Bangkok I

Welcome to the South East Asia part of our trip!  Let the massages and Karaoke begin.  If anyone has any suggestions for us to sing, please let us know.  (I prefer a duet- There is no way I am getting on stage to sing alone!)

Bangkok, Thailand. What a great place to start South East Asia.  As soon as we left the airport we already felt the energy and excitement of this new country. The bright colors- pink, green and yellow cabs, and the friendly smiling faces were very welcoming. As we left the airport, we started to see many many 7-11s!  As you may know, Joey enjoys a good coke Slurpee occasionally.  Which is to say that a Slurpee is his favorite thing in the entire world. In our travels so far we have learned that if you tell  the cabs that you are here on business there is a much better chance of them taking you directly to the destination directly and not stopping at their cousins guesthouse first! So as we pass by a 7-11, Joey tells the cab that he works for 7-11 as a Slurpee tester. The driver looks impressed and we head to the Westin. As we get out of the cab, the cabbie brags to the porter at the hotel that Joey is an employee of 7-11 as if to say, this is an important guy make sure you take care of him.

 There are two very distinct parts of Bangkok- the ritzy financial district and the backpacker area. Again, thanks to our Starwood points, we stayed at the Westin, which is in the fancy part of town. so we decided to see what fancy Bangkok was all about.

The city is really amazing, with tall beautiful skyscrapers an amazing skytrain, and the buzz of crazy traffic and motorbikes.  Bangkok felt a little like New York to us, which made us feel a little at home. Even the Skytrain was packed just like the 2-3 during the morning commute. We spent the next days wondering around this part of town going to some of the largest malls in all of Asia.  The shopping centers were enormous and you could spend an entire day in the food court alone! It was great to see familiar names from Citibank (no fee ATMs hooray!) and Subway. Bangkok was an easy place like.

 There were so many new things to see being sold everywhere. Weird looking fruits, crazy looking seafood dishes and mystery meats on sticks. We went to China town one night, in search for the perfect knock-off bag of course, but all we found was never ending rows of food stalls. The sights and smells were out of this world. We visited the famous Bangkok Chabad house (it usually has 300-400 people for meals on Shabbat) which also has a restaurant which was very good.

 The days passed by quickly, and we had to decide what our next move would be, and since it was New Years, our options were very limited.  The trains and buses to both North and South of Thailand were sold out so we were lucky to get a flight to Chiang Mai and start exploring the northern part of South East Asia. 

Joseph Averbook