bangkok, oriental city

We kicked off our two-week trip in Bangkok, where our friends Dannii and Jess live with their seriously adorable two year-old son. When they moved to Asia two years ago we decided we'd make it a goal to visit them before they left (we made it!). Before we go any further, there's a reason that there's a song about only spending one night in Bangkok (believe me, there were about 1000 jokes involving the Murray Head song, which, incidentally, was actually written by Benny and Björn from ABBA—you're welcome). It's dirty and stinky and the streets are never not congested with traffic. But the cabs are hot pink and orange and green, and the people are amazingly polite and bow when they say "thank you," and Dannii and Jess made the trip super fun and SO much less stressful for us by letting us stay with them (nothing like a nice clean apartment and treats to make jet lag more bearable) and taking us to sites off the beaten path (I'll cover the other sites in another post) and going on a double-date with us while Gunnar stayed home with a babysitter. I wish that all dates involved dinner, dessert, and closed with a Thai foot massage. (The massage came from a surly Thai woman, not from Dannii or Jess.) Which reminds me, my favorite Asian product happens to be a dessert—the elusive (in America, at least) iced hot chocolate. I have mentioned this to a dozen different people and most of them just pause and say, "But isn't that just chocolate milk?" No. It's not. Just trust me.

Probably the most memorable adventure from our trip was going to the wet market, which is just a market with vendors selling everything from fruits and vegetables to sea creatures, insects, and bags of live frogs. I believe it is known as the wet market because there is a truck that drives around with workers hosing off the street intermittently to (somewhat unsuccessfully) wash all the guts and gore off the street. Sorry for the vivid imagery. But it was seriously the worst/best thing that we did and pushed my comfort level to its absolute limits. As Dannii said, the wet market is probably the number one reason that you have to be careful to wash your produce thoroughly before you eat it. She also shared a story of walking down one of the aisles by a seafood vendor, who had live fish and eels in trays partially filled with water, when one of the eels suddenly jumped out of the tray and onto the street in front of her. You're welcome for that mental image, and for your subsequent nightmares tonight.

It was a great trip, and we had a great time visiting friends that we hadn't seen in two years. Will I go back to Bangkok anytime soon? Probably not. But do I love Dannii and Jess and did I cry a little when we left? Maybe I did. I wish they were our full-time adventure buddies.