Meeting my Group

On my first full day in Bangkok I met my tour group. First I met my roommate who showed up shortly after noon. She is from Germany, but speaks English quite well. She had already spent the last two weeks in Thailand on a different tour and spending time with her sister who was traveling as well. She looked tired. Neither of us were sure what to do in Bangkok so we spent almost the whole day in the room with the exception of going downstairs for food. I attempted to wander the streets, but I was at a stand still when it came to crossing the road. On all sides the hotel was surrounded by busy streets with no stop signs or cross walks that I could see. I stood at an intersection for awhile trying to understand how it worked, but I ended up giving up and walking back to the hotel. Luckily, there was a 7-11 I could get to without crossing any streets. Although, in Thailand, every street block is pretty much going to have a 7-11. I took a look out the window for the first time during day light and discovered that we weren't exactly in the heart of downtown. As far as I could tell, we were in the middle of a low income neighborhood with the city off in the distance.

I preferred the view at night time.

My tour guide's name is Kittisak. He told us that its easier for us to call him Kitti. He described this by saying "Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!" to demonstrate how to say his name. There are 15 of us total. 6 from the US, 1 from Germany, 4 from London, 2 from Mexico, and 2 from Switzerland. Everyone spoke English really well except for the mother in the Swiss mother/daughter team, who had her daughter translate for her. We were supposed to go to Chinatown to have a Chinese dinner, but it began to rain and Kitti said we would have to cancel. Kitti seems to have a deep fear of rain. Again, I'm not sure how this is possible in a place that has a six month long monsoon season. We ended up eating at the hotel. The hotel had a lot of American food options, but as I would come to learn, some traditional American foods such as spaghetti and cheeseburgers are not exactly the same when made in Thailand. Anything with cheese is a gamble because cheese just isn't a traditional part of Thai cooking. Luckily, being my first day, I was ready for some Pad Thai. It was good, but in all honesty, I liked the taste of the Pad Thai from my favorite Thai restaurant in Seattle better. I was still very excited to try the food in Thailand, but I'm not sure that eating in a hotel that caters to Western tourists was the best first experience. That night I was so tired I went to bed almost directly after dinner, we had to get up early in the morning for our first day of the tour.