seen (if not the best). It spawned so much reflection on my part -- for me, the true test of a good movie -- but don't worry, I won't spill any themes related to the plot.

Here's a snapshot of the "safe" topics I started noodling over during the drive home:

1) what drives my passion for travel
2) when might I be ready to tackle India (uh, not soon)
3) how lucky I am to choose my adventures and then retreat to a safe, comfortable life

I thrive on traveling throughout the States and abroad because doing so offers perspective...an awareness of how my slice of life stacks up to my American peers and the rest of the world.

For example, when I went to Bangkok, I loved being able to compare its chaotic traffic to that of NYC and Rome because I had experienced each city personally. And, it was a blessing to appreciate the rarity of finding a megatroplis, jungle and temples thousands of years old within a three-hour drive span of central Bangkok.

Many Americans regard NYC as our champion city, our largest metropolis with a population hovering around 8.3 million (what's not to love?). But, we'd be remiss to acknowledge that its chaos sometimes pales to the rest of the world. For example, Mumbai boasts the largest urban population in the world at 13.7 million. I cannot imagine what it's like to navigate a city with that many people and that frantic of a pace...it's completely intimidating.

Plus, the poverty level I've read about is so unsettling -- today, slum dwellers make up 60% of Mumbai's population, which is approximately 7 million people. That's insane to process.

So for now, I'll keep my distance. You, however, need to go see the movie STAT.