Day 116! It was a day of FaceTimes, old faces, and new friends as I left my new friend Nico’s house. Today ended up being incredible, but I won’t spoil any more and let you read to find out why!

I slept like a rock after a fun filled night. And I woke up to a wonderful FaceTime with my Bubbie and Zeidie (my grandparents) and then another FaceTime immediately after with my parents and one of my siblings!

It’s always so nice FaceTiming my friends and family. One of the hardest parts of solo traveling is leaving them, but I have great friends and family and they love to keep in touch!

After a great start to the morning, it was time for the cherry on top! Cake for breakfast (a staple in the Katz household for birthdays).

The cake wasn’t ready for the party the night before, so we celebrated Nico’s son’s birthday for another day and reaped the benefits.

A couple of Nico’s friends had spent the night too, so we spent the morning chatting. I had done some laundry the day before and was waiting for it to hang dry. So after the friends left, I folded up my clothes, packed my bag, and was ready to head out.

I thanked both Nico and his wife a ton and gave them big hugs before setting out. But Nico hadn’t had enough and joined me to the bus stop. Just kidding, he needed to go to the grocery store which was near my bus stop so I decided to join him!

With my backpacking bag, we jumped on the back of a Songthaew and rode all the way down the road.

We hopped off the truck and walked up to a very large grocery store. I was excited to see what a Thai one was like since I hadn’t been to one yet. And also see the prices!

We ended up wandering around for quite a while, Nico had a lot to get. At first I felt like I was in a rush because of my heavy backpack. But once I put it in the shopping cart, it became a much more enjoyable experience!

Everything was super cheap, except imported food. There were also so many fun foods that we don’t have in the US, different types of vegetables, lots of cuts of meat, snacks, etc.

While walking around, I ended up buying a few things! I got a Thai trail mix filled with wasabi peas, broad beans, and a few more scrumptious treats. I also got a very (like very very) cheap bag of mangosteen!

In the tourist areas, a kilo of mangosteen can be anywhere from 100-300 Baht (depending on how overrun with tourists it is). But in this super market, it was 59 Baht! They should still be good by tomorrow and, since they’re my favorite SE Asian fruit, I’ll hopefully be able to surprise my cousins with them as a welcome to the country.

We finished up at the grocery store and it was time for my final see you later to Nico. His hands were pretty full, but I still have him a hug before setting off to catch my bus.

It was a HOT day and my bus stop was a bit of a walk in the wrong direction. But I decided to walk even longer in the right direction to get the next bus stop.

Even though it was hot, I’m glad I did because it was a nice walk with lots of hustle and bustle of markets and usual Bangkok traffic.

20 minutes later, I was on a bus. This time around it wasn’t an 8 Baht, windows open, very hot, bus. It was a 20 Baht air conditioned bus that took me ALL the way back to the democracy monument. The route of it also made me realize I might not have had to transfer busses on the way to Nico’s house… but we’ll see if I figure the answer to that out this trip.

The bus ride was fairly uneventful, outside of a lady spilling her drink and it almost leaking onto my grocery bag. I just read The Hobbit (which I’m really enjoying) and worked on some French DuoLingo as well.

Traffic was congested and about 2 hours later I made it to the monument.

I then went on another hot walk to a hostel some of you might remember! It’s not Green Apple, it’s… NapPark, the hostel I stayed at in Bangkok last year.

I highly doubted that the staff would remember me, but I was excited to have a bit of nostalgia at a hostel that did so much for me my last trip.

And CRAZILY enough, I walked into the lobby and the guy at the front desk did a double take and said “good to see you again!” I thought, “there’s no way he remembers” and he then said, “weren’t you here a year ago?” So he truly did remember. The hospitality here is so good… the amount of travelers he must have seen since July & August and he could still remember me.

Not only did HE remember me. But another worker walked in and also did a double take, laughed, and said it’s good to see you again! Unreal!

