February 12-19, 2019, Bangkok, Thailand

It was time to go back to Bangkok. At 9 a.m. we got on a small boat which brought us to a bigger boat and then we finally left at 10:30 because some douchebag was late. We got the good seats at the back of the boat that time though. Then, we were shunted onto a nice van where we met a weird Australian professor getting dental work done in Malaysia. I wasn't too sure about that, if you're a big fancy professor why don't you have a dental plan in Australia? Anyway, the van brought us to Hat Yai train station, where we quickly bought tickets and fruit for dinner, a little apprehensive of the ongoing political violence.

I had been reading about the terrorist attacks in the south of Thailand lately. People and even monks had been killed every day. When we arrived back in Bangkok we went back to Loftel Station to see our favourite front desk clerk, Troy.

February 13, 2019
We dropped our bags off and I think we took a nap. We went for an early dinner at Varassa which was about an hour walk from our hostel. I wasn't too impressed, but the restaurant was clean and at least I had a pretty good curry and bael juice/tea.

February 14, 2019
My parents booked a tour which went to the bridge over the river Kwai and Erawan Park, but left very early in the morning. I had a plan to meet with Darren of the former Travel Rants website. We had been colleagues from before when I worked at TravelPod and I always wanted to meet the man behind all the rants. So finally, our travel paths crossed and it worked out. The only thing is I forgot it was Valentine's Day. A little awkward. We met at the mall and then grabbed some fish balls and hot dogs and proceeded to a little park. It had a really nice long rectangular lake which I thought was beautiful and serious cyclists seemed to agree. They made many laps around the oval while we got drenched in the sprinkler next to our bench.


Then, we went to Lumphini park to have peanuts and beer and before I knew it, it was time for Darren to go back to work.

He was doing software testing for an American company, so he worked at night. I went back and took a nap and my parents probably came back at 8 or 9 p.m. and then they went to bed too.

February 15, 2019
We wanted to see a Thai dance show, so we bought the expensive tickets for the Hanuman thing at the royal theatre. In the day, we went to buy some stuff at the supermarket we saw the night before. On the way back, we stopped at the Bangkokian museum, which was really nice and a breezy way to spend the morning.

We walked over to the theatre and had some street noodles with bright pink sour soup. We also picked up some steam buns for dessert and ate them while watching people do tai chi in the park.

The show was pretty good, but the subtitles died in the middle of it. Twice. And no one moved a finger to try and fix them. So, I got up and asked for a refund. I was surprised they gave it to me, I was expecting a partial refund. 2400 baht was too much to pay for broken subtitles. We went home a little disappointed but also glad we saw a small part of the show for free.

February 16, 2019
We went to Chatuchak market in the morning, where I bought a huge bag of purple sweet potato chips and mom finally got her coconut ice cream.

It was way too hot and crowded, so we bought some fruit and ate it in the adjoining park instead. We were exhausted so we went back to the hostel and had another nap. We walked slowly to Sky View 360 where we were having mom's second birthday dinner. Ha. Reiko and Masao were supposed to meet us there, but they didn't see us until the last second. We had gone down two floors to get some drinks before dinner and the hostess failed to tell them we were already there.

Then we had an overpriced meal as we rotated around the city. Of course Reiko didn't like the meal. I guess it was too expensive but you know what? You don't go to these kinds of places for the food.

I also learned that she never takes the subway. But I couldn't for the life of me ascertain why, and she wasn't going to make the effort to translate it for me.

February 17, 2019
We took the first train of the day to Ayutthaya. Reiko and Masao surprised me when they actually showed up at 5:30 a.m. for departure time. They followed us around the rest of the day. We invited them, but didn't think they'd actually come because their hotel was so far away. But then, Reiko announced she would not ride a bicycle. Ugh. So we had to lumber around in the extreme heat all because of her. Shouldn't have invited them. Again.

The ruins were really great, I thought. They reminded me a bit of Angkor Wat. But alas, we really needed a bike to get around the huge area.




We had some really cheap and sad noodles for lunch and of course Reiko loved that meal. I bought some rubber boots and then we met a Canadian lady who sent us on a wild goose chase to a non existent floating market. After we gave up looking for it, I bought a pineapple and a slushee and all was right with the world again.

