Seat of Our Pants » Bangkok

SeatOfOurPants Thailand Roundup

Jaime — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:19:13 +0000

Most people come to Thailand for the amazing beaches. While I’m sure they’re amazing, we’re not really beach people. Our interests lie more in eating and Thailand gave us ample opportunity to do just that. We’ve been all over southeast Asia and we’ll let you in on a little secret: Thailand is SE Asia’s premier dining country. No contest.

It’s also a very traveler friendly place, making it an obvious favorite for sun-seeking tourists from all over the world. Generally we like ourselves some off-the-beaten-track tourism, but when push comes to shove, being in Thailand is just plain nice.

Feel free to send us an email if you have any questions about traveling there. Between the two of us we’ve been through through Thailand fifteen times so we’d be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Otherwise, you can check out some of our favorite posts from our time in Thailand here:

Say What?

A Thai woman gives us an example of how tonal the Thai language is.

I Chef, You Chef, We All Chef

A rundown of our cooking class in Chiang Mai, complete with a delicious recipe

Tiger Temple

A Buddhist monastery where the main attraction are killers. But have no fear! They have somehow been subdued enough for you to pet them. Strange, amazing and true!

Bacon Does Bangkok

Our porcine friend gets a little too excited to be in the Land of a Million Smiles. (He misunderstood it to mean the Land of a Million Shots).

A Day in the Life of a Bangkok Eater

Our guide on how to eat your way through a day in Bangkok without ever stepping into a restaurant.

Ayutthaya Again

A post that sums up why we booked an extra day in Thailand en route to Myanmar – food, food, food.

Where…

View Seatofourpants.com Thailand tour in a larger map

When….

2009

Bangkok: April 29 – May 5

Kanchanaburi: May 5 – 7

Koh Phagnan: May 7 -13

Bangkok: May 13 – 15

Chang Mai: May 15 – 19

Ayuttaya: May 19 – 20

2010

Bangkok: January 21 – 27, 2010

Ayutthaya: January 27 – 28, 2010

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A Day in the Life of a Bangkok Eater

Jaime — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:15:10 +0000

If I had one suggestion to give someone going to Bangkok it would be this: don’t eat in their restaurants. Sure, they have great selection there. Their prices are also enticing but believe me, the real eating experience is had right on the street. You will pay a fraction of the price and it’s the real deal.

Here’s an example of some great finds in the streets around Banglamphu. If you’re not staying in that area, there will be similar stalls elsewhere. You don’t have to go far – a block or two will give you all these options and more.

Forget the “set breakfasts” (toast, eggs, breakfast meat, etc) on offer at the restaurants and eat what the locals eat: noodle soup. This is usually served from carts that display noodles piled up in their display cases and cost us just about US $1. We had Tom Yum soup, which was spicy and delicious – the perfect way to jump start your day.

Lunch was a series of nibbles we picked up at food stalls like the one pictured above. You may not know what you’re ordering, but at $.50 to $1 per bag, you can always try it and toss if it’s not to your liking. Many of the stalls have either English descriptions of what they offer or display images of the type of meat or filling in their food. Everything we tried was scrumptious and set us back about US $3 total.

Bangkok is hot and humid – the kind of place that screams for an afternoon fruit snack. Carts like the one pictured above are a godsend in the mid-day heat. For the equivalent of about US $.50 you get your choice of one of the fruits displayed.

Dinner was a plate of Pad Thai, cooked at a street side stall. You’ll have an option of protein (chicken, egg or tofu) and they’ll make it non-spicy for those of us that aren’t used to Thai spices. If spice is your thing, they have chili flakes to add after it’s been cooked. It’s a heaping portion (Martin and I shared one) and at US $1, it won’t break the bank.

Dessert was the always delicious Roti, also called a pancake on the vendor’s menu. You can choose from a number of delicious fillings (peanut butter, nutella, banana or chocolate to name a few), which they fold into a paper thin pancake. We had the egg banana smothered in condensed milk and sprinkled sugar. Yes, it constitutes about ½ of your daily calorie allowance, but you’re on vacation – you shouldn’t be thinking about those things!

Finally, if you’re anything like the two of us, you’ll top the night off with an adult beverage of your choice. There really is nothing like a cold beer in this hot climate. You’ll see. They’re hard to resist – and one never seems to quench the ol’ thirst.

