Today is day 3 of my stay in the land of persistent sweating. I kicked things off once again with a coffee shop visit down the road from me at a place called Bottomless. The barista was friendly and spoke good English except for the fact he kept calling me “master” instead of “mister.” I let him know his English was good and corrected his mistake. I hope he doesn’t think bad of me now, since I’ll probably frequent this shop many times during my stay here.
The main goal of today was to get vaccinated. I found the Thai Travel Clinic just fine and register easy enough, but had to return at 1pm to get the vaccines. So with the this free time I hit up the famous boat noodle alley. I had some tasty bowls of boat noodles at one of the less popular, less sophisticated stands on the river.
On the way back and forth from the Thai Travel clinic, I passed by Bangkok's masculine Victory monument. I learned that it is shaped as 5 bayonets touching together, each representing the army, navy, air force, police, and civilian population.
I returned to the clinic in time and received both the first shots of Japanese Encephalitis and Rabies for an unbelievable 1200 Baht or about $34. These same shots would have cost me somewhere closer to $600 in the US. Maybe I should have done my other vaccines here too 😅.
In the afternoon I found a fantastic Crossfit gym called Training Ground. It's a huge box with plenty of equipment and a diverse group of athletes. I'll probably go there again before I leave the city. I don't think the rest of the cities on my itinerary, besides Chiang Mai, will have great boxes like this, if any.
To finish off the night, I found a food court in the nearby shopping mall with plenty of options. I had some duck with egg noodles. I think it contained duck liver or heart, which was not as bad as normal probably thanks to the tasty, salty broth. I also had to try McDonald's for the first time since arriving. Trying McDonald's in new countries is always exciting because the menu will have special entrees tailored for the local taste. Japan may have the teriyaki burger, but here in Bangkok the McDonald's has real fried chicken and it's finger lickin' good.
Other notes:
TIL the hose next to the toilet is a hand-held or poor man's bidet. It works better in my opinion since you move the hose and don't have to shift your booty hole into the right position for the normal bidet.