Free Trip To Bangkok, Thailand.

My flight to Uganda gave me around 18 hours between flights with which to explore Bangkok (eight hours on the way there, nine on the way back). Awesome. I didn't really plan this trip - no Lonely Planet or anything - so I just sort of wandered about, occasionally peering at a very confusing tourist map provided at the airport.




The Emerald Buddha. The thing was so huge I couldn't fine my way in. At one point I found a gate that was open but when I inquired as to whether I could get in, the armed guards just kept repeating "No", so I left.


The Democracy Monument. I think.


The view from the back seat of a "tuk tuk". I think that's what it's called...those little three-wheeled go-carts with roofs that were made famous in the stellar Thai martial arts blockbuster, ONG BAK.






I sneaked through a random gate into a compound which turned out to be a monestary for monks in training. Bright orange-robes and shaved heads everywhere. Also, they were all walking on air, and bending spoons with their minds.


This is Azusa The Awesome. She sat beside me on the bus ride into downtown Bangkok (this is on the way back to Japan). We got to talking and it turns out she studied at a little college in BARRIE, Ontario for a year a few years ago!! Holy crap! That's (relatively) close to my hometown, BADEN. She asked me where I was from:

"Toronto.... well, outside Toronto. Do you know Kitchener-Waterloo? You DO?!! Just outside there." If she would've known Baden I would've probably had a heart attack.

Turns out that a) she speaks excellent English, b) is really cool, and c) also killing time before her flight back to Tokyo at midnight. So we decided to hang out and take the town by storm.

"Taking the town by storm" meant eating a lot of excellent food. One of these foods was this awesome juice stall which featured giant aloe vera and dragon fruit (below).



Also, street vendor-style pad-thai. So delish.
The last thing we did just before we cabbed back to the airport was get a Thai massage.

There are lots of Thai massage places in Khao San district (which is tourist central) but we decided on one that had the best pictures posted out front. We had to go up 3 flights of stairs and I was kind of wary about what kind of establishment we were getting into but we were in for a pleasant surprise. A big air-conditioned room with beautiful dark wood floor and about 8 crisp white mats on the floor with a perfect pillow on each. We ordered half an hour of foot massage and half an hour of Thai massage. Total bill: like $8 per person. It was absolute bliss. The PERFECT thing after (for me) 20 hours of travel which started on a dusty bus in Uganda. Thai massages are insanely awesome - especially if you get them in Thailand where they're dirt cheap.


Azusa at the new Bangkok airport - maaasssive and sparkly clean.

Pretty much the best urinal signage I have ever seen.

So there you have it. Awesome free side trip.