It was an assault on the senses. Sights and smells beyond comprehension. Lights and tastes, holding our attention. It was a lesson. Appreciating culture, meeting a people, experiencing a new world, it felt destined. Eyes unblinking, they stared through windows, as the final leg of their arrival was about to drop them like the pin puncturing poster on their bedroom wall thousands of miles away. Unfamiliar customs, unfamiliar language, food, drink, clothing, a stranger’s way of life. Chaotic souls still getting used to the idea of this immense undertaking, it was only to be matched by the chaos reverberating from the streets below. Bags dropped, and a deep breath, appreciating the weight of this moment. A moment when one realizes that after this single step forward, nothing would ever be the same. No amount of thought, planning or expectation could prepare oneself for the feeling in this moment. No hesitation, a resolute lunge forward, soul and sole touch down on pavement.

We could barely believe it ourselves, but we had arrived in Bangkok, Thailand. It was not only trying to wrap our heads around the fact that we were finally, truly beginning our Southeast Asian adventure, but also dealing with the culture shock of starting in a crazy place like Bangkok. As it turned out, a good crazy. When we were asking advice for our trip from friends and family that had visited this part of the world, it quickly became clear that Bangkok was probably the most polarizing city we would come across. Some loved it, others loathed it. It is a travel belief of mine that one should never judge a city before experiencing it firsthand. And that someone’s experiences should be taken with a grain of salt. Often when you boil down bad experiences, it turns out to be a chain of unlucky or prejudiced, emotional circumstance that really don’t give a true nor fair representation of a given environment. Therefore, the polarizing reviews got me super fired up to see the city myself. If it was that controversial, there has got to be some serious action going on. We came to Southeast Asia for the experience of a lifetime. Lets hit the ground running.

Our surprisingly lovely hostel was a short walk from the cities Chinatown district, which connects to many local markets and continues on towards the main temples. Our first proper market experience was stumbling across this one alleyway that seemed endless. The walkway was probably no more than four feet wide, but with hundreds of people cramming their way through. And if that wasn’t enough, we couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw motorized scooters honking their horns as they slowly, but not terribly carefully, worked their way through the crowds. An incredible array of goods were for sale, but we were more interested in the market chaos itself than buying stuff to weigh down our bags before we even gotten started on the trip. The walkway eventually shot us out near the local temples. Bangkok is home to some of the most recognizable and stunning landmarks in all of Thailand. We began at the Wat Pho shrine, which houses the famous Reclining Buddha. For anyone that hasn’t heard of the shrine or its famed prize, yes, that is actually what it is called and yes, it is exactly what you think. This temple was our first properly immersive experience into the visual styling’s and spiritual ambiance of Buddhism. The colourful buildings and incredibly ornate spires that covered the grounds were stunning to behold. There were loads of signs and security ensuring that proper dress was worn when entering the temples, but regardless of their efforts, it was pretty clear that the overwhelming force of naivety and insensitivity around a foreign culture prevents your average tourist from being out of their comfort zone for even a minute. We, however, were well researched and well prepared so we had backpack stores of backup clothing for just such an occasion. The Reclining Buddha is 46 meters long and incredibly, is only the third largest Buddha in Thailand! It was a beautiful experience to finally witness an example of this spiritual culture.

Our temple walk continued across the Chao Phraya River to Wat Arun. The temple itself isn’t hard to spot as it towers majestically over the edge of the river. Instead the hard part was figuring out how to get across the river itself. It was clear boats were taking travellers across, but the origin and acquisition of these boats was troubling. We managed to stumble into a surprisingly good specialty coffee shop and game planned from there. An important moment occurred at this point that would become a common theme in our trip for the weeks to come. It was resigning ourselves to the notion of “we’ll see what happens”. Whether that means walking a certain way to see where it leads or to try a random food and see if it’s good or to pay some person and hopefully get what we are intending to acquire. When communication isn’t seamless, when culture and customs are unfamiliar and when a traveller opens up their heart and mind to adventure, one experiences the endorphin of travel. We had a general idea where the boats were coming from; we walked a couple dead end paths and eventually handed an amount of money to a stranger. Luckily this chain of events got us onto a flotation device and we were headed towards our destination. Success.

