It's Only Bangkok

We made it!  2014, Thailand and Myanmar, Korean Air to Seoul and from Seoul to Bangkok, about 19 hours that somewhere in there you completely lose track of and are just in limbo, hoping the flight will magically pass and the family with the two crying babies won't be on your final flight.  But they are, in almost the exact same proximity, only now there are 2 more tiny ones added into the equation and all of them are about as tired and unhappy as you are.  The only difference is that they can just cry and cry and you have to suck it up and try to find a position in which to sleep, pretty much sitting up.  And of course, just as you do settle in and doze, they come around to serve yet another dinner or lunch or whatever.  I gave up at meal three and just drank juice.

I know, poor us.

So, Bangkok at 11:30pm, hotter than it is in January, well, maybe not hotter, but stickier and damper, and quiet until the cab driver turns up Phra Atit.  And it is familiar, finally, after all these trips.  Phra Atit is alive with Friday night jazz, food carts, strings of pennants across the street, young Thais enjoying themselves, farangs meandering in inappropriate clothing, the spill over from Kaosan Road, lurking just behind the trendy edge of Banglamphu, the ubiquitous hang out for back packers, now a place to visit for cheap clothing and avoid the rest of the time.  And we drag our weary asses out of the cab, check in, head to the 5th floor of the New Siam II, turn on the air con and the fan, turn around in circles trying to figure out what we are supposed to do now, take showers, decant our luggage and are convinced we will never sleep.  After a cockroach siting, a first for me at the New Siam...I know they lurk, the devils, but we manage to avoid one another and even this one is as startled by me as I am by him...he scurries away while I have visions of  him looking for my chocolate stash in my suitcase.  I know he doesn't want to be seen, so I hope the nervous truce we share will last until I leave.   We do sleep, hard, gratefully, and morning comes.

And of course we are too early for Ricky's, which has the same staff, sort of, but maybe a new manager/owner?  When we finally do sit down to eat, the food is as nice as I remember, not remarkable, but just what we wanted and the girl who brings our coffee smiles as she remembers that this is the woman who wants sweetened condensed milk.  We decide to make a foray to Chatchuk.  The traffic is horrendous and it takes nearly an hour to get there.  We shop, the rhythm catching up with us easily.  We sit and sip Thai iced coffee in the little bar in the market, and we catch an icy cab back to the New Siam.  After a light lunch of khao mun gai, chicken and rice, we head down Phra Atit to see the Starbung's guy.  Unfortunately Starbuck's has caught up with him.  His new name is Bungstar and the logo of the skinny yogi with a cup of coffee in one of his many hands is now the same yogi rubbing his eyes while tears stream out either side.  Our  Starbung entrepreneur takes it philosophically and his business is as brisk as ever.  God I love Thailand!  We finish the afternoon with massages and as I lay there, cooling off while my masseuse finds every knot and arthritic pain, I wonder why I don't do this every day...oh, wait a minute, I remember now...this massage will cost me about one sixth of the cost at home.  And after all, I am on vacation.

Ricky's

Also "Bungstar"