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Bangkok reminds me so much of Manila; the streets are small, the power lines are tangled webs, there are even gago cabbies and gago bus drivers. I’m even more paranoid than I usually am about crossing the road because of the left-hand traffic which disorients me, making me look towards the opposite direction of where the traffic is coming from.
We stayed in a nice hotel squished at the end of Khao San Road. A United Nations Convention takes place every night along this street.
You can come naked to Khao San Road and leave fully clothed. You can even get a new tattoo and braids.
Maybe even a new identity.
On our last night in Bangkok, we were getting our usual foot massages from Charlie. An Israeli couple were seated to our left, the woman telling her masseur that she’s a reflexologist herself back in Tel Aviv. To our right were two blondes from Australia, both giddy and taking photos of themselves every five minutes saying “This is way better than getting drunk.” After fifteen minutes of which they asked us where we got our beers.
I was trying to finish a book on my iPod with its newly bought case which I haggled down to 150 THB from 200 THB. I’m not so sure if I should be proud of my haggling skills as Thai vendors are so considerate when it comes to haggling that they’ll even ask you how much you wanted to pay.
We talk about how charming the Israeli woman’s masseur is and how our own masseuses are probably talking about our feet and how everyone is probably gossiping about everyone in their own language but then again who really cares? The night is young, the massage is fantastic and our beers are cold.
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Reading this post made me miss Bangkok more– especially Khao San. Everyone’s friendly and plain awesome. It feels like home.
I loved the last paragraph. Agree! And the next time we go there, we’ll still bring our drinks and get a good ol’ Thai foot massage at Charlie’s. Perfect. Just perfect.
Charlie is a very special man.
Bangkok really surprised me in many ways. Before seeing it, I refused to accept that it is better than Manila. But sadly, my eyes saw the obvious the moment I stepped out of the plane. It is much, much better albeit not startling. IMHO it is a reasonable goal if we want to improve Manila to use Bangkok as our model. It should be achievable if only…
I miss everything about Bangkok.
Spot on Drew! I’m amazed at how everything is dirt cheap in Thailand. Khao San Road reminds me of Divisoria but I can’t imagine tourists to the Philippines going there!
We always reminisce about how we lived like kings in Bangkok, the cheap x good foot massage every night is a very good reason to keep on wanting to come back.
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Reading this makes me look forward to my trip to Bangkok. Hope to have fun in Khao San Road
Hope you have an awesome time in BKK!
Waaah! Visiting in a month! Thank you for this post!
Whoa. Daming pupuntang BKK! Kainggit, I wanna go back.
.. i also passed by khao san road when i was in bkk where i was looking for insects to munch on but didn’t find some. did you also saw some street performers like mimes?
Hi Rob, wala akong nakitang street performers except for the musicians in the last photo. And wait, insects? Did I read that right?
*lol* I laughed so hard at the “new identity” part.
Very quiapo/recto lang ha~
Pero pang-international ang level!