What's the Capital of Thailand? Bangkok!

I forgot my USB connector so I'll have to add some pictures to this post later, but I'll try to give you an accurate description of what I've seen of Bangkok so far.

First off, the streets are always full.  Taxis and Motorbikes are everywhere and they seem to pay no attention to the lanes drawn on the road and I've yet to see a blinker used.  On our way to the hostel from the airport, when our taxi was stopped at a light people wearing surgical masks walk up and down the cars selling bags of some sort of food (I'm assuming it was food).  They drive on the left here but seem to walk on the right, unlike in Australia so I keep having awkward "you go this way I'll go that way" moments.  Downtown has many tall apartment buildings and few big skypescapers other than that.  The air is hot, humid and very heavy, though when there is a breeze it is bareable.

The sidewalks are constantly crowded with people and it's hard to window shop as everyone is moving pretty quickly.  The sidwalks themselves are always wet and the buildings are always dripping water onto them.  To repair the concrete, there are bags of concrete that lie unopened but hardened in the areas that needed repair.  We are staying a few streets over from the touristy street called Khao San.  The streets in this area (and seemingly everywhere) are full of vendors and shops and people trying to get your money.  It's almost impossible to take 10 steps without being offered a ride in a tuk-tuk  (picture to come).

Walking around the streets is total sensory overload as I try to take in all of the sights and sounds and smells.  Sometimes it smells of delicious food or incense and 2 steps later it reeks of garbage.  It's exhausting trying to walk down the streets, look at the vendors, ignore the tuk-tuk drivers and deal with the heat.  After 20 minutes yesterday, Tarik and I had to go into a restaurant just to have a seat and relax.

Last night we took a "nap" that lasted 4 hours, woke up to watch the Germany-Argentina game and eat some fried rice and then went back to bed for 9 hours.  This morning I woke up at 7:30 and felt good.  The A/C in our room is key.  We took a taxi this morning to the JJ weekend market.  Getting there so early, half of the place wasn't set up yet and we were the only foreigners there.  We got a typical american breakfast of noodle soup with duck - exactly what I wanted at 8:30am.  Then we walked around the expansive marketplace.  Every direction you looked were stalls full of clothing, shoes, candles, hand-crafted wood, pets, etc.  It was an incredible site.  I didn't end up buying anything but tried out some Thai that I had been practicing on the plane.  It seemed to go over pretty well.  As the morning wore on, the market became much busier and we were no longer the only white people around.  We sat at a cafe and people watched for a while - eating some delicious homemade yogurt and fresh fruit.

We took the subway back to the center of town; the subway was very clean, which I thought was interesting because the city itself is not.  Then we walked back to the hostel, which was much further than we had thought it was and took us over an hour - not fun in the heat and sun.  Then we got some lunch: I had some fish curry and fried pork shrimp over rice.  I don't know what fried pork shrimp is but I'm pretty sure it was neither pork nor shrimp.

Alright, that was long.  Pictures to follow.  We're heading to a Muay Thai fight tonight and then up to Chaing Mai tomorrow.