Before going to Bangkok I googled everything there “was to know” about my adventure. I wanted to know the weather, how transportation works, the climate of the people, the currency, etc. But there’s certain things that the internet didn’t prepare me for, I had to find them out the hard way.
Food
Take for instance “pork”. In the states, pork has a bad connotation, it leaves a foul taste in your mouth. But if you say “ham” it sounds good. Well here pork is ham, but I didn’t get that when the flight attendant asked me if I wanted a traditional Chinese breakfast or an omelet with pork. The description of the Chinese breakfast didn’t sound appealing, and the pork made me feel a little funny, being a Christian and all knowing that it’s unclean. I contemplated the options for a time, until the flight attendent deemed that the American breakfast was the best option for me. So I figured that I could just eat the omelet and leave the pork. But when I opened my meal and discovered that it was actually just ham, I felt relieved, because hey it’s not so bad anymore.
The next thing is also about food. It is not uncommon, well more like it is all to common, to see chicken and pork roasting with head, snout, beak, neck, and tail, though the feathers are removed from the chicken. One night my father, sister, and I went to the market to buy dinner. They decided that chicken, rice, and a few side would be the meal. I was just a curious bystander in a world of wonderment. What I saw greatly troubled my stomach. They took the whole chicken, chopped it into pieces, and were about to bag it up for us. The only problem was that the head, that featured eyes, beak, pretty much everything that stares back at you, was included in the mix. I told Alisa that I didn’t think I could handle that, so she asked the lady to remove the unnormal parts and told her about my queasiness, the lady thought it was funny. So funny that she grabbed more heads and necks and left them in plain view for me to see. I had to turn away.
Exchanging Money
On the websites they tell you, “Don’t worry, there are plenty of places to change your money over to baht.” Yeah, there are plenty of places, but the question is will they change over your money? Last week I had to go to 3 different kiosks and banks trying to change over my American money. Supposedly there is a minimum Series of money that they can exchange for. I had a 20 dollar bill but the series that it was printed in was the 1996 series, though it was one of the second newest 20 dollar bills. (You know, I’ve lived through 4 versions of the 20 dollar bill so far in my life of 18 years, compared to when my dad was 18 there was only 1. That’s how high tech our forgers have become.) The first two places wouldn’t exchange it for me on account that there books told them not to, even though it was American money, and I am a lawful American citizen who wouldn’t have the foggiest idea on how to counterfeit money, and in America I could use my 20 dollar bill to buy whatever I wanted. Moral of this story is, If you travel to Thailand make sure that you have money that is fresh off of the press, or you might end up stranded with money that you can’t use.
Other Useful Things you Should Know
Scones are what we call biscuits.
If you are out and about town, carry an umbrella.
Bring a adapter with you from the country that you are coming from. It was almost impossible to find one here, and the one that I did find doesn’t fit American plugs. So it’s kinda pointless, though it looks pretty cool. Also make sure that the converter you bring fits two prong outlets as the wall outlets here are two prongs. That’s is another problem with my Thai adapter.
