Pgeap, my driver from the day before, picked me up at 6:30am to drop me off at the airport. One of the benefits of hiring an all day tuk-tuk driver, in my opinion, is that this person becomes reliable and trustworthy. He was the first person I met when I got to Phnom Penh, and the last person I saw before I left.
I landed in Bangkok around 10:30am. Luckily this time, my check-in time was noon, so I headed directly to Hostelling to rest a bit before grabbing lunch. I had a “mild” green curry fried rice dish. I quickly learned that the definition of spice levels is very different in Thailand. I ate at the expense of my taste buds and went right back to the hotel. I was still pretty tired from the last couple days and also needed to do laundry (I purposely booked a hostel that had a laundry machine). I spent the afternoon reading waiting for my clothes to dry in the sun.
Later on that night, I ventured out to visit the famous Khan San Road. The simplest way I could describe it is to say it’s a block party for tourists. It’s a stretch of street that’s closed off to vehicles, lined with bars, random shops, live music, food carts, street entertainers, drinking, and dancing. Saw lots of very drunk people, probably due to the mixture of being in another country, alcohol, and potentially other relatively harmless items, such as laughing gas. Good times!
At one end of the block, there are some food carts selling corn and other fried vegetables, and also fried spiders and scorpions. I was repulsed by the idea that some people would actually eat them. Some were huge and terrifyingly alive looking. My immediate gut reaction was to think “I’d never do this”, but something else kicked in.
Why do I immediately think “I’d never do this” or “I can’t do this?” I made a decision at that time that made a direct impact in my line of thinking for this entire trip. Whenever my initial thought went to “I’d never or cannot do this,” I decided that I should do it. I’d regret it otherwise.
OutsideTheWell 