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Riverside Bangkok

Martin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:01:45 +0000

Bangkok, just like Stockholm, is a city best viewed from the deck of a boat. The Chao Praya river makes a great ‘S’ as it snakes through its center, connecting a lot of the city’s main features. It is a scandal that it took me eight visits to figure this out, but I now realize that Bangkok is a city that opens up and faces the river. The streets and avenues are merely the backyards of the riverfront properties. Boating makes sense in so many ways: the air is fresh, the traffic jams are absent and the surrounding scenery is beautiful.

The boat taxis are also faster than anything land based, and fun to ride. At 13 bhat (40 US cents) for a 20 minute ride, it is also very affordable.

Thumbs up.

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Lottery Market

Martin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:53:37 +0000

This is a huge marketplace in Bangkok. The only thing they sell here are lottery tickets of all kinds. It’s a boring place, which makes for boring pictures and an incredibly boring blog post.

Next!

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What in the World?

Jaime — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:44:15 +0000

Feeling that we have stomachs of steel, we’ve been making our way around the street vendors in Bangkok – trying a little bit of everything.

That is, except for this thing. Dining is mostly a visual experience and this 10” pile of Evil, covered in stringy bits of Nasty just didn’t pass the test.

Does anyone have any idea what the heck it is?

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Edgy Bacon

Jaime — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:41:06 +0000

Bacon slipped me last week’s allowance (a two rupee note) last night. If the door happened to open past our bedtime, I should ignore it. Martin’s a heavy sleeper so Bacon knew he had nothing to worry about on that front. I told him the payoff wasn’t necessary. He’s welcome to do what he wants.

It seems he did just that. We woke this morning to find our friend reeking of cheap liquor and complaining that his ears hurt. Finding them pierced was as much of a surprise to us as it was to him. Someone had a little blackout last night (and it wasn’t the two who went to the Myanmar embassy super early this morning, that’s for sure).

Will he never learn?

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Bangkok, Nine Months Later

Martin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:41:50 +0000

While this visit to Bangkok isn’t the first for either of us (a rough count tells me this is my 8^th), the first impressions of the city vary wildly from time to time. What makes this time different is the fact that we just spent nine months on the road, four of which were in India and Nepal.

Wow does it ever feel like a different place.

At first, I kept wondering about the weird smell in the air. It took me about half an hour to realize that it isn’t a smell – it is the humidity. After dry and dusty Kathmandu, Bangkok feels like a steam room. The hot climate here is also the underlying factor for another observation: people wear almost no clothes. Bare legs everywhere. T-shirts. Shorts. Weird.

The streets are clean and covered with immaculate layers of bitumen. Traffic plies the streets slowly and deliberately – there’s hardly any honking. I know this must sound strange, because last I was here I had the absolute opposite impression.

Another thing that stands out is the food (a subject that I suspect this blog will deal with at length over the next few days). Wafts of tropical fruit, delicious meats and a whole different range of spices comes at us from every street corner. It’s like being a kid in a candy store.

Aaah travel. There’s just nothing like it in the world.

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Bacon Does Bangkok – Again

Jaime — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:27:51 +0000

Bangkok was our first destination on this trip. We were here nine months and a much fatter bank account ago. Having not gained our budget travel wits yet, we stayed at a nice hotel and ate at semi-luxurious restaurants.

This time around we’re staying in the backpacking mecca, Khao San Road, in a room with no private bathroom. Bacon will not have the luxury of privacy should his antics lead where they did last time.

Despite this fact, he insists that we let him loose here once again. He’s pushing to visit a piercing shop down the road and mentioned in passing that getting a tattoo might be fun. Everyone has a soft spot and it seems Bacon likes himself some Bangkok.

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Fun with food

Jaime — Mon, 04 May 2009 09:48:08 +0000

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Lady Joiners

Jaime — Mon, 04 May 2009 09:39:44 +0000

Bangkok is notorious for a few things. A good entry point for travel in Southeast Asia is one of them. A great place for Lady Joiners, as they’re known here, is the other more seedy use. We’ve been staying the last three days in one of the more popular areas of town for this sort of thing – not by choice, it just happened that way. We’ve avoided staying at hotels that cater to them (the Atlanta’s subtle suggestion was a welcome sign to us), but can’t avoid seeming them everywhere else. To all the men who fly thousands of miles for this sort of thing (below are two good examples) – you’re kinda gross. And sad.

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