Our last day in Chiang Mai, we headed over to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, which is the biggest temple there. It was amazingly huge and gorgeous. We went up the huge stairs onto the mountain and looked down onto the city. It was so gorgeous and hard to describe, so here is a picture:
After, we headed to a local park and hung out by the waterfalls. Before leaving, we got some food at our hotel and headed over the Bangkok.
Our host, Suparp, picked us up from the airport and took us to the apartment. He was a very nice, older Thai man who told us he went to university in Germany and was retired. He lived in a house nearby the 2 units he owned in the building, which helped fund his beer habit. He was very informative about the neighborhood and Thai life. It was nice because he showed us around the area where we were staying. No one really spoke English (or at least, not as much as we were used to), so it was nice to have a friendly Thai person showing us around. Suparp was Isaan, which is an area of Thailand with our favorite kind of food- larb and papaya salad (som tum). We love Som Tum Der in NYC (which also apparently has a location in Bangkok), so were pumped to try it in Thailand. It was a bit hard to find Isaan Thai food that was on par with what we had in NYC until Suparp guided us. We we shown around the local neighborhood and I literally felt like Anthony Bourdain, being shown around by a local where no tourist had gone before. Suparp and everyone making our food was shocked by our love for spiciness despite our 'Westerness'. We ate just what we wanted- chicken larb and blue crab papaya salad with 4 chili peppers each (you have to specify number of peppers rather than how generally spicy). That night was one of our favorites in Bangkok because we got to see the Thailand we were craving seeing. That really made up for not being in a main area.
Besides, we also found that Bangkok was really spread out (everything seemed to be a 30 minute cab drive away) and it was much more expensive than Phuket and Chiang Mai. Some things were shockingly expensive- not just for Thailand, but even compared to America. The city was truly huge. It was harder getting around in Bangkok because we didn't know where we were going and fewer people spoke English. We figured it had to do with the fact that in comparison, Chiang Mai and Phuket were cities with the majority of revenue coming from tourism (hence a need to speak English). On the other hand, Bangkok is a major city less reliant on tourism (need to speak English) for revenue and more spread out, so English is less prevalent. People did speak English in Bangkok, but much less often and not as well as we were getting accustomed to. We also noticed that outside of the neighborhood, we were often denied service- whether it was goods, food, or cabs. These were not one off occasions, but happened frequently. I found that pretty ridiculous and insulting. Osho was less offended. I would say for these general reasons, I liked Bangkok less than Chiang Mai and Phuket. However, things got better despite our constant frustrations in Bangkok.
After our awesome neighborhood adventure, we spent the day exploring the city. First, we headed to Chinatown and did not love it. Even getting there was unpleasant. It was hard to figure out the buses and the ride took over 1.5 hours in traffic- not what I was expecting early in morning heat as I felt myself starving. It was kind of like Chinatowns everywhere, but with more shark (food). We got fruit and snacks on the street. Then, we headed to MBK by Siam Square. It was a crappy mall of markets with low quality goods in a multiple football stadium length, 8 floor building. I was unimpressed with Bangkok at that point, only to soon realize the first 2 suggestions were bad for what we wanted to do. We walked through Siam Square (technically MBK is connected), which actually connected a ginormous collection of shopping malls, including Siam Square 1, Siam Paragon, Siam Center, Little Siam, Siam Square, Central Plaza, and about 6 more malls I can't remember. Little Siam was a little market with small stalls like the Chinatown. The sheer size of the malls were incredible. The other malls had more stores we were used to. Siam Center had boutique stores with local designers, Siam Center had mid-range stores like Gap, and Siam Paragon had luxury stores like Chanel (but also Maseradi and Patek Phillipe). Basically, each mall was the same giant size as MBK, but much better and all connected to another. The malls had movie theaters, convention centers, hotels, aquariums, and museums inside. It was pretty unbelievable how large it was. I keep writing about the magnitude of shopping, but you really had to be there. You could literally fly into Thailand, take the train to the malls, buy a suitcase, stay in the luxury mall hotels, and shop and eat all day.You can even buy luxury apartments from inside the mall. It was pretty crazy. This is something people do- shopping holidays to Bangkok where they literally just come in for a day or two to shop. That in itself blew my mind. We didn't really buy anything other than food, but did walk over 9 miles within the malls according to the pedometer on my phone because the malls were that big. From the malls, we headed over to Banyan Tree hotel, which is the tallest building in Bangkok. We headed up to the sky roof for drinks, but were unimpressed and didn't buy anything. We were recommended to go on the hotel's river cruise, which we did. However, we were also unimpressed by that. The price was too much for subpar food, so they discounted the meal. They were trying to charge us $200 for bad wine and the ilk in terms of pricing in a place that you can get massages for $6. It was clearly a rip off, but the service and cruise itself were nice because we got to see the city from a boat (p.s. we bought our own wine from the mall the river boat left from, another mall). The cruise was another semi-disappointment.
