Wow, what a whirlwind the last week has been! We left on a red eye out of Australia Monday evening. After our learning experience on bargain airlines on our Jetstar flight into Oz, we were better prepared for Air Asia. We purchased extra kgs for our luggage, upgraded our seats and decided, since we were planning on sleeping through both flights, to forego ordering any meals in flight. We chose to spend a little extra to upgrade our seats to the “quiet zone” and it was worth EVERY PENNY! Since most people choose either not to spend the money or just don’t realize it’s available, we each ended up with a row of 3 seats to ourselves. After a short layover in Kuala Lumpur we arrived in Bangkok around 8am. As we suspected, our hotel room wasn’t ready so we left our bags at the hotel (The Dream Hotel) and set out for our first foray onto the city.
Luckily, our hotel is in the neighborhood that our friend Tom used to live in and he gave us a list of places to look up. After the flight our first stop was for mani/pedi’s and massages. What a great way to recover from a long flight! Tom’s next recommendation was a little dive of a “restaurant” that serves the best crispy duck. As usual he was spot on – the duck was fabulous! Back at the hotel the room was ready for us and we were ready for a nap.
Around 6pm we hopped on the subway to Bangkok’s famous Chinatown. It was a bustling swirl of color, and smells and crowds. We wandered the streets for about an hour and decided it was finally time to eat…
no we did not try the bugs!
Finally, after roaming the streets for a few hours we decided it was time to head back. Since we we more than a little turned around and weren’t sure we could find the subway we hired a tuk-tuk for the ride home.
The next morning we headed out to see the Grand Palace. We hopped onto the Skytrain, connected to the subway and finally boarded a riverboat ferry to the Old City. As we started across the street towards the palace we we stopped by the inevitable tuk tuk driver offering to take us to all the sights and sit and wait while we wandered around and took photos for a mere 500 baht. We decided it seemed worth it, so we climbed in.
First stop was the sitting Buddha followed by the Grand Bhudda followed by a “short stop” at a jeweler in 
between…it seems that shop owners offer the tuk tuk drivers fuel vouchers to bring potential customers to them. Since we were just touring the city with no real schedule, we decided to go along for the ride. After the Grand Bhudda we stopped at the tailor to have some clothes made – cause that’s what you do in Thailand, right?? All the while James, our driver, sat and waited…
After our busy day, we decided to have a simple dinner. We walked down to the grocery store (again recommended by Tom) along the same route we had taken the following morning, but at night the scene is completely different. After dark, the city street transforms into a night market. Every available wall space is converted into an open air 
stall selling every tchotchke and food you could ever imagine (and some you never even knew existed). We finally arrived at the store and ate at the “lunch” counter. The food was inexpensive but DELICIOUS!
