Where are you going?

The previous post notwithstanding, I’ve been exploring Bangkok like crazy and am going to be moving to a hotel in a different part of town tomorrow. (I’ve already moved once but in the same area, just a little farther away from the masses). The best way to get to know a new place is to wander around lost and looking stupid, backtracking five or six times past the same group of guys laughing at you. Right? At least that’s what I’m telling myself. But I’m finally starting to get a sense of Bangkok’s layout and different neighborhoods–Chinatown, Siam Square , Silom, Sukhumvit. It is really big–places that look close on a map turn out to be a half-hour cab ride away.

So far, I have traveled around Bangkok by taxi, tuk-tuk, water bus on the Chao Phraya (the best by far), the BTS Skytrain, and even braved a regular city bus–on which I rode in the wrong direction for around 45 minutes until someone asked where I was going.

Where am I going? That’s the question on every taxi and tuk-tuk driver’s lips as I pass by (well, more like: where you go? Although one tuk-tuk driver, on discovering I was American, for some reason asked what I thought of Don King.) I mean, I have an idea–like, I’ll probably be heading to an island later this week–but the fact that I don’t have a schedule and an itinerary is still hard to wrap my own head around, much less something easily explained. Where am I now, that’s the question I’m trying to stay most interested in.

And it has been interesting so far; many stories to tell already. It’s going to be hard to keep up, but I will try, try, try. For now, take a look at some photos. There are more that I haven’t uploaded yet, and I’ve also taken a couple of little videos, which I will get up here also.