Bangkok, Thailand (Part 1)

Our flight from Hanoi was a quick two hours and we landed in the larger and newer of Bangkok's two airports (BKK). We were excited to be back in Thailand and excited to explore Bangkok. Most travelers in Southeast Asia start their journeys here, so it was kind of funny that we had been in the region for over three months and hadn't visited yet. We grabbed our bags and headed to the train station where we purchased a token and boarded the train into the city to find our hostel. As we looked out the window of the train, we had a serious moment of shock seeing how clear and blue the skies were. We knew that there was a lot of air pollution in Vietnam, but we had gotten so accustomed to it that we hadn't realized how long it had been since we had seen a true blue sky. We got off the train and walked the rest of the way to our hostel which was located on the southwestern edge of the Siam neighborhood which made it a short walk to Chinatown and a short train ride to Old Town. We checked into our largest shared dorm to date (8 beds- but with a nice private and spacious "pod" feeling to each bunk), relaxed, and grabbed Pad Thai for dinner at a local restaurant to officially celebrate being back in Thailand. It was delicious, and reminded us how much we adored Thai Food (sorry Vietnam, your food if great ,but Thai food really has our hearts). After dinner, we walked down Chinatown's main road, Yaowarat. Chinatown was lit up like Las Vegas and bustling with people and vendors with food stands taking over the sidewalks. We loved the energy, and were excited that we would be back in the neighborhood in a few weeks during the Chinese New Year celebrations. We treated ourselves to two Yaowarat Toasted Buns for dessert since the stand was really popular and they looked delicious. One was filled with chocolate and the other egg custard, and we devoured them. We headed back to the hostel and called it an early night so we could rest up for exploring the next couple of days.

The next day we had a chill morning and ate the hostel's "breakfast" (toast and jam....not very exciting, but we're backpackers so we don't turn down free food) and planned our next few days. We would be back in Bangkok in a few weeks with our friend Sam, so we wanted to wait to see some of the more iconic attractions with her. We decided to hit up the malls, since Bangkok is famous for having some of the biggest and best shopping malls in the world. We took a leisurely 40 minutes walk to the mall area so we could also see some of the local neighborhoods on the way. We were impressed by how many huge and new buildings Bangkok has, especially in this neighborhood. We arrived to our first mall, centralwOrld, which is the 10th largest mall in the world (Mall of America is ranked 12th)! The mall has two skyscrapers coming out the north and south sides of the building and in the middle the mall itself covers seven floors. We walked into the fancy and (thankfully) air conditioned monstrosity, and saw some unique stores interspersed with familiar places like Auntie Anne's, Columbia, and Nike, but we bypassed these for now since we were focused on finding lunch. We sat down at Thong Smith, a restaurant we had read about on Reddit to to try Thai long boat noodles. These noodles are known for having a rich, flavorful broth, traditionally thickened with a bit of cow or pig blood. They were traditionally served from boats on canals, hence the name. The dish was very flavorful and delicious, especially the broth. We really enjoyed it and chose not to focus too hard on the blood part.

After lunch, we browsed the mall and walked in and out of different shops. Nothing really caught our attention except for how much more expensive everything was compared to America (since the merchandise in these stores are actually "real" and not things you can haggle for like in the street markets). We did walk into H&M and got a kick out of the fact that it had a "karaoke and music studio" room in the middle of the store, with instruments and all, but unfortunately nobody was using it. We purchased a couple small and cheap souvenirs, but otherwise walked out empty handed. We started our walk back, but then couldn't resist jumping into Siam Paragon, another huge mall located really close to centralwOrld. This mall was a little more higher end, so while it was fun to walk around, we spent even less time here and were getting a little "malled out" by this point. We walked slowly back to the hostel, but couldn't resist stopping in Siam Square on the way, which was sort of like an outdoor mall. We also stumbled upon a pop-up second hand market that spanned four blocks and even had a DJ at the end of the market. We enjoyed poking through the vintage finds, which even included a Green Bay Packers sweater and a Target West Virginia wind breaker.

