Skipping Ahead

So I really will do an update with the end of the Belize trip, but let me just say it was fabulous.  We had a great time overall and our return trip was significantly less eventful than our journey there.  I did have a bit of a mishap once we returned to Atlanta.  I had been feeling sick for a few days (body aches, cough, fever) so I went to the doctor.  Turns out I also had a heart rate of 130+ bpm.  Oops.  So she put me in the hospital, worried I might have contracted some dread tropical disease.  After several days of intense antibiotics and a battery of tests (all of which were negative), I was back to normal.  The doctors concluded I probably had some viral illness but that I was ok to go home, which I did.  At least I had the ok to go to Thailand!

Which brings us to now.  On Tuesday afternoon, after a frenzy of preparations, I boarded my flight to Bangkok via Tokyo and set out on my grand adventure.  I was rather nervous about the trip itself, which in the end was silly since I slept for most of it.  I did have a rather nice meal of sushi in the Tokyo airport-- if anyone is flying through Narita in the future definitely stop at Sushi Kyotatsu and get the fatty tuna (recommendation courtesy of my dad and this month's Bon Appetit).

Yellowtail, then the tuna platter (firm, semi-fatty, and fatty)

I ended up arriving in Bangkok around midnight on Wednesday--those time changes do kinda suck.  Customs/immigration was a breeze and then all I had to do was get a cab to my hotel.  Luckily it was the middle of the night (i.e. no traffic) so we got across town pretty quickly.  Unfortunately, checking into the hotel was a bit more complicated--no record of a reservation under my name or my group's name.  Well shit.  Oh well, they just put me in a room anyway.  Guess it got cleared up eventually since I'm still here :P

Thursday was fairly uneventful--I slept most of the day and only ventured out to find some food and try to get a wifi card for my computer.  The first item of business was a success, the second not so much.  Turns out I got a SIM card for my phone, which I then had to unlock.  I did successfully unlock my phone, but now I can't seem to text, call, or use the internet with my new SIM card.  I think I need to put money on it, but I really don't know how and I keep getting text messages in Thai.  That is a project for another day.

Which brings us to today.  I had pretty large ambitions: begin by visiting the amulet market, do a food tour of Chinatown (bird's nest soup being the most desired item), and end at the MBK Center, a multi story mega-mall.  The goal was to get some cooler clothing (it is unbearably hot here), a hairdryer, and a laptop bag.

Well the day began as planned.  I did make it to the amulet market (Check out this NYT article for an interesting summary) and had a fabulous time wandering around.  I found a few amulets I liked, although I really had no idea what I was looking at.  Many people would look at these amulets with loupes and compare them to images in these vast catalogues/magazines.  It was pretty fun to watch, but I felt like a poser sifting through them.  I just got ones that looked interesting!

A view down an alley of the amulet market

Inspecting the amulets

Oh, and another thing I forgot to mention.  In addition to amulets, this area also specializes in selling used dentures.  Why on earth would anyone want those?  I honestly have no clue, but there were multiple people selling them, so it seems like there must be some demand.  Weird...

Mmmm....dentures

After shopping around the amulet market I decided to walk to Chinatown.  In theory it isn't that far away, but in practice it is rather difficult to get there, especially with the heat.  I started my trip pretty early in the morning, but Bangkok heats up pretty fast and I was already quite warm by this point (2 Thai milk teas and a Coke warm). Anyway, I digress.  I did walk to Chinatown, but not without stopping on the way to take in the sights.  The most impressive of these was Wat Pho.

Wat Pho is without a doubt one of the most impressive sights I have ever seen.  It is a massive temple sitting in downtown Bangkok and is home to a reclining Buddha statue 160 ft long.  As if the reclining Buddha isn't impressive enough, the vast grounds also feature over 1,000 other Buddhas.  It was truly awe inspiring to wander the grounds.  I felt like there was something new to be seen around every corner.

Yours truly posing on the gounds

The Reclining Buddha--160 ft long and covered in gold

 In addition to being a temple, Wat Pho is important for its role as the birthplace of traditional Thai massage.  There is a university that teaches traditional medicine and Thai massage.  Within the temple, numerous diagrams of the human body teach Thai massage therapists energy pathways important to their craft.

One of the medical inscriptions in the temple

I had a lovely time at Wat Pho, but decided I needed to head on to Chinatown.  I continued my trek in hopes of finding the bird's nest soup.  Let me just say this: I had to cross several major roads to get to Chinatown.  Crossing these roads requires equal parts daring and stupidity.  I am more than a little bit surprised to be alive right now.  However, I did make it to Chinatown in one piece.  As for finding the stalls with bird's nest soup, there I was unsuccessful.  I couldn't locate the road the stall was supposed to be on, and nobody seemed to know where it was.  So I finally just gave up.  At this point I was hot, exhausted, and ready to head back to the hotel.  I had long since scrapped the idea of going to the MBK center today--that was simply too ambitious.  So I made my way out of Chinatown to find a taxi.

Well, as it turns out the taxi acquisition was decidedly more challenging than anticipated.  At first I had trouble even flagging down a cab.  Once I got the hang of that, it turned out that no cab driver was willing to drive me back to my hotel.  With the Bangkok traffic being as bad as it is, it simply isn't worth their time to drive that far.  So after flagging down 7 different cabs and offering to pay up to 4 times the posted fare, I realized I needed a different approach.  So I decided to take a tuk tuk to the train station, take a commuter train to the old airport (conveniently near my hotel), and then take a cab to my hotel.  Success!  Although the process took several hours to complete, I did manage to make it back to my hotel none worse for the wear.  A little creativity goes a long way here it seems.

Anyway, that is all for now.  Sorry if this has been a painfully long entry, I just don't really know how to filter.  I move to a different hotel tomorrow and hopefully will have internet in the room (rather than sitting in the hallway), so that will be nice.  Also time to meet the other people on my program!  I hope you are all well, and I will update you when I can.  Later!