Chaotic, polluted and impossible to navigate – all characteristics emblematic of this city, none of which I found to be true. To be fair, I was coming from 4 weeks of Indonesian cities so maybe it didn’t take much to impress me. In any case, I really enjoyed Bangkok and found it to be almost tranquil in comparison to, say, Jakarta. Traffic (for the most part) stayed on the appropriate sides of the road, and stopped at red lights. There were cross walks and even cross walk signals. The air was clean and smelled like…food.

My few days there consisted mostly of walking to various temples and palaces, and eating too much the entire time. Wayyyy too much. The sculptures, decorations, tapestries, and other works of Thai art were truly unbelievable. I didn’t know that humans were capable of the mastery exhibited. The most spectacular were always commissioned by the royal family, and items like a 5-foot long model of some famous boat included facts like “created by 220 artisans over 20 months”. The beetlewing art was especially impressive, with entire tapestries made from hundreds of thousands of lustrous green and blue beetlewings pieced together. Furthermore, the beetles must live a full beetle life and die a natural death, otherwise the wings do not achieve the proper color and texture. Unfortunately photography was strictly prohibited in all the museums.

My favorite part of Bangkok was Chinatown, which embodied the Bangkok of my imagination. The streets and alleys are shopping “malls”, absolutely packed with piles and piles of…everything. Just walking around is an adventure, and monolithic neon signs provide a wonderfully cliche backdrop to the scene. And the food…