One Night in Bangkok...

We are leaving Siem Reap in a tuk-tuk during a massive thunderstorm. Bangkok welcomes us with clear weather, a cultural mix of modern architecture and traditional Asian culture. Traffic - I thought Los Angeles is bad, but Bangkok is impossible to drive in. One hour to the Peninsula Hotel - a luxury hotel placed on the Bangkok riverbank with great views over the city and river. The room reminds me of James Bond. Thousands of buttons throughout the room to make it easy to control everything from curtains, TV, radio, temperature, shoeshine, lights and everything else which is adjustable. The first 10 minutes are being used to play with all of them. :-)

Bangkok has a wealth of Buddhist temples and relict's of the European occupation. The Grand Palace and Wat Phra are certainly the highlights we visited today and with the incredible amount of art and love to detail I really start learning to appreciate history again. Once more during this trip I feel privileged to travel and am grateful for that.
Before moving on with our sightseeing tour we stop at a small Thai restaurant. Rather dirty and weird - right at the river. We are having a few dishes including our favorite: Tom Yum Soup. The cook herself is checking us out through the little hole in the wall and coming to our table to explain that one of the dish we ordered is not very good and we should change the order. After Jason is utilizing his Asian charm, we are best friends with her and she starts feeding him. LOL ... Having a good time!
In the afternoon we visit Wat Pho - not the Vietnamese noodle soup, but the birthplace of Bangkok and a 46m reclining Buddha.

Bangkok’s nightlife is certainly pretty busy. We had a drink at the sky bar - a rooftop bar on one of Bangkok’s  tallest buildings. The thrill was that there weren’t many security precautions. You could take your glass outside on the platform and easily drop it the x-meters down to the street. No nets or fences. Certainly an experience, since the 2 Heineken cost us as much as the entire lunch including 4 beers we had a few hours earlier. What the heck - it’s vacation! http://www.lebua.com/bangkok/dining/sky-bar/

Later we took a cab to the ‘WeHo’ of Bangkok to observe the fashion / drama show of Bangkok’s gay youth. I could write pages about that, but let me tell you only this: There were many ‘Western’ business men - some of them married, mingling with young Thai guys who could easily be their sons. Not a pretty experience, but there are always 2 sides of the story….
A word about the cab driver in Thailand: It seems that all you really need is a car and a minimum of 10 Buddha arranged throughout the vehicle as well as a Sony sound system. Have a little meter installed and off you go with your new profession. No need to know the area. Lucky us - we had a map with us. The 3 times we took a cab in Bangkok, we had to explain the driver the way. ‘I just drive’ was the answer whenever we asked if he would know where the Peninsula Hotel was….