Wat Arun was beautiful as well and had a wonderful garden surrounding the temple. Our walk led us through the grounds and various structures out into a residential area and eventually onto a busy street cutting north through this section of the city. We knew of another market up ahead, so our plan was to explore there before heading back across the river towards The Grand Palace and the popular backpacker area called the Khao San Road Night Market. Our walk took a slight turn for the worse as not only did it start raining on us, but as we approached The Grand Palace we realized it was closed indefinitely for various events surrounding the King’s funeral. Although unfortunate we couldn’t see this grand spectacle up close, it would have been impossible for anything, even rainy-season level downpours, to dampen our excitement. We moved onwards towards the backpacker street and were blown away at the chaos of it. A relatively skinny street, but packed from wall to wall with vendors, tuk tuks, market stalls, bars, and what was quickly going to become a close friend of ours: Pad Thai carts. We had two desires that needed immediate satisfaction. We wanted to eat some delicious Pad Thai and drink some Thai lagers. Our rain soaked bodies were warmed to their core by an experience long in the making and topped off by learning how much it was going to cost. Roughly converted, $1.50 Pad Thai’s and $2 beers. I think we’re going to like it here.

At this point we were absolutely on cloud nine, but luckily this incredible day wasn’t done with us just yet. It would have been a pretty long walk to get back to the hostel, so we took the opportunity to put some of our research to the test. We of course knew about the culture of haggling, but it was the nuance of it all that I find most fascinating. When to do it, when not to. When to push, when to accept. When it came to cabs, we knew it was time to push. Receiving a no from one guy just means his no becomes ammo against himself when he sees me talking to the next guy. No surprise, the first guy’s no eventually turned to a yes. We had a wet clothing change in the hostel and made plans to head to Chinatown for dinner. And if we hadn’t crossed off enough Thai to-do’s already, it was time for another classic. It was Tuk Tuk Time. Again, these bad boys are a dime a dozen so after dangling the carrot in front of our future friend as we walked away from a negotiation, the “Vroom Vroom!” we heard behind us was a satisfying sign of resignation over the 50 Baht that had separated us. Boy o boy, do these things ever live up to the hype. Even being on the inside of them feels chaotic. Crazy lights, coloured seats, hanging decorations and then the drivers who wield them are absolute mad men. We only had maybe a 10-minute ride, but it was crazy fun. Chinatown itself ignites when the sun goes down and becomes essentially a curbside food market. Restaurants spill out onto the sidewalks and food vendors post up and place tables and plastic chairs to create their own mini dining rooms. It was near impossible to choose between them, but we absolutely nailed it. Following the age old advice of lines are a good sign, we ended up at a duck stand and had an unbelievably delicious duck noodle dish. The food was objectively great, but the ambiance of sitting within the chaos of that street on any night of the week surrounded by ornate fluorescent signs and experiencing culture and a dining experience in local fashion, it was a special travel moment.

Our next day had us experience a very different Bangkok. If our first day was markets, temples and old town, the second day was shwanky hotels, highbrow restaurants and polished bars and cafes. We had planned a coffee and beer crawl for ourselves and pretty much every location on our list was in this wealthy part of town. It was a bit jarring at first, seeing and forming a perspective on our arrival and then so quickly, just twenty minutes away, what felt like a completely different world. Bangkok was all of a sudden LA, or some other Westernized tropical destination. We managed to taste some delicious coffees and even stumbled across a tasting room of one of our favourite beer brands through an accidental Google maps zoom. And then a lunch to be enshrined in legend. Buckle up. I ordered green curry.

