Biking in Bangkok

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My name is Jay Swanson – I’m an American writer living in Paris on an artist visa. Paris (yes the one in France) has been my home for years now and I have every intention of staying here for as long as they’ll have me. I write science-fiction and fantasy, vlogged daily for 3+ years, and love pizza a little too much. Now I make videos about visiting Paris, traveling in Europe, and try to share what I’ve learned along the way. I hope you enjoyed what you found.

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Patron Producer: Joe Tromsness
Edited by: Ti
Music by: @dcuttermusic

All right. So Bangkok. This is not totally out of the blue. If you were watching a month ago, we told you what was coming. But it’s Jess’s 40th birthday. It seems like every year a 40th trip of some sort is happening, which is pretty fun. And thanks to

Today’s patron producer, Joe Tromsness. He’s been with me forever, I think, for, like, seven years. He’s a champion. Thanks, Joe, and all my patrons, for making it possible to go to Thailand. And, yeah, Bangkok is a long ways away to go for a birthday,

But, hey, you only turn 40 once, and I love Jess, and I didn’t want to miss this. It’s these kinds of things that you end up regretting not doing, and I already am so glad that I’m here. I’m having such a great time.

So today did start really way too early. Partially because of jet lag, partially because I do want to make sure to get in the gym. But, yeah, I mean, like, waking up at 4:30 or whatever. I think I stayed in bed until maybe 5:30. Went to the gym, ran on

The treadmill. That’s all I did. I hate running on treadmills. They suck. They’re the worst, but they’re better than nothing. The best part was, though, I earned my buffet, so we opted to do our rooms with the meal. Wasn’t terribly expensive

To add the meal, and honestly, I’m never a huge fan of hotel meals. I just imagine, like, the Best Western and the saddest waffles you’ve ever eaten, that kind of a thing. So it turns out this buffet is insane.

This was amazing. It was an international buffet with everything from, like, there was indian food, chinese food, french charcuterie boards, fresh fruit, fresh kind of everything. There was an omelet bar. Turns out I love thai omelets. It’s been decided. – Did you taste it yet? – There she is.

Yeah, I had some. It’s amazing. You want some? That was incredible. Also, they had hash browns, which I haven’t had hash browns in a really long time, so it was quite the mixture of things. They had a mango chutney. Wow. This is insanity.

When three Americans are offered a buffet, a fill your own Beignet station, you could just actually inject them there. We had some soup. I don’t even know what the name of the soup was, but it was delicious. She made it for us right there. So much. Anyways,

I could go on and on about the buffet. We had a good time laughing about it because we sampled a whole bunch of stuff. It was all delicious, ate very well. Couldn’t possibly, but wow. Kate! – I tried a little

Bit of everything. – You should try a little bit of everything. I’m impressed. There’s no judgement. – I have many different— – I don’t even know what’s happening. Kate and Julia are already down here for breakfast. I think there’s only, like, five of us in this

Hotel, maybe six. And we’re going to be joining up with a bunch of other people for the bike tour. Wow. Thank you. Jess, if you don’t know my friend Jess, she’s been in a bunch of my videos about biking in Paris, because she

Runs the bike tour company in Paris, and so she’s just always on her bike. Anyways, we bike around together all the time. Dude, a bike tour is such a great way to see a new city, like, really quickly. Just getting to get

A real picture for what it is to be in different neighborhoods. It’s definitely living up to that. And it’s a great way to fight jet lag, because here we are, out exercising, getting some sunshine, sweatin’! Feels

Great. I’m so glad to be on a bike, even if this bike’s a little bit of an odd style for me. These short little handlebars, I don’t know what it is about them, but they’re definitely— I’m getting used to ’em. Traffic jam? How are you liking your bike tour, Jess?

– I’m having a great time. – You don’t get enough of these in Paris? – I like to see them everywhere! And, boy, did we see a lot. Not only do we see a lot, like, I knew we were going to cover some ground. I have no idea how

Much ground we covered. It was a good 4 hours, four and a half hours, maybe, on our bikes, busting around. But for me, one of the biggest things, I wanted to go into one of these temples because we’ve been seeing

Them all over the place, and we saw a whole bunch more as we were biking around. And I just felt like I was getting teased because we just never stopped at those. We stopped at a whole bunch of other places. We stopped at

Some amazing street art. We stopped at a Portuguese village, which included a Portuguese church, their third one, apparently, as they rebuilt it on the same spot three times. We even fed turtles. I did not see that coming. It was amazing. I don’t even know if it

Was a turtle refuge or what the story of it was, but they gave us these giant, really hearty skewers, precut fruit, and then you just stabbed some fruit, handed it over to a turtle, and watched them fight over it. There’s nothing, it turns out,

I really enjoy watching two turtles in slow motion fighting over a piece of fruit, and one of them just, like, punching the other in the face to get to it. And it was hilarious. We went to two markets. This is the kind of market I was trying

