The longer I stay here, the more I get used to being in Bangkok. Looking back now, I can see that when I first arrived I spent a lot of time in places that were somewhat familiar to me such as shopping malls that had American businesses like McDonalds and Starbucks. But at the time, even those places seemed very foreign and strange (and therefore exciting) to me.
Now, those places seem very normal. I still go, but these days I really enjoy finding the out-of-the-way Thai places; places that seem different from what I am used to. Last night, I found one of those places.
My friend Mag helped me bring the last bit of my stuff to my new apartment (I had left some of it as his apartment temporarily) and I asked him if he knew of any good restaurants in my new neighborhood. A few minutes later (after he made one phone call to remind himself of the location of the restaurant) we found ourselves sitting at a table two feet from a very busy road in front of a non-descript chinese shop-house.
The food was Isaan-style (in other words, spicy and flavorful) and was wonderful. We had pork and duck and a very tasty herbal pork soup. But the fact that we were sitting there, sweating profusely from the heat of both the air and the food, just two feet from a 5 lane road with buses and taxis whizzing by on one side and many Thai people strolling along the other made it a very special (to me) experience.
