Chinatown!

While I was busy ranting about god know what on my last post, I completely forgot to write about Chinatown. Believe it or not, there is a Chinatown in Bangkok, and you know you're in Chinatown because - duh! - it's filled with Indians. Indians as far as the eye can see, hawking clothes, toys and of course, Indian food. The place is like a gigantic market you would expect to find in Bangkok. Stores and street stalls selling all kinds of things. Small, cramped alleys that maze endlessly, creating this super claustrophobic city in a city. It's almost surreal walking what seems like forever through a long tiny alley overflowing with goods, only to come across a bunch of kids playing in some open clearing in the middle of it. Walking through it alone is an experience in and of it self. What's kind of weird is that the place is just absolutely massive, and it's not the only market of it's kind in the city, not by a long shot. However, while it seems like they sell a lot, it all kind of the same thing over and over. Not sure how the thousands of vendors stay in business, but they do somehow I guess. There was something like 100 stalls selling just knife sharpeners, can't imagine those things fly off the shelf too much, but I'm still glad to know that there is in fact a "knife sharpener" section to Chinatown nonetheless. I did want to buy something, whether it be a hand gun, magnifying glass, gold suit, or bottle of Viagra, but the finicky shopper in me said no to everything. I am here a while, and will probably be back, so I may pick something up though. Taking requests for those of you back home...

I also got some bomb-ass soup from a street vendor today. The woman definitely went a little to easy with the portions, but it sure beat this crappy peanut noodle concoction that I choked down yesterday. I guess you can't succeed ever without trying, and you can't try without ever failing. The soup lady I met today was great because she and all her friends were wolfing down a box of Dunkin Donuts, while food that in the US would be considered trendy, exotic, healthy, and expensive was just sitting in front of her. I also checked out Wat Sakhet, a large Buddhist Temple. The place was apperently being spruced up for the King of Thailand's birthday tomorrow, so naturally they had two giant plaster ducks facing each other in the middle of a square at the entrance.