17th January: Bangkok, Thailand

Today was a quiet day as we adapted to hectic Bangkok. We walked out into the heat of late morning, down the side streets filled with noisy souped-up tuk-tuks and oversized cars. One thing I’d failed to appreciate until arriving in Bangkok is that Thailand is left-hand drive. Come to think of it, that elephant in Udon Thani was walking on the left! Crossing the main road required walking up and a down a steeply-staired bridge to get across to the street markets in front of the seemingly endless line of shopping centres. I guess shopping centres are popular because they’re well air-conditioned and comfortable. We found a really quiet one with comfy seats to sit for some delicious tea and coffee.

Not wanting to venture very far, we picked up some falafel wraps and sticky rice with banana and taro from the street stalls outside and headed back to chill and catch up with washing and research. By the time we popped back out for dinner, it was dark, and every single light was surrounded by hundreds of moths.

This district seems to have a large south Asian population, and it was to one street lined with Indian restaurants that we walked around the corner to. This gave call-backs to earlier parts of the trip. Every place had guys blocking our path and trying to get us into their restaurants, as had been the case on the south Asian food floor we’d been to in the ‘mansions’ of Hong Kong. Eventually, the place we settled on was a branch of the same chain we’d been to in Doha, one of a few dozen the have worldwide. Both of the ones we’ve been to have been on seemingly random backstreets, so we’re not sure how we managed this! I had a delicious parotta plate with two breads and a creamy curry. And Kaja? Masala dosa, of course!

Getting back through a market was absolute chaos. It was certainly one way of being welcomed to Bangkok!