Our Honeymoon's first stop was the charmingly chaotic Bangkok, where tuk tuk drivers scam non-vigilant tourists into buying faux-sapphires, and a solid jade Buddha passes as faux-emerald, alighting above the orange-clad ohm-ing monks in the beautiful colored-glass-mosaic shrine of the Grand Palace.  Bangkok is a strange place.  There seem to be no traffic laws, but are steel elipitcal exercise machines in public parks, and skytrains at twice the height of the Chicago El take you to Siam Square's mega-shopping malls (consumerism Bangkok's entrepreneurial nod to the capitalist West). 

Our first late night meal in Bangkok:
Noodle Soup with Pork
 

But really, it's about the food.  Always is, always will be.  We're human, we need to eat to live.  This includes a minimum of three meals daily (unless, of course, you're Buddha, who can sit under a Bodhi tree and eat a grain of rice a day; then, you get your image gold-made a million times throughout Southeast Asia).  Thailand, the land of smiles, is really the land of dishes. 



The language barrier got in the way;
we ordered "Special Noodle Soup" 
and got mystery meats and meat-noodles.  No broth.






So many choices at the street market.  We chose fried-donuts with coconut filling for our first Bangkok breakfast.



 

More street food.  Point and eat!

 From BBQ duck at the open-air roof restuarant at the Centara Grand (Bangkok's third-tallest skyscraper) to back alley (they're called sois here) noodles you point at to order, to pale-orange to-die-for Thai milk tea, to all those strange things you don't know the names or origins of but eat anyway and thank Buddha for courage and an open pallate to be intrepid with food: Bangkok delights here, in its kitchen: make sure you add the spices for heat.

"Banana pancakes" for only 30 Baht (30 cents USD)

Vegetarian cuisine at a small restuarant called "Arwary",

 

 

Street food at the Chatachuk Market