Bangkok EXTREME!

Bangkok is a city of extremes. I've been hot before, but in Bangkok, I'm hotter. I've had fresh squeezed orange juice before, but in Bangkok it's fresher...somehow. (Fresh squeezed mandarin juice...I didn't think you could improve on oj). Of course there's the shopping; most of the streets are lined with vendors selling anything and they have several huge sky-rise malls, with floors and floors of stuff to buy...very cheaply or not. As my pictures will attest, street food abounds in all variety...The Thai's are a very inventive people, and with food their creativity flourishes. After the day market is done, little portable sidewalk restaurants magically appear serving very fine meals. My last meal in Bangkok was spicy seafood salad (so fresh, so good) and roasted duck with cinnamon sauce over rice...about $3.00 total (and that was spendy).

With all the commerce in Bangkok, though, its difficult to get to know the Thai hosts...everything seems to be a transaction, everything has to be bargained for...on the street with a vendor it's fine, but fighting with a taxi to get him to turn on his meter gets fatiguing after the first or second time. I was lucky that I followed *Susan's advice and went to the Phra Sumane Port park in the evening. It was like Greenlake (but with a river and no lake); there was an outdoor aerobics class (including the Thai version of a perky guy indefatigably leading), a capoeira (Brazilian martial art & dance) singing Portuguese with Thai accents and all their hearts, and a traditional Thai concert. Just people doing their thing. It was a relief to sit, enjoy and be. On the way back to my hotel I had a Thai version of Chinese hotpot, boiling hot on a miniature terra cotta grill on a teetering table.

As you've probably ascertained food is one of my delights, but I am calming myself now and chanting I can enjoy it without eating it ... everything is so new.

So , if you're prone to overshopping, overeating, overheating and any other vices, Bangkok is the city for backsliding!

*Susan Shaw teaches English in Thailand. She was a welcome face and showed me around Khao San and its environs. (We met at Starbucks, no less).