Bangkok, Thailand

Chatuchak Market from above

Back home again.  Bangkok still feels like home.  Today we took the Bus 3 to the Chatuchak Market, the Weekend Market, which is supposed to take you three days to explore.  In doing so we went past Phahayoltin Rd, the Rd my family used to live on.  I winked at the Victory Monument as I went by, I think.  It seemed smaller.

We’re staying at the Bluefin Guesthouse, where we’ve stayed for two other weeks throughout the course of this adventure, and has begun to feel like home.  We know the other residents, they have a storage unit where some left-behind gear was stored, and we have our favorite noodle vendors out front.  Last night a big group of us went to the barbecue restaurant where we’ve gone twice before, Thai-style with a charcoal grill set up in the center of the table.  You pick up meat and poach or grill it at the table, making a broth with seafood and vegetables and tofu or whatever else you find at the buffet.  I try not to think about what my travel doctor would say about all that room-temperature chicken.

Here internet is fast, fast enough for video, so we’re plunged back into the realm of YouTube videos.  But I love Bangkok.  Whenever we met travelers who had spent a significant amount of time in Thailand, they said their favorite place was Bangkok.  Cheapest?  Also Bangkok, Khrung Thep, the City of Angels.

We buy fruit from the trustworthy vendors and use the kitchen—ice in the freezer and in our glasses.  The table out front feels like the front step.  I keep thinking this time in Bangkok we’ll visit all the temples we’re supposed to, see all the sights, troll the neighborhoods.  Somehow we’ll be able to evade Bluefin’s gravitational pull.