So…..I'm a good portion of the way through my trip and I haven't even documented my travel experiences. I have finally gotten to a place in the trip where I have some downtime and a solid internet connection so I plan to catch up with series of blogs. I'll do my best to detail the trip from memory and from the many photos I captured along the way.

I have taken about 2 million photographs and I am contemplating a job with National Geographic because I'm "Ansel Adamsing" all over Thailand with my point and click camera. My Olympus Tough has 6 modes, but I only need 2 (iauto and magic).

And so begins day 1… Flight and arrival in Bangkok.

As my close friends know I traveled a portion of the trip with my pal Val. Val and I caught a plane out of Dallas the morning of October 1st. Thanks Mr. Parker for the drop off at DFW. Luckily I had a hefty dose of the travelers spirit because we had to endure a 26 hour transit to our final destination; Bangkok. We had a short layover in San Diego and we were finally off of U.S. soil. Val's birthday was on the 2nd, which came while we were in the air. I tried to coax the flight attendant in singing her happy birthday, but Asians like their sleep, so they wouldn't do it. I think an airplane full of Asians clumsily singing happy birthday would have been a memorable experience. I'll guess I'll just have to imagine it. We arrived a bit late into Tokyo and Japan airlines had attendants waiting there to escort us through the airport so we wouldn't miss our next plane. Either Japan airlines has their shi* together or Sarnowski's are a pretty big deal in Tokyo. I'd like to think the latter applies here. Our flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was practically empty so Val and I each got our own row to lay down and catch some z's.

We awoke around midnight shortly before landing in Bangkok and we readied ourselves for departure. The wifi in the airport wasn't working so we walked around for about 40 minutes hitting up the ATM and tracking down the address of our hotel. Customs took approximately 2.1 seconds to get through since they want to funnel you to the night market as quickly as possible where you will start spending your hard earned cash on overpriced goods. We exited the airport and quickly found a taxi to take us to Khao San Road. All the guidebooks told us to ask for the metered taxi, but our negotiating skills weren't up to par and the taxi charged us 700 baht ($23) for the trip. It should have been around 450 baht ($15). Lesson 1: Ask for a meter, negotiate hard, and don't be afraid to walk away.

Our taxi drove us to Khao San Road, which is the backpacker area. The street was so busy it was closed off, so our driver dropped us off about ¼ mile from the hotel and we walked to rest of the way down Khao San Road. The street was pure madness where street vendors, backpackers, and bars were hustling. It reminded me of a dirty hippy version of the Vegas strip.

We were tired from our plane rides, but decided to dump our stuff at the hotel and take in an adult beverage to celebrate Val's birthday Bangkok style. After meandering among the street vendors we finally stopped at a cheap bar on the street where we consumed our first Thai beer; CHANG. Chang means elephant as is representative of their logo. Apparently it's "cool" to name your beer after an animal, since the top 4 beers in the country all dawn the name of a jungle creature; Chang (Elephant), Leo (Lion), Singha (Mystical Lion), Tiger (this means Tiger in English). After a couple of brewski's on the patio, the police started to patrol the street and made everyone move inside to one of the establishments. We finished our beers on the patio and decided to take a night cap from a 3rd story bar that overlooked Khao San Road. This made for great people watching as the drunken backpackers mingled with the food carts on the street. I ordered us a couple of drinks and it was here that I found my beer of choice for the rest of the trip. Leo! Leo beer is very light and refreshing. It reminds me of bud light with even less skunky after taste. We finished our beers and grabbed some food from a couple of the street vendors to fill our bellies. We each went with a safe chicken teriyaki "meat stick" and a pad thai. The food was quite delicious and in total we paid about $2 for our dinner. I was going to be eating meat sticks for the next 3 days to make up for the $7 the cabby ripped me for. #saving

On the walk back to the hotel we noticed LOTS of interesting smells as each of the food carts were making a concoction of seafood, meat, and vegetables that was mixed with sewer, beer, and rain. It was clear these weren't going to be the only "smells" of the trip, that was for sure.

We retired for the eve since we had a full day of adventures planned for the next day.