To find yesterday. And at the second flower market that we went to, they ended up giving us these lotuses. I didn’t see this coming either. So the lotuses hadn’t bloomed yet, and they taught us how to fold the petals to make it a

Blooming lotus, more or less. Really fun. I didn’t know how to make a lotus bloom before this. They didn’t tell us what it was for, but they were like, hey, just hang on to this. Like, don’t let it go. Showed us where

To put it in the bike. But before we left the lotus station, we had our first street food. They got us some of this chicken that it was grilling between bamboo skewers and, oh, my goodness. Delicious. Juicy. Explosively good. That’s good. I kept saying no to more because

I was so thirsty, and my water bottle was back at my bike. Mm!! Wow, they’re really juicy. I think it exploded. But I couldn’t help myself. I went back for— It was so good. So we saw quite

The mixture of big sights. We went saw the modern Chinatown, but we also saw some old chinese temples. Still kind of teasing me. And then we went and saw the national palace, which is surrounded by a whole bunch of other things, like the defense

Department is there, the supreme court is there. It’s been great! It’s been a great time. And the lines were nuts. I was really hoping we were going to go in. The national palace looked incredible. And he was like, no, this is the biggest

Thing. We didn’t have time. Eventually, we did actually go into a temple. It was incredible. It was, like, covered in scaffolding. And at first, I was kind of disappointed we couldn’t see it, but it made it fairly unique to see it draped in all this hearty green.

They gave us some water bottles, which was really nice. We go in. They’re burning incense. Just kind of an incredible vibe. Lively. You can hear the gongs. Take off our shoes, go inside. And as we go inside…

Whoa. I had no idea there was going to be a giant Buddha in there. And it was incredible. The way that it was laid out. Like, the space was so well designed that it just felt kind of overwhelming, but in a really positive

Way. It was really nice. So we laid down our lotus at the shrine. And then he gave us a little bit of an instruction on how to show respect, how to spring the gong three times, and then took us to another temple next door. That was one

In which we could sit and he could talk about Buddhism and meditation and the cultural differences that are just— It’s so cool to just see so many things that are just so unique. It feels like, so different. I really had a lot of sonder today for all the people living

Their lives, but also not just, like, living their lives differently, but seeing the world through a different lens. It was incredible. And it’s just the joy of travel. We’re going to take a boat with our bikes? This I got to see. We ended up taking two ferry rides, which was

Phenomenal. I love taking ferry rides anywhere. And so we got our bikes on ferries. Didn’t see that coming. And had a second round of street food where we sat down and they brought us chicken skewers and, like, fresh peppers and onions.

And the peanut sauce was super good. There was melon chopped up. There was soup. There was another round of that same recipe for the chicken that we’d had earlier. So delicious with just, I think, more of the sauce that came with. It has, like, brown sugar in it.

Super good. But all in all, it was a phenomenal day. Definitely pushed it a little bit. I started feeling the brain fog from the jet lag and the heat and everything else, but no complaints. T, our guide, was phenomenal. His team, they worked so hard to keep us safe,

Felt safe the entire time. All the back streets and side streets and alleys and just everything. Crossing the canal and riding alongside the river. We got quite the diversity of it. We also ended up in pretty heavy traffic,

Like in Chinatown and a couple other areas. But it was fun, and it wasn’t anything crazier than riding my bike in Paris. Honestly, it was great. Some of us walked back to Chinatown to have some lunch. Very light, like, we just kind of shared a little bit of stuff and

Then broke off so that some people could go take naps, which is super dangerous. But then others went to go swimming and do their own thing. I went to go work for a little bit. I don’t think I fit. – Central embassy.

– Central embassy. – Oh, I do kind of fit. Yes. Somebody lost their shirt. Another person lost their pair of pants. So there was a scramble for the wardrobe tonight, and now we’re here for Jess’s fancy birthday dinner, which has been provided very generously

By one member of the party, who’s been generous twice in two big ways. One here at Celadon and a second that I will, will save for tomorrow. I’ll be showing it to you tomorrow. But I don’t know if he wants it to be known or not that he’s been generous

In this way. So I’ll be sure to ask him before I tell you. But he’s definitely helped to level up this trip a little bit. And so tonight is our fancy dinner for Jess, which is why we’re all dressed up a

Little bit more. And I’m going to go inside and do that now. They’ve already danced for us. They brought cocktails out. And I’m really excited to. I’m very hungry and ready to eat. Also I’ve recorded this three

Times now. Once because I just didn’t know what I was saying and I was inside and I needed to move twice because my camera stopped recording when I did record the whole story. So now I’m going to check and make

Sure that my camera has— I’m having some issues, technical issues. We’re going to get through it. Anyways, we got to get up really early tomorrow morning to hop on another plane to get the F out of here. Bangkok. You were

Great. I can’t wait to come back. Looking forward to— I just can’t. Dude, the food, the people. So nice. Everything. Great first impression. I’m having a grand old time. [singing] Happy birthday, dear Jess! Happy birthday to you! [cheers]