24 hour BKK and Goodmorning Vietnam

From Chiang Mai I traveled the 8 hour night bus back to Bangkok to fly out the following morning.  I found myself, again, just off of Koh San Road but was not willing to just stay around.   I found out that a friend from Seattle was in Bangkok staying with her brother so I trekked to find her on the public transit. Bus to light rail.

Thank you Heather and Ashley for my birthday hankie, it has come in so handy to have.

Torrential downpour a great break from the humidity for the 20 minutes.

I saw this at the light rail station.  Why is it that white=power? Advertisement proof of institutionalized racism, and Thailand's continued westernization. If you don't think that it racist, I pose this question to you, have you ever seen something being advertised as black and powerful, "get the new black power iMac"? Exactly.

White Thai girl to go with the white power.

Enough ranting, on with public transportation.

So I got to the neighborhood that my friend said she lived in and I wondered looking for the address.  After about an hour an a half and some more sprinkles I retreated into what looked like a mall thinking I would at least see a movie. 

I took the escalator up 3 floor until realizing it was a school.

So back to the train I went to find my way back to my hotel.  Another Westernization billboard.  It says "Too shy to speak English? Speak to Wall Street" EEeeeeewwwwwww!

Life size clown fish/Feminized Nemo for Molly.

On my way back and during another big rain with lighting and thunder I found the real mall.  And in the mall I found the Thai Travel Channel having a promotion where people could get their picture taken, guess where?  That's right, in NYC, USA.

Then I watched a movie with the theater to myself.

My flight to Hanoi left at 6:50 am which had me landing in Hanoi at 9:30.  When I landed it was cold and rainy and the weather reminded me of San Francisco.

How I felt about the weather.

But the city itself is amazing.  Very obviously colonized by the French.  A lot of tall buildings smooched together, like different worlds depending at which angle you decide to look at it.

My friend of the family, Greg, meet me at the hotel that he knew the manager for and worked out an amazing deal.  Easily the fanciest place I've stayed so far, but besides the hotel itself, the location rocked.  Right in the middle of "old town" which consists of the narrowist, busiest, packed streets that you can imagine. And the food, OMG, I love Vietnam.

Lunch by the lake with Greg and Michael.  Remember Michael in Chiang Mai that I met through the NY amazing lesbian femme Alice? It ended up that he was coming to Hanoi to meet up with his cousin.  So we got to ramble around together and go on food and movie adventures. 

Both Michael and I didn't have warm enough clothes or shoes, so first thing was first, warm clothes. Then warm tea after.

and some delicious Pho Bo.

For dinner we went to a conveyor belt hotpot.  Look at that food.  All of that went into the boiling broth above my plate.

Kitchi kitchi was good, not the "delicious" that I normally would exclaim, but the experience was fun. I liked that I felt like I was cooking.  I miss my kitchen, I miss cooking and I miss cooking for my people. 

I am having a wonderful time despite how much I miss my life and all of you.  I am a couple weeks behind on my blog.  The rest of Hanoi and the start to traveling south next.

xoxo