January 22nd, 2023 😅
Well, the second night bus in three nights was awful. Luckily the driver didn’t do much honking, but it was very cold and the seats didn’t have any neck support or fold back all the way. We left around 1am, and were “woken up” (not that we were sleeping) at 530am for the border. We had to walk our panniers and bikes through the Cambodia departure gate, than on to Thailand arrival, then through Thailand customs and the Thailand military check. It was probably just under 1 km of distance, but with the bikes we kept having to circle forward and backwards to get stamps then go run our bikes around the building, then get stopped by officials who wanted us to go get a stamp and we were like “we already got one!” Oof. But we managed to get through the border unscathed and still had all of our bribe money with us!
We arrived at our hotel, and had to get laundry done. We got some cash, then went for lunch. We walked back to the hotel along the water. Max was feeling a bit sick (probably from not sleeping) so we decided to chill in the room and start booking things for the next couple of weeks. We furiously started booking planes and busses and hotels, but the wifi was terrible. We also booked a cooking class for tomorrow morning! We went out for dinner along Khao San street, which is the party area. We got panang curry which was delicious. Then we went to a cool garden bar that promised “not very loud music” and had some cool decor. We decided to go to bed early and got a banana crepe with Nutella on our way back to the hotel. Pretty delicious.
The next morning we were up early. We decided to bike to our cooking class so we could drop off our bikes immediately after at Bike Zone, which was near there. It turns out that all of our SE Asia bike training has been preparing us for Bangkok biking: the final boss. Increased challenges from previous riding included: riding on the left side of the road, the multilevel roads, and insane rush hour traffic. That would have been enough, but we were in hard mode because we had to use driving directions which wanted us to go up ramps for only cars, and the tall buildings everywhere blocked our GPS signal so I constantly had to exit and restart our navigation on the fly. It was bananas! The ride was only 12 km but my heart rate was about 130 bpm - not quite as bad as Sjaan on Ochre ridge, but certainly close. Anyway, we finally made it to the cooking class.
The cooking class was excellent. Our instructor, Koon, was so funny. She called us team Canada, and there was also team Korea, team Singapore and team Taiwan. Max was still making a bid to be the teacher’s pet by finishing her sentences, but she made fun of him and asked if he wanted to take over the class. She also commended him for his love of spice and said he must have been thai in another life. I tried to love spice too and made myself cry from the heat hahaha.
We made four dishes: pad thai, green curry, mango sticky rice and tom yum koon soup. We had to make our own coconut milk by adding water to coconut shavings and squeezing them until it was coconut milk. Koon said at home, we can just buy coconut milk but that fresh is best. She watched us all and said “okay everyone, I want you all to try your own coconut milk, and then try team Canada’s coconut milk”. Apparently we are excellent coconut milk makers. Our other classmates were so great and funny, and gave us lots of tips for foods to try or things to do.
After the class, we biked our final 8 km to bike zone to drop off our bikes. The guys are so friendly and are going to box our bikes for us, and store them until we get back from our scuba diving course. They had tons of super legit bikes for sale, and agreed to store one of our panniers too, which was full of bikes tools and things we won’t need the next few weeks. I feel really good about them, although I was sad to say goodbye to our bikes. End of an era!
Next we went to Lumpini Park and saw fish, turtles, and monitor lizards. We also saw a lizard take down a turtle. Ah! Max had a nap in the grass while I was on lizard watch. The parks in Bangkok are so incredibly beautiful and peaceful next to the bustling city.
We left and took the metro back to our hotel - we were pretty proud of ourselves for figuring it out! I would say their system is really impressive, and the signage focuses a lot on etiquette education which is nice as a foreigner.
I picked up our clean laundry, and tried to book a few more things. Our wifi in the hotel is truly abysmal. It seems like we cannot leave during the Chinese new year because everything is booked solid, so we are going to stay one more night in Bangkok and then take a night bus to Chiang Mai on Sunday. It’ll give us an extra day to recover which is also nice.
Next we went for dinner and got some pretty good street food! Then went up to a rooftop bar which had a beautiful view of the city for a night cap.
The next morning, we slept in and then got some breakfast at a funny little cafe. We walked to the museum of Siam to learn about “what is thainess”. It was sort of an exploratory exhibit, and very interactive and well done. We dressed up as thai people from a prior decade but the French tourist who took our photo really missed the mark.
We went to the flower market and then took a boat across the river to Wat Arun, a very beautiful temple. We boated back over and went to Wat Pho, which is the origin place of the Thai massage and which has the massive reclining Buddha. I really identified with that Buddha and absolutely loved wandering around the incredible Wat Pho and learning about thai massage. Max and I both had sore muscles after reading so much about massages.
We walked to another park across the road - more turtles, lizards and birds, then went to our hotel to get freshened up before we celebrate the lunar new year! We went for dinner at another street kiosk, then got a couple of more books, then went to a van bar and got a SangSom bucket and watched the West Ham game. We had fun!
This morning, we got up and went for breakfast at a little cafe which was playing nineties music videos. We headed to the Chatuchak market, which is the largest market in Asia apparently. Then we wandered over to see a free Muai Thai match, but apparently it’s been canceled since COVID. So we pivoted to walk through another park and see more butterflies. We are visiting a lot of parks and eating a lot of fresh fruit in Bangkok, which has been very nice. After a lot of walking, we went back to the hotel to catch our night bus to Chiang Mai! This should be our last night bus, thank goodness. I can’t wait to see North Thailand!
One girl on the bus mistook us for a famous tiktok couple who travel the world together - I guess #goals?
