Day 13 Bangkok, Thailand!

On our first day in Bangkok (after a late arrival last night at 2am China time) we woke up at 10:30 am and by then it was already too hot (90 degrees) to go to the Palace and other sights that require you to wear long pants and shirts that cover your shoulders/arms.

We found a cute breakfast spot and I had Phat Thai and Ty had curry vegetables with rice.  It cost about $10USD for the meal, which also included a sickeningly sweet green soda and a large Singha beer.  

Trying to acclimate to the hot, muggy weather (it was overcast most of the day) we saw a pavilion, walked along the river, checked out an old fort, made it to the Palace grounds and were absolutely wiped.

Long Tail Boat

We hopped into a tuk-tuk/cab and zoomed back to the hotel, where we changed some money into the local baht, purchased a large container of water and snacks and tried to get beer but were denied as from 2-5 pm convenience stores can't sell alcohol.

Tyler braved the heat after 5pm and got us some extra large beers, which we enjoyed on the rooftop of our hotel, watching a smoggy sunset take place.  There was also a hot tub up there but I had a hard time comprehending when I would use it as even at 6pm it was still 82 degrees.  

Tipsy, we headed across the street from our hotel to a spot recommended by Lonely Planet, May Kaidee's Vegetarian Thai restaurant.  I wondered if we had made the right choice when we saw that most of the other patrons had the same travel book.  

We ordered a Massaman curry and a Green curry with rice and were actually pretty disappointed at how long the food took and how small the portions were compared to other places.  The Massaman curry unfortunately wasn't anything to write home about (our local place Thai Flavor does it phenomenally well) and Ty's dish was about the same.  Thankfully the notoriety of this restaurant hasn't inflated the prices as our meal was still pretty cheap at 190 baht (approx $6USD) including a water and a Diet-Coke.

Next we wandered south, to the famed Khao San Road, where the boozing/pretty boys/markets are supposedly happening any day of the week.  Ty had been lamenting his lack of tank tops in the hot weather (you heard it here first!) so we stopped into a department store and he found a $5USD tank top to wear...little did we know that in minutes we would be surrounded by hundreds of tank tops with hilarious Engrish sayings for less than $3USD each!  

There were also fake Ray-bans ($3 USD), lady-boys, scorpions and grasshoppers to eat (10 baht for a photo), food carts cooking up phat thai in minutes, and tons of bars and hawkers encouraging you to try their shisha and cocktails.  We ran the gauntlet a few times to get the lay of the land and chose an Irish pub Mulligans for our first drink (a mojito that was actually good!) and then checked out an upstairs bar called Roof, that had amazing live music.  It was one Thai musician playing guitar and singing and the other guy playing a drum (it looked like a box...?) and their tunes ranged from U2 to Eagle Eye Cherry to Bob Marley.  It was an awesome vibe so we stayed there for the next hour until we got tired and after grabbing a chocolate dipped cone from McD's we headed for home!

Roof Bar!