Bangkok Begins

The entire trip from first take off till last touchdown was 28 hrs. Let there be no mistake, we were ready for bed! By the time we arrived at our hotel and got situated it was 2:AM. We put out the Do Not Disturb sign so if we slept till noon the maid wouldn't bother us. 4 1/2 hrs later we were staring at the ceiling so we decided to get up and checkout breakfast. Breakfast consisted of various breads, jams, sweet rolls, cereal, several kinds of meat, juices and scrambled eggs. That confirmed it! This was the best $35 a night hotel I've ever stayed in.
Back at the room we answered emails and read the AR news then hit the streets.
We made some smaller change and got some good advice from the hotel concierge, Paen, and started down the street. This part of the city was a mixture of old and new. A 100 yr old shanty of a building was right next to a modern multimillion dollar structure. People and cars were everywhere, zooming in and out of traffic. It was nerve-racking to watch. Street vendors lined the sidewalks with a wide variety of food, clothing and souvenirs. A whole sidewalk in one area was full of vendors who were deaf. Since I (Trevor) am an interpreter back in the States I immediately tried to strike up a conversation. I found that many signs were the same or similar to American Sign Language and enough that we were able to communicate, although not without obvious and often humorous error. We did buy two pair of shorts from them.
We visited a shopping area called Times Square, bought wonderful fresh fruit smoothies for $1 each and passed hundreds of unsanitary looking food venders with all sorts of unrecognizable 'goodies'.
The streets were packed with people and motorists veering back and forth and in and out like Nascar drivers after a New Years eve brawl. Amidst it all one thing we both noticed was how clean the streets were, not without hundreds of years of wear and tear, but no litter. Later we found a notice that anyone littering will be arrested. Wow, that's one way to handle a trash problem.
Finally it was lunch time and we settled on an authentic Indian restaurant. It was very yummy and reasonably priced but very spicy. It was a treat that we could enjoy twice since it burned going in and later burned coming back out.