“I need a break,” I said as I sat down on the stone steps of a bank. It was close to dinner time (in Bangkok time zone, at least), and we had been walking for what felt like hours from our hotel in the not-too-tourist-appealing Central Business District.
Like the flight from Lisbon to Bangkok via Dubai, the hotel had been booked on a whim, chasing special offers I had been emailed about. The Chong Nonsi BTS Station, just 10-minutes away within walking distance, closed the deal.
I didn’t know it yet then, but 12 hours later, I’d become sick with what I thought was food poisoning at first, but it turned out to be bacterial pharyngitis. I was not prepared for Southeast Asia. As had happened with Rome three months before, I wasn’t feeling excited about Bangkok.
2013, as I would realize later, was not a great travel year.
Jet lag was getting the best of me, and I didn’t feel like adventuring on street food, as everyone had suggested to me. Instead, we settled for an Indian restaurant where we both were familiar with the North Indian menu.
I had not fallen in love with Bangkok like everyone said I would.
I was about to dismiss the whole of Asia based on my lukewarm first impressions of the Land of Smiles’ capital city.
On the way back to our hotel after dinner, we checked out our surroundings for the first time since arriving in the area.
In a pink taxi without air conditioning, the ride from the airport had been a tortuous 2-hour long trip. The traffic was chaotic. No one seemed to abide by the rules—a behavior pattern I would see again, one year later, in Ahmedabad, India.