Last Night In Bangkok

I arrive in the Bangkok airport and with my first step out of the gate I feel a pinch of fear that I'm determined to ignore. I look around for street signs but all I see are meaningless scribbles. Luckily, the transit system does have English signs I can navigate with, and I have already plotted out where my hotel is. I fling my backpack up and head onto the train. I manage to transfer each train with relative ease, but after only a few steps down towards the road I hit chaos. The streets are a hundred unrecognizable smells and sounds. Cars, motorcycles and other assortments of wheeled vehicles whip around with no apparent structure.

If I have followed my own directions correctly I should be close, but I feel like I could walk up and down this road all day and still have no idea where my hotel is. A boy at the bottom of the train stairs runs up to me and grabs one of my bags to load it into his tiny vehicle.

"How much to take me to hotel Siam Siam?" I ask.

"Sixty Baht" he answers. It feels like he's overcharging me.

"I don't think it is very far from here, that's too much."

"No! Very far very far," he says to me.

I give up. I'm standing in the blaring heat arguing with this boy and I just want to get to my hotel. I take a seat in the vehicle and we rush across a few terrifyingly busy streets. Ninety seconds later we arrive at my hotel. He grins at me from ear to ear then politely unloads my bags and walks them to the front door of the hotel. I throw my money and him and tell him to get lost. He skips happily away.

The hotel is a pleasant surprise. I'm not sure what I was expecting for a hundred dollars a night in Thailand but it is the most fantastic hotel I have ever seen. The décor is both modern and cultured. There are shiny metals like copper mixed with exotic looking wood.

My room as well, does not disappoint. Every piece of furniture and decoration looks brand new and feels lavish. I drop my bag off my shoulders and roll on to the bed exhausted from my trip. The plan was to go exploring today but it will have to wait because my eyes are fighting to stay open.

I wake up at a strange hour. I initially assume jet lag is to blame, but perhaps it is the fact that it's a twelve-hour switch with back home. A place I tell myself I'm not missing.

I spend the next day wandering Bangkok's shopping areas. The mall alone is endless hallways and floors of colorful shops. It's different than the kind of malls I'm used to, everything is crammed together, like a crowded yard sale but with new things. It's hard to look at all at once.

Once outside, I come across a giant market and decide to stroll through it and look for something to eat. I pretend to know what I am looking for as my feet splash through dirty puddles. Eyeing vendor after vendor, I casually pass by one food cart that looks like the tempura from sushi restaurants. I glance over it quickly and when the realization hits me of what I am actually looking at, I gag immediately. Bugs. Bugs. And more bugs. All fried up and crispy. Beetles, caterpillars, and crickets so exotic looking I've never even seen them alive. Feeling instantly homesick, I head back to the hotel. Now after being here a few days, it's obvious how western the hotel really is.

This is my last day in Thailand before flying back to Canada. Majority of my time was spent on the island of Phuket, but I wanted to see a sliver of Bangkok before being reunited with the real world. Today is a Thai holiday called Loy Krathong that I know nothing about. For today the hotel has been decorated from top to bottom. After night falls, I take the elevator to the rooftop level where I park myself at a table at their late night restaurant. The sky is lit with explosions of glittering fire works in every direction, and swarms of lanterns floating into the night. It is the most breathtaking site I have ever seen.