They didn’t have many rooms available, so I ended up paying a bit more than I would’ve liked, but I wanted to stay at a more social hostel so it was worth it. Just before Songkran, they opened a new building across the street and that’s where they gave me a room! It was a very nice and new building and very cool to see this hostel growing and thriving.

I hadn’t eaten all day… so after I put my stuff in my room, it was immediately time to head back out into the heat and get some food.

I of course got a mango smoothie from the same smoothie stand as prior to Nico’s house. I also got a meal from one of the food stands I enjoy too which I’ve had a couple of times as well.

I scarfed down my meal and felt like a new person. So I walked back to my hostel to relax in the AC. You’d think I’d be FaceTimed out after this morning, but I actually had one more call today with my friend Lea who I met in Vietnam! She’s back home studying physiotherapy and it was great catching up and hearing about her life back home.

A couple hours had passed at this point and my stomach said it was time for dinner. So I went out, grabbed another smoothie (this time coconut and mango), and got a spicy chicken dish with Thai basil. It wasn’t pad gra prow because the chicken wasn’t minced I think, but it tasted very similar and was delicious. It wasn’t spicy enough though, so I piled on some more chili flakes and spicy fish sauce.

I couldn’t have picked a better time to eat and finish my meal. After I stepped out of the restaurant and started walking, a friendly traveler, that had a similar haircut to me, asked me if I was Australian. I said no and decided not to just laugh it off and walk on, but chat with this new acquaintance and see where it went.

Turns out, he also was looking to meet people tonight so we started chatting, hit it off, and started wandering the streets around Khaosan Road.

His name is Sam and he’s from Melbourne, Australia! He’s super nice and we got along very well. He also had just come from a 5 day silent retreat in a different part of the north and we bonded over that! I love when serendipitous situations like this happen.

We quickly stumbled upon a stand selling all sorts of creepy crawly foods for tourists to try. One of which was silkworm, which actually is a popular Thai dish! After being told this by Nico’s friends, and confirming it online, I was convinced to try them! Allegedly they’re really good for you and breaking the stigma on eating bugs could really help lessen world hunger.

I took a deep breath and shoved the weird looking larva into my mouth… I felt like Timon and Pumba from the Lion King. And surprisingly, just like the scorpion, I actually really enjoyed the snack!

It had an enjoyable texture that started crunchy and then became very meat tasting. Also whatever sauce and spices they put on it were extremely good. Overall, I’d highly recommend you try it!

This was Sam’s first time and first night in Bangkok and he wanted to sit at a bar, chat more, and have a few beers. So we walked around to some of the live music bars I knew; walking through Khaosan Road as well, and found a bar playing great live punk songs from around middle school and early high school!

Sam and I chatted for a while and sang along to some of the songs. Eventually the conversation started to lull, but I saw two people playing cards and on a walk back from the bathroom, I decided to ask them if they were playing Shithead and if we could join!

They said yes and we sat down to play. They were two girls from the German part of Switzerland and they had just landed in Bangkok today as well! They flew in from Cairo, Egypt actually which I thought was cool.

We ended up playing cards with them for 3 hours… or at least I did. Sam tapped out and went to bed around an hour in. But the three of us didn’t want to stop yet. So we played a number of different games and got to know each other more!

They are both on a gap year and are working/traveling. They were so fun to hang out with and I’m glad I decided to see if I could butt into their game of cards.

We finally decided to wrap up and we were all craving a snack. Since it was their first time in Thailand I had the perfect snack in mind to introduce to them… a cheese toasty from 7-eleven!

They both had raving reviews of it and it was another 2 people to add to the list of introducing toasties to! Soon I’ll add my 3 cousins to that list too.

Speaking of which, throughout the day I was getting texts from them about their travels!! It’s so crazy that I’ll be seeing them TOMORROW!

It’s super late now, but I wanted to get my post done on time. So time for sleep. But get ready for some awesome adventures over the next two weeks!

– Elie