Wholly Shit, I’m in a Different Country

From my experience in New Zealand, I constantly tried to look for the subtle differences in culture and appearance compared to the United States. At times, in New Zealand, it wouldn't be much different than if I traveled to another state in the U.S. and was hearing a different American accent and dealing with the customs of that area. I've been in Thailand for a few days now and trying to point out the differences here would be just about impossible. This is not America. This is absolutely not Oregon House.

We spent our first two days in Bangkok, which is a ridiculously large city. The place we stayed was great to help get acclimated when everything around you is so foreign.  We had our own little standalone bungalow among a little community of these things within a giant city. The grounds were very nice and the staff was incredibly helpful.

For our first day we decided to just walk off the hotel property and start wondering around. This adventure was relatively short lived. Once in the daylight, we realized that we were in just some random neighborhood (or district as they call it) that was full of Thai people just doing their daily business. There really wasn't too much to see. So we decided that the next day we needed to get out of Bangkok for a while and go somewhere you imagine in your head when you think of Thailand. You know: palm trees, rice patties, small streets, little scooter taxi carts, the ocean.

That night, we decided to head to the city center for dinner. As we approached the downtown area, we began to see bright lights, fancy cars, and a more diverse population. Within one mile we must’ve driven by four shopping malls. These were your standard American looking shopping malls. Two maybe three stories tall, wide open walkways, defined walls, and familiar stores. However, we were going to MBK Mall.

I could write two pages trying to describe everything we saw in this place and it still wouldn't do it justice. It was eight stories tall with three movies theaters, a bowling alley, and two levels of just restaurants.  The various levels, housing electronics and clothes, were setup similar to a street market. Small spaces with just enough room to walk in and see the things hanging on the wall or on a rack in the middle of the space. Some spaces just had a counter in front and everything was hanging behind them. You could buy almost anything here.

But this is not what we were after at the time. We will be back in Bangkok to fly to Vietnam and can play then. Now we are on a mission for a rural and tropical scene.