Today was apparently cooler than yesterday, but obviously we couldn’t tell. What we could tell, however, was that the Or Tor Kor vegetable market was missing because of construction in the area. We walked what seemed like miles just looking (and never finding) it. It was supposed to be right by the Jatujak Market (nicknamed “JJ” by the locals), but we walked up and down and side to side on those streets and never found it. We did, however, find the three main forms of transportation in Bangkok: BRT, BTS, MRT. (The bus rapid transit, the sky train, and the underground.) Well, all three except for the Chao Phraya Express (pronounced Chow Prayuh), which is the system of taxis on the Chao Phraya River (แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา).

First, we got on the BRT at the stop 50 feet away from our apartment– Wat Pariwat. Wat (วัด) means ‘temple’ in Thai, and, yes, there is a wat that you can see from our balcony. Anyways, we got on the BRT and rode to the Sathorn station, which is the end of the line. It connects to the BTS station Chong Nonsi. As you should remember, the BTS is the sky train. Most of the people on our train, including a Canadian family who, no, Destiny, we did not talk to, got off at the station that connected one line of the BTS with the other. That was at the station of Siam. After that, we got off at the last stop on the second route, Mo Chit (หมอชิต). Once you walked out the doors, you were in the blazing Thai sun and the Jatujak park and market. We arrived around 8 am and finally left at around noon.

On the return trip, we entered the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit- การรถไฟฟ้าขนส่งมวลชน) station of Jatujak Park. The moment we entered the shade, it seemed like it was five degrees cooler. As we descended into the tunnels, it became even cooler until we were in the train itself and it was like a freezer. It was on there, and at breakfast our first morning in Thailand, that we noticed the weird TV ads they have. I’m not going to describe any, for the sake of both my weary fingers and the content, but some are very interesting.

We rode the MRT to the MRT Si Lom/Sala Daeng BTS station and boarded the sky train. We rode the one stop to Chong Nonsi, where we switched to the BRT. We rode the bus from the first stop on the route– B1:Sathorn– to B4: Thanon Chan, which is where our landlord told us the Tesco Lotus was. Well, we looked and asked and were finally redirected to the next station, B5: Nara-Rama III. We walked a ways, found the store, and ate sandwiches at Au Bon Pain. After we bought some groceries like rice and eggs and Tim Tams, we found a Bangkok map and finally arrived in our own B7: Wat Pariwat. Ciao!