We flew to Bangkok from Saigon, arriving in the evening in late June. After checking into the hostel, we went straight to Chinatown to see what was going on. This was a way better Chinatown than what we saw in Saigon. At least busier and stimulating... maybe not more authentic.
We were super hungry and found a reasonable-looking restaurant with a table slightly away from the hoards on the sidewalks. I don't remember trying any of the crab dish that Anna got, but my heaping bowl of curried crab was fantastic. So began the trek to eat all the curries. The Chinese set a high bar.
The grand palace is one of the main attractions in Bangkok. It wasn't at the top of my list, but man was it worth it. Over-the-top decorative gold and precious stones, extraordinarily detailed stories painted on the walls, and of course the tiny emerald Buddha.
The classic martial art in Thailand is called Muay Thai. Allegedly this is what the king's guard practiced to protect him as he rode into battle on an elephant. We went to the big Rajadamnern Stadium to see a few fights. The crowd was mostly tourists and the announcer and hype man all spoke in English, but it was still a lot of fun and parts of it felt authentic.
They started with some amateurs and led up to a couple bigger fights later on. The stadium food was all the classics you'd find at a sporting event in the U.S., which I had mixed feelings about.
There is a giant market on the weekends where you can probably find anything you'd ever want. Clothes, produce, meat, cooked meals, drinks, art, exotic pets, and more. We spent an afternoon walking and browsing, with a little excursion to a beautiful, empty, huge park a couple blocks away.
Our last full night we found a spot with tasty craft beers (this was a rare find after nearly every beer in Vietnam was the same lager) and a view over the river. For how much people talk about Bangkok being a wild and crazy city, it was shockingly easy for us to find little spots of quiet. What only one person mentioned to us before we arrived is that almost nobody honks horns in Thailand. This was the opposite of Vietnam, where a horn is just a "heads up, I'm here" or "I'm coming around the corner," so it was a jarring-but-pleasant adjustment.
After sunset we headed inland and found a slightly-busier but still chill street where we got another beer (yeah, this is a theme) at a little restaurant. The server/hostess/owner(?) was very sweet and joined in laughing when the bar was watching people narrowly miss stepping in some dog poop on the street. One guy stopped to look at his phone, inches away from it, and every time he shuffled his feet there were exclamations from the bar crowd. We tried to warn some people but he had his headphones in.
The next night we caught a sleeper train north to Chiang Mai. The private cabins book up quick, so we were out with everyone else (but at least in the nicer beds or on the nicer train). Like our other train, I slept alright but Anna was over it by the time we arrived.
