Mio Blog: Asia

Travel time - 2009/10/20-26
Written by Jerry Peng

During our last few days in Bangkok, we took a boat trip up the Chao Phraya River where you can relax and enjoy the wind and see many interesting things such as the floating market where these shops in boats ply their trade along the river, in a practice that was once essential but is now mostly a tourist attraction. We started at the top of the river and worked our way down, we also made a few stops on our way to visit some famous Thai temples, such as Wat Po, the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew and the Emerald Buddha. I was amazed by these magnificent temples; by the historical interior and exterior design, not to mention the spectacular and enormous Buddha statues with so many historical stories behind them. For transportation, these temples are all walkable and nearby each other from Piers No. 8 and 9. It was probably my most relaxing time in Bangkok! The wind softy blowing in your face with the nice warm weather, and you sitting on a boat with your eyes closed…wow; I already want to do it again. If you are not really a city person, it’s just so nice to escape the noise and the traffic for while and enjoy the wind and do nothing.

Overall, I think Bangkok is definitely a great city to visit with a lot of culture and interesting things to see and do, but there weren’t always good memories...I guess it turned out I just cannot enjoy the Thai food as much as my girlfriend did…well…I never enjoy Thai food that much in Taiwan, but still I had to give it a go since I was there, right? Well…it turned out to be painful for me. I guess my stomach is just not cut out for spicy and sour food. My girlfriend and I went to a local Thai restaurant, it was meant to be a great time… but a dish called “Tom Yam Kung” gave me the worst upset stomach I’ve ever known and just as I was getting better and because we hadn’t eaten that much Thai food on this trip, my girlfriend “forced” me to give it one more try at a different restaurant …but I knew something was wrong with my stomach with the first sip of the Tom Yam…my goodness…another 3 days of upset stomach I guess I will be not be eating Thai food for a long time to come…