Tonight we leave Bangkok for Siem Reap, Cambodia. Since day one of touring temples and practicing our non-rubeness, we’ve been walking all over the city and sweating buckets. Luckily the 7-11 has a deal on 1.5 liter waters – 2 for 20 baht – that’s about 75 cents – and any time you think about a 7-11, there is one there. They are everywhere and they are air conditioned!  It’s been really hot and humid here, and we’re loving it with much needed aircon relief periods.

The nearby Sofitel rooftop bar provided us with refreshing  Mai Tais and amazing views. Luckily our outfits somehow fit in to their dress code of “smart casual”. Then again, we were the only people up there at 9pm, so I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

We’ve learned that the traffic is horrendous here and also learned the hard way that the traffic signals don’t change that often (maybe 5 minutes per green light cycle?). Here’s a nice photo I took while we were marooned in the middle of traffic for a bit. Also, the motorbikes just do whatever the hell they want.

One description of Bangkok claims the terrible traffic is due to the city growing without any sort of urban planning.  I’d say the same thing has happened with their utility lines.  Luckily this guy seems to know the wire he’s after.

Every street seems to offer something new and interesting to look at!

The signs we see around are strange.

Some things are just strange, especially in front of a shopping mall.

We’ve basically been having a great time just touring around and finding food to eat and beers to drink and checking in with Santa.

We made it! Jon and I are in Bangkok, Thailand. We arrived last night a bit after 9 pm local time. This gets us to 6 continents visited. A number likely to remain the same as Antarctica really holds no appeal to me, because… cold.

Most of our avid readers know we’re on an adventure, but just in case you don’t know, here’s the short version. Jon and I quit our jobs (well, I’m technically on a leave of absence which I didn’t even know was an option, woo) and we ended our lease in Melbourne. We have a bit of stuff in storage, our car in a random old lady’s driveway and we’re in Asia for a few weeks, then the US, then Australia, then New Zealand for varying durations with more to come on those trips in the blog. We plan on living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia when all is said and done, because… warm AND sun.

So, back to Thailand. We flew Thai airways here and they lived up to their reputation as a decent airline, serving essentially two dinners both of which were actually not bad. Two random bits about the flight:

1. An old Italian man smoked a cigarette in the plane bathroom. He didn’t seem to get into trouble, but he also never smoked a second one. Phew.
2. Thailand advertises itself to people who are on their way to Thailand by way of interrupting all in flight entertainment and playing an endless commercial for the last 15 or so minutes of the flight. I’ll never know what happened on that episode of the Big Bang Theory (except that I’ve already seen it 2 times).

Today we indulged in our hotel’s free breakfast and got advice on how to get to The Grand Palace. We have the subway and sky train figured out for the most part so the first leg went smoothly.

After that we needed to find a ferry. This is where things got a bit dicey. Every other Thai man wanted to help us get where we were going. Unfortunately, they all want you not to go where you are going. Each one told us The Grand Palace wasn’t open and some other nonsense. I’m not entirely sure what their end game is though as they weren’t really trying to get us to do something else instead.

We had a near miss where we almost paid 100 baht (~$2.95 USD) for a long tail boat, but we managed to figure out that wasn’t quite right and made it to the normal ferry for 15 baht (~$.44 USD). Yeah, yeah, the money wasn’t much, but we didn’t want to be taken for rubes!

We made it to The Grand Palace and went to nearby Wat Pho. We had a fantastic first day and really enjoyed walking around. We hope you enjoy the pictures.

The Grand Palace

Wat Pho

We’re hoping to post frequently during the Asia leg of the trip, but no promises!