Bangkok

Arrival! Waved through customs hastily- shed my winter coat and hoodie and step outside into the warmth of the hot season in Thailand. Of course my cab driver tried to convince me that he didn’t have a meter in his car and that 300 baht was a fair price to take me downtown. I put up a fight but was ultimately a bit too jet lagged and eventually submitted (I ended up overpaying by about 30 baht or $1 USD- not worth fighting about on the first day).

I watched the traffic for awhile and decided to make peace with the driver, offering him a piece of gum. He was alarmed at first as he did not understand my request and he turned around 180 degrees to face me. This sufficiently quieted his anxiety but unfortunately also caused us to creep up on a stopped van in front of us such that by the time he turned around we were already path dependent. I’m not sure how much bumper damage there was, but the impact evenly distributed the contents of my bag across the floor of the cab. As I collected my things and as we both sat watching the driver in front of us get out to assess his vehicle, my cabbie turned around and took the gum from me. The other driver glared at us and we must have looked a bit ridiculous, chewing our gum like a cud and staring vacantly in his direction. Luckily he had only a few choice words for us in a language I couldn’t understand and so we were spared. Regrettably my driver now thought we were chums and felt it was appropriate for him to get lunch by stopping at every street vendor, rolling down his window and getting some food. I was pleased when we finally arrived in Thong Lo.

Thong Lo is a nice neighborhood off of Sukhumvit (a primary artery in Bangkok well known for a variety of things).

Compared with other countries, Thailand’s road numbering system is genius. Large streets divide a city and rather than naming all of the side street individually, each side street or soi (literally “alley”) is numbered in order. The only drawback is that even sois are always on one side of the street and odd sois on the other- which can lead to some mismatches. Thong Lo is actually Sukhumvit Soi 55 (and as I mentioned it is somewhat illogically directly across from Sukhumvit Soi 38). I’ll be staying off of Thong Lo while in Bangkok- it’s a good place that has a fair amount of foreigners, good restaurant food, shopping/groceries and most importantly good street food (more on food later). Perhaps most importantly, Thong Lo is near a BTS (elevated express rail)- an ultra modern elevated train system built and operated by a Japanese company. This facility allows easy access to many areas of Bangkok- or at least gets you going in the right direction- and spares you the expense of a cab or the pain of other methods of transport in the heat.