We got into Bangkok late at night, so we went straight to the minimalist, hotel-like Chern Hostel, and then, to bed. After a subpar breakfast at the hostel the next morning, where I once again discovered that meat just doesn’t really do it for me here, we headed out.
Bangkok has everything. In the same way that every other gigantic city has everything, but different; a common Thai-lish phrase used by vendors of faux designer goods here is “same, same, but different.” It has big glossy malls, and ancient, open markets. It has museums and historic houses. It has every kind of restaurant imaginable, and some that aren’t imaginable (like a condom-themed restaurant.) It has bars, clubs, cafes, teahouses, venues, stadiums, movie theaters, and concert halls. It has a business district and a Chinatown. It has every kind of accommodation from the Mandarin Oriental to a four-dollar-a-night hostel. And it has the best public transit system we have yet come across on our trip. In addition to buses and a skytrain, this public transit system includes boats (same, same, but different). Bangkok is veined with a system of canals, a holdover from the past, when they were vital for the city’s transport system and economy. Many of them have been paved over and turned into roads, but the few that remain still serve as routes for public water buses.
Our destination this morning just happened to be close to one of the stops on Khlong Saen Saep, one of Bangkok’s oldest canals. We walked to the pick-up point and found a ticket agent. She told us it would be about ten dollars per person to ride the boat, but our pass would work all day and we could get on and off at any stop. This did not sound right to me. Thai people used these boats, and I highly doubted Thai people were shelling out ten dollars for them. I voiced my doubts to Aaron, and found another, significantly cheaper boat. When I asked the agent nearby about the boat route, though, she told me it did not go to our stop. Oh well. Maybe they just charged foreigners more. A lot of places we’ve been here have a “foreigners” price that’s higher. I shrugged and we paid up, then we hopped on the long, thin, canopied canal boat. Canal water sprayed up into the boat as we went, which I just found out was full of raw sewage, so um, YUCK. Yuck yuck yucky yuck yuck. Yuck. Excuse me while I go take three consecutive showers. Anyway, we made it to our stop, which was a short walk from our destination: the megamalls of Bangkok.
Bangkok has some massive malls. This one city has the fifth, sixth, fourteenth, fifteenth, twenty-sixth, and thirty-second largest malls in the entire world. For comparison, the Mall of America ranks forty-third. Our guidebooks had promised us prime people-watching in the Siam area, which contains three of Bangkok’s gigantic malls. We people-watched, we window-shopped, we shop-shopped. We had a fantastic time just taking it all in. Neither Aaron nor I are really the shopping types, and I don’t think a mall would usually be either of our ideas of a good time, but if there’s one place you can really get immersed in the culture of a different country, it’s its malls. We drank tea in a mall cafe across from a giant ad for men’s make-up. We passed probably fifteen different “dessert cafes.” We saw trends that were so different from ours, I’m not sure if they’re behind or ahead of us–or both. A mall plastic surgery clinic (apparently that’s a thing) had ads for some procedure that helps you have smaller hips. Beauty counters promised me rosy-white, glass skin. It was culture shock at its best. But all that same, same, but different made us hungry.
Across the street from the mall was a Taco Bell, and I’m not even a little bit ashamed to say that I dragged Aaron there. Taco Bell is my mecca. I hadn’t dared dream I would get to have it here; but there it was, my oasis in a taco desert. The tacos were a little same, same, but different as well, but they were still undeniably and reliably living más. Our stomachs full of delicious “suitable for human consumption” taco beef, we made for the skytrain.
Buying tickets for and navigating the skytrain ended up being significantly easier than the canal boats. It was clean, too, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have any raw sewage sprayed on me during the ride.
Our next stop was the Amari Watergate hotel. We had spent the evening before googling about pool parties in Bangkok. This party didn’t make the top ten list we found first. Or even the other list we found after that. But it was this weekend and none of the others were, so that made it the best. Entry was free before four, and Belvedere had set up an open vodka bar for a couple of hours. Plus, the website for the event promised “hundreds of party people.” Now, I don’t want to brag and say I’m definitely a party person, but I do regularly listen to Jimmy Buffet. But when we got there 1) the music was shitty EDM, and 2) all these squares were not in the pool. I mean, the pool was freezing, but still. What did these dorks think “pool party” meant? Aaron and I spent the next couple of hours goofing off, being the oldest people there. We were the only ones who weren’t Instagram influencers that actually got in the pool. On our giant floating swan, we sipped our vodka-sodas and accidentally photobombed the models until the vodka wasn’t free anymore. You know, like ACTUAL party people. Then, we went home.
We ordered in some really bomb pizza and watched Late Night on Netflix. It was a damn good day. I think I’m going to like Bangkok.
Hanoimoon 
A chicken acquires a precious???
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Haha. Yep. It’s on the wall in our hotel room.
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