Hadas Kuznits Video Diary

Cheap food and massages

<

Oh yeah, and there are some Buddhist Temples here, too.

Bangkok is one crazy city. I can see why people come here from all over the world. There’s something for everyone — parties, meditation, temples, great food, great atmosphere — and I’ve heard there are great beaches in this country of Thailand too, which I’ll hopefully discover a little later on in my trip.

We arrived at our hotel around 10:00 last night and we actually got a room a couple doors down from T&E. Left them a note on the door and heard them coming in as we were getting ready to go out and walk around the main drag, Khao San Road.

The girls were in for the night as Allison and I looked around.

Bangkok was hopping! People selling EVERYTHING right on the street… and it’s CHEAP!

The exchange rate is about 34 Bat to the US Dollar. It’s not an even number so it’s a little hard to get used to. Luckily, Allison is walking around with her calculator in hand.

The first sticker shock I got was the cost of street vendor Pad Thai. Yes, I finally got adventurous and tried the cooked street food, against the recommendations of my travel medicine doctor. It’s okay though, she gave me antibiotics in the event an emergency.

Well, it costs 20 Bat… 25, if you want it with egg. That’s under 75 CENTS!!!!!!!!

Walking around there is every kind of food you can imagine. I’ve been adventurous; the only thing I really won’t try are the friend insects. Allison pointed them out to me and I was a little grossed out… but not too grossed out to take a photo!

I’m also hearing A LOT of Hebew on the streets of Bangkok. Israelis are known for vacationing in Thailand after they finish serving in the army. I didn’t realize just how much they’ve taken over this city until now. There are so many israelis here, even some of the city’s billboards are written in Hebrew instead of Thai.

After a dinner of street food, we went right to bed. We were so beat.

The next day, after an extensive meeting with a local travel agent, the two of us made it over to the Red Cross snake farm where they extract venom for medicine. We saw a crazy snake show where I thought those snakes were gonna bite off the heads of the little kids on the front row.

But we all forgot about the viciousness of those snakes at the end of the show, when the handlers let us all pose with them for pictures.

Then it was off to Wat Po to see the reclining Buddah and across the river to Wat Arun for sunset, which we sort of didn’t catch because they closed the site before we could take the steps up to the top.

We came back to the city center for some more cheap street pad thai… and then relaxed with $3 foot massages for 30 minutes.

There are massage signs EVERYWHERE here in Southeast Asia, and it’s cheap.

After our massages, Allison and I decided to take a massage class, which was actually sort of wierd. It was in the same room where people were getting real massages, not at a proper school or anything. I wasn’t really catching on very well, so my teacher just sort of gave me a massage instead. She didn’t speak very good English, the only thing she really knew how to say was, “oh, it’s good!” so she couldn’t really instruct me.

Allison was making friends with her masseuse. I heard them counting to ten in Thai. I guess Allison was making the most of her class — learning massage AND numbers all in one!

We walked back down to Khao San Road for a little more shopping and each had a local beer. (Beer’s not my drink of choice, but Allison insisted.) It actually wasn’t bad. We got two different beers, but they both tasted the same to me.

Well, I’m so tired right now! Gonna head back up to the room. We have to pack our stuff now because we’re leaving EARLY in the morning tomorrow. We’ll check out and then get picked up with our bags to go see the floating market and some other stuff. Then it’s off to catch up the girls in Chiang Mai in the North!

This entry was posted on January 15, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.