Bang Bang! Part 2

Sasha:

Landing in Bangkok, we are in a different planet from where we left. There are signs everywhere, nobody pushes you.  The skytrains into the city are well labeled, intuitive, and easy to use.  Everybody is helpful.  The police are happy to take you to show you how to use the ticket kiosk.  There is not garbage everywhere!  And it is so much more green than Indian cities. We are so thrilled with the experience we almost don't notice the impending heat and humidity as the day turns from morning to noon. 

Bangkok is a city filled with street food- vendors with noodles, soups, flattened squid sheets blowing in the breeze, and great big cups of iced coffee for 50cents. Only, people don't necessarily read when they run a food cart, and the english is spotty.  And soy sauce is in everything.  And there aren't really vegetarian street carts. . . and suddenly the gluten free and veg friendly food of the US seems much more difficult. We find a veg food stall in the MBK mall, and I show them my card that says what |I can't eat, and they just sake their heads no, and I shuffle over to get a big hunk of chicken and rice because I am hungry and need to eat something. 

Hmmm, this friendly city just became more difficult.  Our first instinct was to stay away from the backpacker mecca of Kaosan Road, but you know what?  The restaurants serve veg food and speak English.  Even the pad thai stand could make it veg with no soy sauce.  :-) We found a hotel in our price range about a 7 minute walk away from Kaosan with AC and hot water. (Both are extra charges if you want them to turn it on.  However, instead of asking us if we wanted hot water, they asked us if we wanted a "hot towel" to which we answered no, then asked for "hot water" the next day.)  It is an easy neighborhood to walk to some of the wicked cool Wats (temples) which house GIANT statues of Buddha. The Reclining Buddha of Wat Pho was somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 feet long.  After our long walks, we indulge in 30 minute foot massage for $3.30.  

While walking near our hotel, we had the privilege of seeing a sign for May Kaidee's Vegetarian Cooking School, and dropped in just in time for the afternoon class. She had wheat-free soy sauce!!  We made ourselves curry paste, pad thai and peanut sauce, and tom yum soup, then came back the next morning to whip up some curries, papaya salad, and spring rolls.  The food was SOOO good. 

Also, Limbo came to join us.  It was so exciting to have a friend from home here. We did a lot of comparing notes on our experiences in India- he's run down from that country as well.  We hung out in a park talking about meditation until a Thai police officer politely told us that laying down in the park was not permitted. 

Today we are moving slowly, then catch a plane to Koh Pha Ngan.  There, we hope to sip on fruit smoothies and hang out with our friend Lisa from the UK.  

Hooray for Thailand!