Bangkok

Arrived in Bangkok at 12 am and got in a fight with the taxi dispatcher about wanting a van instead of a small car. "No, you get 2 car". No vans were in sight. Since we were staying at a small hotel that reviews say is hard to find, two cars in a large city wasn't a choice we wanted - so we wandered past the line of taxi drivers until the last one waved us down and told us to wait. It took us a couple of minutes to figure that out in his broken english. Shortly, a van pulled up, loaded our bags and proceeded to get lost in the city trying to find our "botique" hotel.

Waking up the next morning, the small hotel was beautiful. It was as if an artist decorated the hotel with out using any money at all. Old wall paper was stripped unevenly and then parts were painted with a portrait of flowers in a vase or a bird flying. The courtyard was helpfully cool, filled with benches and pillows to lounge, all enveloped with a jungle of plants. Old french music or soft jazz would continuously play and a small pond with fish kept Ava intrigued. She never caught one - used her hand, a cup, anything. An organic garden of lettuce, tomatoes, squash, eggplant and herbs was kept on the top terrace, complete with a scarecrow. The garden was used for breakfast - always a combination of flavors I've rarely had, like a salad with fried garlic, grapefruit slices broken apart into their small little pods and a vinagret dressing - for breakfast!

Outside the hotel the small lane that connected to the bigger lane that finally reached the street were filled with Thais hanging their laundry, fixing their cars, watching their kids. It was all so quiet compared to Manila. No incessant honking or yelling. I figured it was just Sunday, but it was like that the rest of the trip.