Travel Thailand

My flight arrived in Bangkok after 1 a.m. By the time customs was cleared, baggage was claimed, and a taxi hailed it was past 2am. We still had a half hour drive into Bangkok. I shared a taxi with a Bangkok veteran. He said Bangkok is a city you can get whatever you want anytime you want. I was looking for sleep at this point after 18 hours in the air and a three hour layover. My cab pulled into my hotel, and I was asleep within thirty minutes. Thailand and half the world away would have to wait until tomorrow. I woke up excited to be in Asia and Thailand for my first time. I pulled open the curtain in my hotel room and the top picture is what I was greeted with.

Wat a view. An urban concrete jungle with crazy four lane highways going this way and that with a beautiful ornate temple, or wat, in the middle. This is a common view in Bangkok. The town is a raging metropolis with horrendous traffic, smog, and buildings upon buildings. Interspersed in the madness are over 400 Buddhist Temples. Each one is more amazing than the next with bright colors of red and gold, intricate detail, and golden statues of Buddha inside.

My taxi driver from the night before offered to take me around the next day. I accepted because it is always nice having a guide the first time you are in a country, especially when it only costs $7.00. He picked me up around 11:00 a.m. the next day, and we spent a lot of the day cruising around Bangkok stuck in traffic seeing incredible temples.