For anyone unfamiliar with the curry situation in Thailand there are three basic styles and colours: yellow, red and green. All delicious, but all varying in spice. To help remember which is which, I adopted an easy to remember street light analogy. Yellow means be cautious, take your time, but enjoy this delicious mild curry. Red means stop, take a breather, that spice is creeping up on you, but relax and enjoy this delicious medium spice curry. Green means go, directly to the nearest hospital because your body is internally combusting and nothing will ever be the same. Did the lack of an English menu force me into a panic order? Sure. Did the green curry look delicious in the photo on the wall? Heck ya it did. Did I know this day was maybe my last on earth? No, no I didn’t. I found myself in a Bermuda Triangle of sorts where I was starving, I was genuinely enjoying the taste and wanted to check green curry off the list, but I also wanted to represent my white traveller brethren proudly and prevent the next naïve shmuck from walking in here and getting gringo spice all because of me. I am proud to say that although there wasn’t a single dry napkin left within arms reach of me by the end of the meal, I finished that gosh darn curry and boy was it delicious.

After a few more coffees and beers around the neighbourhood we ventured towards our dinner destination. But before this, we made a wrong turn. And not just any wrong turn. A wrong turn onto one of the most bizarre streets we had ever been on. Only maybe 100 feet long, 10 feet wide. Packed like sardines were probably 30 businesses selling the exact same thing. On the street, dozens of people trying to convince you they were better than the next. And if you haven’t figured out what they were selling yet…they were selling their…services. It was a very tiny red light district. What this street and its inhabitants lacked in subtlety, it made up for in…well, nothing, it was super full on and we were crazy uncomfortable. It became pretty clear people don’t just casually walk down this street, so everyone thought we were up for grabs. The sales pitches were coming from every direction. The craziest part was how out in the open everything was in the sense that there was clearly no fear of police or public scrutiny. We rounded the corner and got outta there pretty quick, but it was a two-minute walk that felt way longer and has since become a funny story.

Anthony Bourdain visited Bangkok for an episode of his show A Cook’s Tour and he visited a bizarre restaurant called The Seafood Market and Restaurant. A neon sign greets you out front with their no nonsense slogan “If It Swims We Have It”. Once being sat at your table in the enormous banquet hall seating area you are given a ‘helper’ who pushes a shopping cart through a mock grocery store as you peruse for your dinner. The slogan holds up and you are given the option of a plethora of seafood to have for your meal. Once the protein is sorted, you then move on to the vegetable and bread section of the…restaurant? At this point you need to have an idea of how you would like to eat your seafood so that it can be prepared properly with all the necessary ingredients. Don’t worry, your helper friend is there to help, kinda. A wine section is available as well and once all items are safely in your supervised shopping cart, it’s on to the checkout. Beep, beep, beep that will be XX dollars please. Cart pushed to table and we are handed off to our waiter and kitchen liaison. “How would you like your food cooked?” he asks. “Uhhhhh don’t you answer that?” replied our confused wide eyes and raised eyebrows. My mouth answered, “what would you recommend?” much more helpfully. It turned out that as every ‘grocery’ item cost money, each cooking method had an associated cost as well. We got to a happy place and our friend whisked away our cart to be taken to the gigantic kitchen. The kitchen is situated near the front door in front of a huge window where you can watch a bunch of chefs cooking a countless variety of dishes in such a unique restaurant concept. Our meals were returned and presented just as we dreamed them up. The food was great, but as you can imagine, picturing us sitting amongst hundreds of banquet tables and chairs, surrounded by 80’s fluorescent signs and 70’s inspired fish themed decor, it was all about the experience.

Our final day in Bangkok was spent touring the last couple of areas on our list, but mostly getting organized for the next leg. We were heading north. Through a bit of research we came across a famous journey that takes place every single day by travellers from all over the world. I’m not talking about some quick, boring, up and down plane ride. Nor some over heated, cramped, traffic ridden bus journey. No, instead I am talking about a symbol of travel. A means of transit riddled with notions of romance. A timeless transport. Yes, the train. The overnight train to Chiang Mai is a backpacker rite of passage for Thailand travel. Incredibly, there is a man who has dedicated his life to travelling the world by train and has an exhaustive website detailing hundreds of train journeys all over the world. He specifies down to reviews of individual train carriages. We managed to get the second best. Tickets booked. All aboard.