Satani Bat Bi: Bangkok

Our new home in Bangkok is fantastic. Both Husband and I had been to Bangkok/Thailand a time or two before moving here, but never for long, and moving somewhere is certainly much different than visiting.  While we didn't know exactly what to expect, we are so happy with our life here.

We live on a lovely thanon (street) between two main roads.  Describing an address in Thailand (as done to a taxi driver) is as follows: (main street) soi (number)/ thanon (name).  Soi = alley, or side street in Thai.  So you are basically saying "I live on Sukhumvit (major street), Soi 12."  Then the taxi driver goes down the soi until you say stop. I'm sure folks who speak Thai include their house number as well, but we're just getting started here.

Our thanon is about a 5 minute walk to the closest skytrain station, and convenient to a number of bus lines that lead to work and a beautiful park/shopping area.  There's quite a number of delicious restaurants nearby (Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Malaysian, Italian, and of course Thai), not to mention all the street carts with fresh fruit (usually papaya, watermelon, pineapple, mango, dragonfruit), fried sweets (variety of donuts, fried banana), bubble tea (iced tea with balls of lychee - I saw it in the States commonly as boba tee), noodle soups, and so on.  There's a copy/print shop, a laundry/dry cleaning shop, a vegan restaurant, a few bakeries, an embassy for a neighboring country, a Hindu temple, a few massage salons (1 hour foot massage for $10!), a supermarket, and many tailors (all hoping to get Husband's business and make him new suits).

Some photos:

One of my favorite features of Thailand: these large pots, filled with water, lillies, and fish can be found on most sois.  After our experience the last few years with fish, the first thing that enters my mind is 'who cares for this fish? what about food? temperature? pH?'  But this doesn't matter here - somehow it just works itself out.  Love these.

And the wonderful Lumphini (pronounced Loom-pee-nee) park - great for running loops, boating, early morning yoga and tai chi classes, and more!

A prime feature of Lumphini park - the monitor lizard!  Here a little one climbs a tree.  We saw a few that were closing in on 4-5 feet.  Husband got a photo of one wrestling a snake out of the water and eating it. If there's one thing that makes me like lizards, it's a lizard that eat snakes. I'll see if I can get him to share his photos later.

Soi sign downtown - sometimes just numbers, sometimes sois come with a name.  When I stayed here two years ago, I was on Ploenchit, Soi Tonson.

Downtown - divided street with the elevated skytrain track overhead.

More to come!