Transport

There are over 16 million people living in Bangkok, and all of them have somewhere they need to go. They may take their car (at 360% tax on car purchases, you must be WEALTHY), taxi (slow, but cheap and reliable), motorbike taxi (exhilarating and enjoyable journey weaving through traffic, but slightly more expensive), BTS (like lightrail, but fancier), MRT (the underground), bus (where you’ll likely die a slow death of heat and frustration if you have far to go), tuk-tuk (absolutely awesome and definitely advisable), boat (pleasant and functional, thanks to the river winding through the city), minivan (slow, but there’s A/C, which makes it amazing) or the back of a pick-up truck (with lawn chairs in the back, ooh-la-la). So, there are plenty of options available. 

  
Toilets

Toilets, and bathroom matters in general, have taken a bit of getting used to. Firstly, there’s no toilet paper in the stalls. Instead, there’s a hose with the optional settings of “clean,” “dry,” and “massage.” With such ambiguous and unexpected options…I’m really far too scared to even attempt assimilating cultures this much. So instead, we walked around one of the many dizzyingly gigantic malls until we found a fast food restaurant that we decided to sneak into and steal some napkins. With such bright blonde hair and such white skin, I’ve never felt quite so noticeable in a crowd! But thankfully, our sneaky napkin-stealing was a success and we are now fully stocked with tissues at all times. The second bathroom issue is the squat toilets. When we do find actual normal toilets, there’s often footprints on them. How in the world people manage to balance on the seat of a toilet is both baffling and impressive at the same time, and I have no intention of figuring out how it’s done.

  
Taste

Here, I am referring to taste in both the food and the fashion sense because both are completely and entirely different.

  
There are food stalls dotted all along the street with all sorts of unknown and interesting meals to try. So far, milky Thai tea is one of my favorites, but fried shrimp cake, skewered chicken and pad thai are all fighting for second place. The fruit here is bizarre and delicious, too! Emilie’s favorite is mangostein, but none of us have gotten up the courage to try durian, a stinky yellow fruit which I have been warned to not eat indoors (yes, it smells THAT bad!).  The problem we all seem to be having, however, is that because little snacks of deliciousness are always so easily accessible, we are in a constant state of peckishness where we always want to eat, but are never really fully hungry.

  
As for the fashion, well…let’s just say that three laid-back backpacking Colorado girls simply don’t stand a chance against the fashionable Thai women here. And when I say women, I’m not exactly referring to your typical XX chromosomed ladies that we all know and love. Here, in Bangkok, the ladyboys definitely take the cake in terms of their fashion and beauty.  They are tall, thin, stylish, and breathtaking. Last night, we went to a ladybody show which now has us questioning every single ‘lady’ we see in Bangkok. Although the show was absolutely atrocious in every way that us theatre girls could ever imagine, the catastrophic spectacle was thoroughly hilarious and entertaining…even if it didn’t mean to be. It had us laughing, singing, and questioning the whole rest of the night. Needless to say, there was plenty to talk about over our cold beers on the 21st floor of a rooftop building overlooking Bangkok that evening.