Mom and dad sat down at a hostel which had a clear sign saying that the restaurant was closed. They ordered two pops anyway. When I came back from the store I was bewildered about why they would do that, and then I sat down with them anyway, completely spent. I put my boots down beside me and then forgot them there. It started drizzling a little bit and it was so long since I'd seen the rain, I guess I just panicked. It's too bad, those were nice boots for five dollars.

While we were waiting for the train back to Bangkok, some students asked us to do a tourism survey. After I finished, we exchanged details and the students invited me to come back after my parents went back home. Of course I agreed. It seemed like forever until our train made it back to Bangkok. We watched as Reiko repeatedly readjusted her reclining seat. "There's always a problem isn't there?" my mom said. I sighed and knew that she finally understood my pain.

Once back in Bangkok, we bought some street food, including papaya salad and went straight to bed. Troy even gave us some ice and plates without us asking for it. Whatta guy, that Troy.

February 18, 2019
It was mom's birthday and therefore, time for them to go. Our dorm roommate had already left and woke us all up in the process. He couldn't pack up the night before, of course, he had to make a huge racket with his plastic bags and tent he had erected around his bed. Ugh.

I left my parents at Makkasan station confident they could make it back home on their own. For me, I wasn't sure what to do for the rest of the five days I had left. I sat down in the metro mall and dcided to check in to my hostel and meet Liz the following day. She had an overnight layover in Bangkok, so I tried to plan something for us to do. I wanted to save a few baht, therefore my hostel was shitty. Only 107 baht doesn't get you much, so I can't complain.

It was a Monday and that meant all the air conditioned museums were closed. I decided to go to a temple with amazing murals downtown. There happened to be a service in progress, so I sat down with everyone else and closed my eyes. I know you won't believe me but I had an out of body experience. I felt like my body was floating in an endless abyss and my consciousness was completely somewhere else. That chanting stuff really works. Or else the heat and dehydration were getting to me. One or the other.

Another thing open on Mondays was the golden mountain. A strange collapsed stupa that had been rebuilt as a mountain many times over in the last 200 years. I climbed to the top to see Bangkok all around but it didn't compare to the tower a few days before.

I went to another temple. This time it was the one the king had been ordained as a monk at. Pretty interesting I guess.

At that point I was starving. I found another slurpee and an onigiri and a riverside park. All was well for the day.

I went home, picked up some curry in a bag on the way, but then found out there was no kitchen at the hostel. Even though a shared kitchen was clearly stated on booking.com. I ate my curry out of the bag. The guy at the front desk told me to buy a bowl at 7-11. I was lucky I had my own spoon.

February 19, 2019

I waited most of the morning for Liz to message me about the plans for that night. I got up very slowly and ate another bowl of the amazing soup just outside the hostel that I had the day before. It had bean noodles along with blood cubes, pork and chicken feet. This time I noticed the woman making the soup remembered I didn't like chicken feet, so my soup was chicken feet free. What service.

I went over to the canal part of Bangkok to see the "artist house", but I wasn't feeling it, so I took a quick bus over to examine the royal barges.


I was pretty lucky I thought, because a team of about 15 artists were refurbishing the fleet. They were hand gluing small pieces of coloured mirrors and gold leaf onto the dazzling vessels. I didn't want to think about how many hours of labour it would take to complete that project.

I made it back in time to catch Liz at the airport online, she was just getting ready to board. We made a plan to meet at the light rail station and then go up to the top of Baiyoke tower. It was really busy up there because there was a full moon and also a Buddhist holiday. We chatted and went around the revolving observation deck probably four or more times.


After coming down, we tried to find somewhere to eat and have a few drinks. The street food was too expensive around there and I wasn't that hungry anyway, so I decided to wait until we got to the blues club. Turns out it was closed because of the same Buddhist holiday that caused the tower to be full of Asian ladies dolled up in ill-fitting dresses they must have bought on Taobao.

So then we wandered around hungry. Liz was sure we'd find some bar open somewhere, but I wasn't. Last time I was in Bangkok there was an election and the same thing happened to me. No drinking anywhere, period. But of course, I let her have her dream. I followed her around until midnight. Finally she gave up and we bought snacks at 7-11 instead. We walked back to my hostel and went straight to bed. It was a nice night for a walk anyway.