The next day, we headed to Chatachuk Weekend Market, which is the largest market in the world. I know, more shopping where we don't really buy anything. I am very happy we did most of our shopping in Chiang Mai because the prices were WAY better. Nevertheless, Chatachuk Weekend Market was just as insane as the malls. It was so big that there were maps color coding categories on things you can buy. We saw that it was true you can literally buy anything there. The first section (and my favorite section) that we stopped in was 'Creatures', where there were everything from small pigs to pygmy monkies for sale. We even saw meerkats and sugar gliders. There were many puppies and kitties. I also happened to see the biggest dogs I have ever seen- Tibetian Mastiffs, which were literally the size of horses. It was unbelievable. The market also had a ton of food and was oppressively hot, so we sweat and drank coconut water (nom). I did buy a few shirts at the market. Later, we left the market to go to Khao San Road, which is a dive-y bar, backpacker area. Everyone kept telling us to go, but we drank a few beers, ate some food, and were over it. It was kind of like the crappy part of the street I live on, so I could have skipped this part looking back. We felt bored, so asked around for recommendations of what to do/ where to go for clubs. We headed for Sukhamvit Soi KaBoi (cowboy), but our cab driver took us to the wrong area (we didn't know until someone told us we were in a different area). There were lots of people, but then we headed over to Soi Nana per another recommendation and wound up in Bangkok's version of Little Arabia. It was wicked cool. We got tea and flan at an Egyptian restaurant with giant screen tv's. There were also clubs in the area, but by that point, we were pretty tired and headed back to the Airbnb apartment. We had a weird last night in Bangkok/ Thailand.
The following day, we packed up our stuff for the plane home and got one last meal in the neighborhood of larb and papaya salad, with the addition of salted egg, sticky rice, and grilled catfish. It was our favorite meal in Thailand and even ordered a second larb. For 4 entrees, 2 appetizers, and one large beer with tip, the total price came out to less than $9 USD. Everything in the neighborhood was cheaper. We didn't have enough time to head to the floating markets or the beach at Pattaya (and cab drivers didn't understand Snake Farm), so we decided to head back into the shopping district of Siam Paragon to see a movie. I know you are thinking, why would they go to the movies on their epic vacation? The answer is because the movie theater was one of the best in all of Asia. We had a few options of ways to watch the movie of our choice and we opted for watching
Penguins of Madagascar in 4D. I literally just looked up 4D movies and it seems like there are very few large theaters that show full length 4D movies (http://www.mediamation.com/projects_x4d.html). Watching the movie literally was like being at an amusement park like Disney World. It was quite the experience and 100% worth it. The chair moved when the characters moved in the movie, water and wind spit at me, and even things smelled like they should have in the movie. I felt like I was inside the movie itself. Osho also loved both the movie and the 4D experience (includes 3D movement and had Thai subtitles in English). We walked around the mall a bit more before heading back to the apartment and then the airport.
Penguin salute from the movie 🐧
We did Bangkok to Tokyo to New York on the way back and watched a lot of movies, including One Hundred Foot Journey, This is Where I Leave You, You've Got Mail, and part of The Hangover Part 2 (because it was set in Bangkok). One Hundred Foot Journey was Osho and my favorite because of the emphasis on food. The food on the airplane was pretty gross. We landed in NY one hour early and headed for my apartment. After showering and unpacking, we got lunch at Cafe Mogador across the street. I fell asleep for 5-6 hours thereafter and then started answering emails. I feel like I am tackling a lot now that I am back. Osho also has a lot on his plate with the new apartment and other person stuff, but more should be revealed by the end of the week. I had a great time and I am happy to be back. I would say if I had to recommend places in Thailand, go to Phuket for outdoors/ relaxation only, move to Chiang Mai for the chillness and cheapness, and only go to Bangkok if you want to shop and/or party hard. Bangkok was my least favorite and Chiang Mai was my favorite. The way there was long, but worth it. Taking the long vacation was much needed. Back to real life now.
p.s. Here are the scuba diving pictures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8ag1ywpcmu3equ4/AABUmnhFLfE9ChaBjbeZS9MSa?dl=0 (woooo!)
