Day 2

Bangkok is hot, humid and full of interesting sounds (traffic, Mynah birds, Thai chatter) and smells (lemongrass, garlic, roasting chicken). I love the fresh-squeezed orange juice carts and watching people talking on their cel phones from the back of motorcycles taxis. Flowers, koi ponds and beautiful trees are everywhere. Orchids seem to grow right out from cracks in the sidewalk.
I’m trying to practice using a new Thai word or phrase every day. Yesterday was Thank You: “Kawp Koon KAAAAH”, and today I added Hello: “Sah Waht Dee KAAAAH” (KAAAH is always at the end of whatever you say, if you’re a woman. If you’re a man, everything ends with “Krahp”.) Hello is always accompanied by a little bow with the hands pressed together, fingertips near your nose.
Today I took a 20 minute walk from my guest house to the biggest park in Bangkok, called Lumphini Park. It is probably the best park in the whole world. It feels like a 20-ring circus, with hundreds of Thai people out taking group classes in yoga, tai chi, fan dancing, aerobics, etc. in the shade of flowering trees. Also, can you believe that Thais speed walk and jog? There are two big lakes in the park where you can rent canoes or paddle boats in the shape of swans. They even have a senior citizens center with special old people aerobics (to the tune of Thai classical music) on the grass. Everywhere are people picnicing and selling sliced fruit. It took me about 45 minutes to walk around the whole park.
I took the skytrain back to my guest house to take a shower (boy is it hot here!). About one block from the guest house is the canal speed boat pier. I took a long, fast canal boat that cut right through town much faster than a taxi could. It had a collapsable roof on springs so that we could slink right under the bridges. We passed rows and rows of houses made of rusty tin on stilts over the canal, and I watched the people hanging their laundry in the sun and feeding their caged birds.
The boat took me to the Banglampoo area of town, which is where all the tourists (and sex workers) are. Here is the famous Khao San Road where the beginning of the book The Beach takes place. I had some Pad Thai noodles and an iced coffee while watching the Thai cheerleading competition on TV and listening to teen boys singing “You are my sunshine” on the karaoke machine. More adventures to come…