Bangkok

After Shanghai, I flew to Bangkok to meet my parents who had arrived there a day prior. I happened to get to my hotel room the same time my mom was there to leave me a note that they were by the pool, and I swear she hugged me so hard I thought my lungs were going to burst. I guess not seeing your daughter for five months does that to you. I changed into my swimsuit after drinking my welcome glass of lemongrass tea and most of the afternoon was spent lounging by the hotel’s pool and catching up with my parents.

When we thought it would be a bit cooler, my mom and I walked a few blocks over to take a long-tail boat ride on the main river in Bangkok and through some of the city’s canals (who knew Bangkok had so many canals?) My parents had already done this the day before, so my dad stayed back at the hotel, but my mom wanted me to see it so she accompanied me for the trip. The first thing I noticed about the canals was how filthy they were. There was literally heaps of trash floating everywhere you looked. We passed through a lot of residential neighborhoods, with a mix of nicer houses, apartment buildings and wooden huts that looked like at any moment they would collapse into the water. The nicer areas reminded me a bit of Florida’s inter-coastal waterways, but the huts on stilts brought me back to the fact of where we really were. It was a really hot day and I was shocked to see groups of boys swimming in the canals throughout the ride; they were literally swimming in the filth of the canals (always groups of boys – where were all the girls?) Another interesting thing about the canals was that parts were lined with Buddhist temple complexes, some right next door to others. We asked our guide the next day about it and she said that wealthy people used to build a temple to show their wealth, their neighbors would see that they built a temple, and the neighbors wouldn’t want to be upstaged so the neighbors would build a temple too.

That night we had drinks and hors d’oeuvres in the hotel lobby before heading to the night market, which I had heard about from some friends that had been in Bangkok in March. Because of the Red Shirt protests and the political turmoil happening in the country, tourism is at about 20% and you could definitely tell in the night market. Half the stalls were closed and the multitude of little alleyways were pretty much empty. It was nice for us that we didn’t have to fight crowds (it was already so hot in the market that I couldn’t imagine what it would have felt like had there been thousands of other people in it with us) but I felt bad for all the vendors. The market wasn’t really what I expected in that the stalls were permanent little stores, some even with air conditioning, rather than a ramshackle of booths. In one stall my mom and I stopped to do a “fish pedicure” where you put your feet and/or hands in a little pool and all these tiny fish come eat away the dead skin. My mom went first, and I was so grossed out seeing the fish attack her that I couldn’t bring myself to put more than a finger in for about 5 seconds. She said it was really weird at first, but after awhile you just kind of get used to it and it isn’t that bad. After the Dr. Fish experience, we called it a night.