I got to the Airbnb around 11 AM.  It was in these swank condos called TC Green.  Chris didn’t get into Bangkok until 5 PM, so I got some things done.  I went down to the mall to sort out getting a Thai SIM Card in my phone, but ran into some issues.  While previously unlocked, I had swapped my phone at the Apple store a week before leaving.  Something was wrong with this phone, and basically it was locked to Verizon, although only Apple would be able to do anything about it.  No Apple store in Thailand.  Time difference in the USA made it midnight on the Left Coast.  Basically, I was fucked.  

After eating some spicy curry in the food court, I rode the MRT (subway) to Sukhumvit and just kind of wandered around.  Got a drink in some bland bar, and was talking to the owner while I sat at the bar.  He was telling me about Bodega Hostel just around the block.  I knew right away that I wanted to switch to a hostel–this place could have potential.  While I anticipated needing a swank place to sleep after the journey, I was actually fully ready to rock after getting off the plane.  Even made some friends just on the plane.  The entire 777 from Taipei to Bangkok was backpackers.

I checked out Bodega.  Pretty vibey.  Good common area.  I booked 2 nights there to check it out and then went back to meet Chris at TC Green.  Our driver–named Yo–dropped him off right when I got back. 

So if you wanna get to and from the TC Green, you pay $1 to take a motorcycle cab from the metro to the condo or vice-versa.  The motorcycle guys just hang outside the condo waiting for people.  No one here wears helmets here.  While I wear a armored leather jacket and a helmet when I ride in SF, I didn’t seem to mind going in shorts, Birkenstocks, and no helmet for these little journeys through hectic traffic.  #justasiathings

Chris unpacks a bit and then we decide to just go out.  We grab some beers at 7-11 and just take turns buying ‘rounds’ as we walk to the metro. 7-11 is everywhere here.  We ended up at a ton of different bars off Sukhumvit.  Side streets off a main road are called a Soi (pronounced soy) instead of having their own name.  So Sukhumvit Soi 17 is just ‘soi 17′ off of Sukhumvit.  Oh yeah, they’re not in numerical order at all either.  Naturally.

We found a bar called Hilary 2 and just walked in with beers.  They kicked us out after a few minutes when we didn’t want to order anything and just drank our tall cans of Chang.  They’re really nice at kicking you out here.  Thai people are awesome.  We wondered where Hilary 1 was.

We found some shitty bar called P.P. Beer, which is kind of hilarious based on the name.  They were using Youtube to play their music, and they let us take it over and play some music.  We played the ‘We are Farmers’ remix and then had a beer and got out of there.

Later on we found Hilary 1, but this time they didn’t kick us out for having our street beers.  While they let us have street beers, it was equally as meh as #2. We exited after a few minutes and wondered where Hilary 3 was.

There was randomly a Hooters.  We went in with the street beers no problem, an discovered a mechanical bull.  Place was pretty lame.  I rode the bull immediately.  They presented me with a waiver to sign and I just wrote ‘Yolo Swag’ as my signature and it was all good.  I actually did pretty ok.  The DJ was on point, and was some fly Thai girl.  The bar was composed of a bunch of really boring looking white guys sitting around drinking beer.  It was pretty depressing and I think we were the most exciting thing to happen at that bar all night.  We quickly departed and moved on to the next bar.

We tired quickly of this soi and Sukhumvit in general, and decided to grab a ride to Khao San Road–which is pretty much known as backpacker central. We grab this kind of death-trap cab contraption that is like a motorbike with a full seated cab in the back and has 3 wheels.  We later found out that this is called a tuk tuk.  We haggled the price down to 150 Bhat and enjoyed some street food in the back for the duration of the 20 minute ride.

Khao San Road was a shit show.  It was like 01.00 by the time we got there, and the place was abuzz with activity.  it’s essentially a pretty wide walking street with a ton of run-down bars with huge patio seating areas.  It’s just a bunch of backpackers getting drunk.  Almost all the hostels are in this area.  Thai people held cardboard signs that said “Laughing Gas” with a smiley face.  You could get a balloon of Laughing Gas for like 50 Bhat which is like $1.50.  People walked around selling cooked whole scorpians.  We ate one each and they weren’t bad.  We also convinced the British girls we met to have some too.  Their reactions were as you might expect, but respect for actually eating that disgusting looking creature.

We saw the most amazing Thai beatboxer.  The only cool thing on Khao San Road.  A group of 6 decent but not mindblowing breakdancers who danced to the pretty amazing beats dropped by some 16 year old Thai kid. While we vibed to that for a bit, we saw this kind of overweight girl with a Hudson’s Bay Company 4 color.  We yelled ‘YO, HUDSON’S BAY’ at her a few times, but she didn’t seem to notice.  After we started talking to her, we realize she was from New Zeland and had no idea what Hudson’s Bay Company was, but her boyfriend got it for her.  What an idiot.  She was really stupid, so it only made it worse that she wore those colors.

We got home around 3:00 AM and Chris was laying in the bed shirtless watching the Eric Andre Show.  5 minutes in this dude just starts snoring.  I let this go on for like 45 minutes, and until I went to go to bed, this guy was just completely passed out, with the laptop sitting on his chest playing episode after episode.

I called it a night at this point.