Bangkok, one more time

From Manila, I flew back to Bangkok. In need of fluffy towels and air conditioning, I cashed in on some of my hotel points to stay at the Le Meridien. Great for rest and recuperation, but not particularly good for encouraging myself to get out and do some sightseeing. Oh, well, I suppose sometimes my inner princess-and-the-pea needs a few days to herself.

One of my big adventures in Bangkok was getting my hair cut. Ever since the Milan Euro-mullet incident of 2002 (I still owe Kristina big time for holding my hand through that one), I've been hesitant to entrust my hair to strangers, especially ones who don't speak English. However, I was beginning to resemble Cousin It, so the time had come to take action. A Thai friend from Scripps, Ten, recommended a salon and I ended p with a very nice, non-mullet 'do.

Having gotten the Western-food cravings out of my system during my visit to Manila, I was pretty excited to get back to Thailand...home of the best street cart food in the world (at least in my humble opinion). I went directly for the fried pork with chilies and basil leaves. You want spicy? Yes, please. About two bites in, I was cutting one of the chilies and managed to squirt myself in the eye with chili juice, Naturally, my eye started watering like crazy. The girls at the food stall took this to mean that I had gotten myself in over my head with the spicy food, so they proceeded to shove glasses of water at me whilst I attempted the pantomime squirting chili in my eye. After lots of animated gesturing by both parties, I gave up, downed the 3 glasses of water and wandered off, half blind, in search of a bathroom.

So there you have it: I was happy to be back in the land of amazing food, but already missing the ease of communication in the Philippines.

-Julia


Fruit at the market


Food stall madness


A slight step up from the backpacker guesthouses in Asia