We finally arrived back to our hostel, and we relaxed before walking to Chinatown for dinner. This hostel was pretty funny because no matter what time of day it was, there was always someone asleep in the dorm. We assumed someone was always fighting off jetlag from an international flight, and let it be. What we had les forgiveness for was someone in the dorm who brought McDonalds in not once but TWICE. We never saw the culprit, but we smelled the remains of their choice for a while. That evening, we walked back along Yaowarat Road in Chinatown and jumped in line at a restaurant we'd passed the day before that looked good. The line moved fast and we were able to get a table within 5 minutes. For dinner we had crispy pork over rice and crispy pork rolled noddle soup. Both were amazing, especially the soup which was in a rich broth full of black pepper. We headed back to call it an early night, exhausted from our long day at the malls.

The next day we had a relaxing morning and then headed out to walk all the way through Chinatown to Old Town Bangkok. We walked further than we had before through Chinatown and we saw a lot of stores and stalls selling red and gold items in preparation for the Chinese New Year. Along the walk, we stopped and grabbed a delicious steamed pork bun from a street vendor to hold us over. We eventually reached Ong Ang canal which had many market stalls and food vendors set up in the pedestrian walkway along the canal. We found a shady stall along the canal with the promising name "Pad Thai Grandmother" where we ordered an incredible lunch of holy basil pork with a fried egg and shrimp Pad Thai. The food lived up to its name, and it was easily one of the best Pad Thai's we'd had!

After lunch, we continued our walk and finally made it to Bangkok's Old Town where many of its palaces and temples are located in this area. The first temple we walked passed was Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan (wat a mouthful lol). This temple complex is huge and colorful with a giant reclining Buddha that we were able to glimpse as we walked by the outer walls, but we didn't go in to this one since we wanted to come back with Sam. We walked to the the bank of the Chao Phraya River and saw the golden temple of Wat Arun towering across the river. We then continued our walk north past the walls of the Grand Palace and The Temple of the Emerald Buddha which had many buildings covered in gold and emerald. After all of this walking, we needed a break and a beer so we made a pit stop on the famous (or infamous) Khao San Road. This small road is only about two blocks long, but it known for being a backpacker hub, with cheap accommodation, food, and tons of nightlife. We intentionally didn't want to stay near here, because it's not our vibe, but we figured we had to pay it a visit. We grabbed a Chang and Leo beer at a outside patio and enjoyed people watching for a while. We were there during the day, so we didn't get to see it at its craziest, which was just fine with us. After our break, we walked to the nearest train station and and went back to the hostel. We ventured out one more time to grab dinner at a nearby restaurant where we had yellow curry and then headed straight to bed.

One our last day in Bangkok for now, we decided to explore more of the Siam neighborhood. We stopped in a restaurant and grabbed pork satay sticks and more long boat noodles for lunch. We didn't have much else we wanted to do, so we thought we might as well go see some more malls! We took a leisurely walk through MBK Center, another large mall next to the Paragon. Then we walked back to centralwOrld and headed up to the mall's movie theater to catch a movie. Gladiator II was playing, so we bought tickets and enjoyed watching it in the comfortable seats. The movie was good and it mad us think back to how far we had come when we first watched the original Gladiator in our apartment in Rome at the start of the trip! For dinner, we walked around the mall's food court which was almost an entire floor of the mall. Melissa got a Korean bowl and Carson got Khao Soi (our first lesson that it's much better in northern Thailand). We walked back to the hostel and packed for our early bus and boat ride that would take us to Koh Tao in the morning.

It was nice to be back in Thailand, and our introduction to Bangkok was a good one. We took it easy, ate good food, and explored a good chuck of the city on foot. We looked forward to coming back to the city in a few weeks with Sam, but in the meantime felt ready to head south and soak up the sun on the famous Thai islands.