Location: Bangkok, Thailand

We packed up this morning and made one final stop for a breakfast of Taiwanese fried chicken, which is the least oily, crunchiest chicken with some kind of savoury salty flavour powder on top. $1 dumplings and some bubble tea later, we made our way to the airport to head to…

Thailand!

It feels like I’ve waited eons to go to Thailand. Right before Covid really hit and Canadians were called home I was in Indonesia about to head to Thailand, so this is very cathartic for me to finally have the plans I made years ago come to life. So many feelings!

Here we go.

We landed in Bangkok and immediately in my head I was excitedly brewing up grand plans for our time here. Outside my head I think I was wide-eyed, with a tight lip and knitted brow. I swear I’m having the time of my life! I’m so glad we started in Taiwan but it was so familiar that I didn’t get that slight bit of fear of the unknown that comes along with travelling to new places. I definitely did here! It’s like a rollercoaster – great fun but like holy this is crazy.

After a bus, a train and two failed attempts at hailing a taxi (they kept looking at our destination and saying ‘no’??) we finally made it to the Orient Express themed Niras hostel- right in the Center of the old town. Gone were the orderly crossings, polite line ups, and sanitization of Taiwan. Here I watched as cars and tuk-tuks flashed by and people weaved in and out of the traffic to cross the street. Big ferns and trailing plants grew out of cracks in the sidewalks and buildings, and food carts of every manner filled every nook. Every single food we passed was unrecognizable. Garrett and I kept repeatedly looking at each other like ‘do you know cause I don’t!’

Until.

Two doors down from our hostel Thipsamai Pad Thai is known for being one of the actual absolute best places to order original pad Thai. I didn’t think we’d try this restaurant so quickly and I was starving but it was right there so we waited in the snaking line anyway. I couldn’t have been more shocked because I always thought ‘pad Thai is pad Thai is pad Thai’ in general but this. This was basically a different dish all together! A mixture of jumbo shrimp, baby shrimp, squid and crab sat on fresh house made noodles coated in a secret shrimp fat sauce. Peanuts, cilantro, mango, bean sprouts and red Thai chillies topped the dish and I know I talk a lot about the food I try but DEAR LORD if you ever come here just try this. I don’t like fruit and we could even go so far as to say I hate mangoes and yet here I was: eating enough of this dish to practically make myself sick. I literally loosened the waist of my pants after dinner! Garrett ate every last bit of his and through bites just murmured ‘holy shit’. We’re going to need to be wheeled out of Thailand if all the food is this amazing.

I had the grand idea when we sat down for dinner that afterwards we would explore but the post dinner sleepies struck (it was late after all). We walked up the road to digest a little bit, passing closed temples, restaurants and shops I took mental note of to go back to. Garrett kept looking at me and asking how I was. Are my smile and my wide eyes and my tears confusing?!

It’s been like 4 seconds and already I’m in love with Thailand. I’m so excited to explore so much more tomorrow.

Sav

P.S. Tuk-tuks (pr. toque-toque kind of) are little motorized rickshaws which are basically a motorcycle with a miniature bus or cart built around it. I heard that the name tuk-tuk is based on the sound that the little two stroke engine makes when it runs soooo that’s adorable.