Bangkok or not?

We arrive in Bangkok at 3am. Our sleep pattern up to this point has been erratic at best, so we decided to head to the hotel, check in, shower and head out to see what this city is all about. What we notice first of was this truly is a city that never sleeps. As we head down the street in the direction we "think" we should be heading (towards the old city / backpacking district), we are pretty much stepping over the people from the night before. The rush hour traffic is building up around them, and it feels like any other major asian city at this time. Not really what we were expecting, but then I'm not sure what we were expecting? The food street vendors we were passing weren't really serving anything we could recognize be sight or smell, so although the locals are lining up to get some of these culinary delights...... we decided to skip it.

 We gave up dealing with the chaos and opted to jump in a taxi and let the guy overcharge the two obviously lost tourists. We make it to the old city (back packing area), find a coffee shop, and although its 7am at this point ....... I opted for a beer (although Rachel wisely took a coffee), then another, and another ....... and all of a sudden the city was a lot easier to deal with :-)

 Rachel persuaded me to take a pedicure (maybe because of the beer, maybe because of the jet lag, but I said yes). Not something I have ever done before, but considering I'm asking her to undertake several "firsts" on this trip ..... I could hardly say no. I was actually pleasantly surprised.,

After we took care of the pampering we then dealt with the city. The tut tut tour was fun, although I feel it would have been more fun without the exhaust fumes and traffic jams that would make Houston look rural. Considering our 34 hour + journey here, I knew it was going to be a short day. We tried to fight it, but after the touring, some amazing food, a few drinks in a bar full of middle aged white men and 20 something year old Thai girls, and an accidental stroll through the market street full of sex toys and Viagra (we realized we were in the red light district by mistake) ....... we decided that a 12 hour sleep is what was needed seeing as in the morning we were up at 5 to head to the airport ....... Ching Mai bound.