Thailand or Bust (Day 3)

May 24th (Sunday)
Temperature High: 98 degrees

ERIC AND AUDREY GOT THEIR BAGS THIS MORNING! That was a huge deal cause as you can imagine, it set a great start to the day.

Sunday morning we headed out to find breakfast and try and figure out the public transportation to Chatuchak Weekend Market. On our way to the Skytrain, we stopped at The Landmark Hotel bakery for breakfast.

They recommended getting to the market early because of crowds and the heat so we got there as soon as we could figure it out. It actually wasn't that bad and we had a great time screwing around on the Skytrain.

The market was a lot of fun. We got lost for hours! There were all kinds of unique items to look through and everything was really cheap. Everything except the one thing Jed was hoping to stock up on, shoes. We looked but nothing really jumped out at him so we ended up doing more window shopping and getting odds and ends. Jed and Eric purchased some fun shirts, Audrey and I had to hold ourselves back on only get a few tank tops and Jed and Audrey were able to find some great sunglasses for there time in Thailand. They even have pets there that you could buy! On our way back we had to stop for our first street vendor, FRUIT! It was definitely a successful trip.

 As we were walking around the market, we continued to see this t-shirt with a model with her middle finger up. It was driving Eric crazy to know who the model was so he went to ask one of the gentlemen that was selling the shirt. With the language barrier, the guys misunderstood what Eric asked and responded to Eric, "It means F*CK YOU". Thanks, guy.

As we were leaving, we realized they recommended coming early. Not only was it starting to get super hot, but the lines to get out of the Skytrain and the walk over to the market, we jam packed full of people. We decided to get out of the heat and go find lunch over by our hotel.

 While we waited for the skytrain to get into the station, Jed decided that it would be fun it to do the voice over for the commercials that were playing on all the screens. The commercials were funny without voice over but Jed took it to the next level and had us in tears!

We found a place called Bharani in our Lonely Planet book that was just down the street from our hotel so we headed out on foot after a quick pit stop at the hotel to get our new rooms at Kingston Suites. (And in case you were curious, the rooms were not equitable, Kingston Suites was way nicer then at Royal President Hotel.)

Bangkok didn't seem to be too difficult to navigate, that is until we tried to find the restaurant. We walked around in circles for probably about an hour. As we walked by the same massage places over and over again, the ladies continued to try and called all of us into their salons, they even went as far has slapping Eric's butt. Right before we gave up and just ate at a random place we found it!

Bharani did not disappoint. It was absolutely amazing food and we had the best time.

After lunch we headed towards Lumphini Park to check it all out. In a weird way, the park felt a lot like Central Park in NYC. It was a park green park with a lake, playgrounds, and a ton of people. I think the most surprising thing to see in the park was all of the people we saw working out & running for exercise. Of course, that would make sense but it was super hot and people were working out in jeans and dress clothes. It was so funny to see. They even had an area similar to Muscle Beach in Venice where people were doing weight lifting and loving all of the attention. We were even cat called as we walked by. So funny!

The wildest thing that happened while we were there was as we were walking around we realized that everyone was standing up and not moving. Then we realized they had speakers all over the park and they were playing what we can only assume was some kind of National Anthem. It was so interesting to see how everyone just stopped everything they were doing to stand at attention.

It was time to move on from the park so we hopped on the metro to head towards Chinatown. As we got off the metro, we accidentally ran into Wat Traimit (known for the Golden Buddha).

By the time we figured out where we were and what the temple was we were too late to get into the temple so we took a few pictures and moved on.

Chinatown was exactly what you would think it would be. It was fantastic. All of the sights, sounds and smells were great and it was so much fun to just explore.

We had hoped to eat at a particular street food vendor but after looking and looking decided that it must not be there anymore and we decided on a random restaurant along the main street.

The food was good and it was a really fun experience. It was one more time where we were pretty much surrounded by locals and we felt like we got the real deal Chinese food.

After dinner, we still weren't interested in calling it a night so we went to check out the Flower Market (aka Pak Khlong Talat). This place was really cool.

The flowers were in abundance and so pretty. It was fun to walk around smell the flowers and try and find good photo opportunities.

When we were at the market, we tried a new form of public transportation, a tuk tuk.

This was so exciting and enjoyable. It is a fun way to get around the city and surprisingly cheap. It was a great way to end our evening.