Oof that flight was rough...for everyone else on the plane. I very quickly passed out into a sleep-deprived, Benadryl-induced, drool-included slumber. My apologies to the two men in my row.
Doesn't matter to me though, because I made it to Bangkok and met up with Katie. First impressions of Bangkok (and Thailand) are that it is a big, bustling city but still has greenery, public transportation is good and clean, and people are BEYOND friendly and helpful.
We took the train from the airport to Ratchaprarop Station and then walked to our hotel. Unsurprisingly, we walked the wrong way (past a street stall selling something that smelled amazing), but a nice guy at a tailor shop asked us where we were going and pointed us in the right direction. We checked in at our hotel (Hotel de Bangkok) and were greeted with a welcome drink and AC! We took some time to decompress and then headed out into the streets with no plan in mind besides street food. And street food we got. We started by going back to that street stall where we were quickly ushered to a little metal table. We didn't even order anything, food just showed up. I can't actually tell you what it was called, but it was a beef broth with noodles, beef, and some vegetables. It was DELICIOUS. All for 70 Baht. One USD is approximately 32 Baht).
We then decided to just walk around and see what else Bangkok had to offer. We ended up meandering through a market while the likes of Lady Gaga and Tove Lo were blasting in the air. My guess is that they don't realize what Tove Lo is saying in "Talking Body". Next on our to do list was hydration so naturally we had to have fresh coconut water. The teenager that we got them from tried to cut Katie's open and drastically failed. His mom stepped in, and let me tell you, I would not mess with her when she has a butcher's knife in her hand!
Coconut waters in hand, we wandered further down a street. By this point we had eaten and hydrated, and my feet were hurting and swollen from all the flying - so next on the list was obviously a massage.
200 Baht later, with the softest feet ever, and feeling relaxed, we wandered back onto the street. I was shocked that it was already dark out! However, that meant that there were more and different street carts out with food. For someone who can be indecisive, having so many options can be tough. That is, until I saw a lady making pad Thai. Wowza was it good. Katie got garlic chicken and we ate while we walked back to our hotel for an early night to hopefully deal with some of our jet lag.
Two takeaways: (1) the food is amazing and the smells are indescribable (in a good way); (2) we will likely get massages daily. Given these, I'm pretty sure the title of this post will be all-encompassing for our time in Thailand.