Khao San Day 2

I wake up at 7:45am. I walk around Khao San in the daylight. Many vendors aren't open yet but I manage to get myself a pad thai breakfast with a mango fruit shake (100 Baht / ~ $4).

I book a tour to the Floating Market and Rose Garden for tomorrow and then check out the vendors. I end up buying a tee-shirt, two bikinis, and an ankle bracelet. I try on countless pretty but ill-fitting and poorly made summer dresses. Every food stand catches my eye. I'm feeling really tired and hot and sticky so I go back to my room for a shower.

(Image taken from the web)

After the shower I make the mistake of lying down. Before I know it I'm asleep for several hours and now it's 7:30pm. It's the heat and jet-lag. There goes my plans for sightseeing temples and going on a little bike tour.

I get up to face the evening. Khao San on night number two is even busier because it's Saturday. The density causes the night-life to lose whatever charm it held yesterday. I get myself a bowl of street soup. As I'm eating it I notice that its main ingredient other than water is cubes of congealed blood. Um...yuck...I eat it all anyway because I don't want to waste it. The cubes were gross but the broth and noodles were divine and perfectly seasoned.

(Image taken from the web)

I take refuge from the bustling streets in a little alleyway that leads to a lounge bar called Hippie de Bar. At first I thought that it would be full of hippie backpackers, instead I am surprised to find that it was full of Thai university students and there were barely any tourists. They were all drinking and talking in a relaxed and animated way. The decor is eclectic, and looks like comfortable hip found furniture. The rafters have the names of flowers hand painted on them - hibiscus, camellia, geranium etc - and the tablecloths are screen printed with the definition of hippie on them. The music was familiar Britpop, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Guns and Roses etc. I pick a seat and ordered a Bangkok Delight, and hope that I haven't ordered a prostitute. A Delight, beer and two hours later, I end up with a drawing of an octopus and girl and some ramblings in my notebook. I think I may have a slight obsession with cephalopod imagery these days. The t-shirt I bought this morning had an octopus on it..
Beautiful fashionable Thai women are everywhere. I'm getting a bit desensitized to the surface beauty. I wonder if people in Toronto will seem ugly when I get back because my threshold for beauty has shifted.

Time to go back to the Siam and to my third shower of the day before bed. It's really hot and sticky in Bangkok. I feel like the embodiment of mango-sticky rice (which by the way is delicious from the vendors.)

(Image taken from the web.)