Asok

Normally, when it's time for me to head to Bangkok for some reason, I stay in the Khaosan Road tourist ghetto. Although it does contain a number of products and services tourists need, like visa assistance, travel gear, and information - it is also dirty, the rooms are expensive, and worst of all, you can't walk five feet without someone trying to sell you something.

So even though I suspect there are cool things to do in Bangkok somewhere, I don't really know where to find them and so I usually minimize my time there.

But on this trip I got an invitation from my friend Leah to stay at her apartment in the Asok neighborhood. I'm not sure that's really the name of the area. Asok is the nearest Sky Train stop, which Leah shares with another popular tourist destination called Soi Cowboy, one of the city's red light districts. It's actually a single alley that is right on her block. We cut through the alley once so I could check it out. It helped that she was with me, otherwise, as a single guy, I would have had a hard time making it out of there without a lot of harassment.


Her apartment is lovely and made a huge difference to the quality of my time spent there. Being walking distance from good public transportation (unlike Khaosan) made it much easier for me to run errands around town like getting to the Myanmar (Burma) embassy for the visa I'd need later in my trip.

While exploring her neighborhood, I wandered into a brand new shopping mall called Terminal 21. It's themed kind of like an airport. They have signs that appear to be pointing you to different world destinations. At first I actually thought it was some kind of train station.

It's about eight stories high, and when I got to the fourth floor, I had one of the most surreal experiences I have had during this trip.

As I came up the escalator, there is a giant scale replica of the Golden Gate Bridge. It actually spans between the fourth and fifth floors.

Both floors are themed to look like San Francisco, my home city.

Everywhere I looked, there were details that reminded me of home. Some of them are obvious, like a giant full-sized replica of a cable car on tracks made into a coffee shop you can sit inside. And some are less obvious, like the signs of real stores, street signs, and public artwork, most of which no one who didn't live there would really associate with the city.

Everywhere I walked, I'd snap a picture of something that made me laugh. I know I looked funny to the other shoppers in the mall. Why did I care so much about the decorations?

The food court of the mall was called "Pier 21", and completely themed after Pier 39, the major tourist ghetto of San Francisco. It even had a Bubba Gump Shrimp sign above a Chinese restaurant.

That's what kind of spun my head. A fake sign for a real restaurant in a fake tourist part of a real city.

Mind. Blown.

One night, a few of Leah's friends and I were out at her favorite sushi restaurant, In the Mood for Love. After a number of drinks, Leah made the proclamation, "We should go to Railay tomorrow for the weekend!"

I don't think this is a rare proclamation for her. She has made no secret that Railay is her favorite place on Earth. She is an avid rock climber, and besides having a gorgeous beach, it is a climber's paradise. I have no solid itinerary for this month, so of course I say "I'm in! I have the perfect frisbee!"

So the Thailand beach combing portion of my trip began the next day. Only this time, rather than the grueling overnight bus from Bangkok, we just hopped a plane - she with a round trip ticket - me with a one way. Normally after dark, you'd have to stay overnight in Krabi and take a boat over to Railay beach in the morning. But Leah has a number of friends there, so we got the VIP treatment at the airport. A van ride to the dock and a boat waiting to motor us over in the dark. I can see why this is a favorite weekend activity for her. I'd do it too if I lived in Bangkok.

After a solid weekend of frisbee and paddle ball, Leah returned home, and I mulled my next move.

I could fly back to Bangkok and start my Burma trip.

But as long as I'm already in South Thailand beach mode...