Moving

Today we left our backpacker-friendly ghetto of Banglamphu in favor of the outskirts of Bangkok, where there are fewer tourists and fewer English translations. The major reason for our move was to be closer to a metro line, so we could more easily visit different neighborhoods in the city. Tonight we'll probably be taking the metro to the night bazaar in the financial center.

Banglamphu was a great place to spend our first week. It was a pleasant mix of familiar and exotic, and we were able to gorge on banana roti and tangerine juice while we recovered from jet lag. Our new digs are actually classier than our last place - free wi-fi and a pool. When we had lunch in our new neighborhood today, we realized that for the last week we've been eating farang food. We were actually starting to believe that Thai food in Thailand was not as spicy as we had been told it would be. Now we know better, and now our mouths are burning.

The smells here are a lot more pungent, too. There's an awesome outdoor market by our guest house (which, buy the way, is called the K.T. Guest House - I hoped it stood for Katie, but I'm pretty sure it's Krung Thep, aka Bangkok). The market had fresh fruits, octopus, squid, and curries in plastic baggies, but it also had lungs, intestines, frog hearts, and plenty of other offal meats. I know that any self-respecting foodie should learn to embrace the innards, but my feeling has always been offal = awful.

Then there's durian. I was excited about durian long before this trip. I've already seen lots of durian in markets here and, aside from looking like a medieval weapon, it didn't seem to harmful. Today, I smelled it. At least, I think that's what I smelled, and, if it was, it didn't seem that bad. I'll have to go back soon to investigate and take that much-anticipated first taste. Stay tuned and see if my verdict is Durian-Delicious or Durian-Disgusting.