Erika's great adventure!: Bangkok and UNESCO

Relaxing in JJ Park.

This is Tesco's; a large supermarket near my house.

I've been living in Bangkok now for a little more than 6 weeks. It's a huge, wild, crazy, frenetic, polluted city. I must admit to being a little intimidated by it because it is so big. I need to get out and see more of it while I still have the opportunity to do so. There are so many different neighborhoods here and it's even more of a mixing pot than San Francisco. There are amazing little markets everywhere and people with rolling carts of food who just set up in the middle of the sidewalk for lunch or dinner. One of my favorites is a woman who has a cart for making crepes and pancakes. She'll make the crepe or pancake while you watch and then you can have a banana crepe with chocolate or sweetened condensed milk or a fresh pancake in several different, as yet to be determined flavors.

Chrysanthemum juice.

I try to only eat Thai food once a day because it's very high calorie, but delicious. I live right next to a street called Soi 38 (Soi means street in Thai) and every night there are small restaurants and carts set up with plastic tables and chairs for dinner. I can eat noodles, rice, curry or soup for about $1-2 with a drink. There's also a woman who is known for making the best mango sticky rice (fresh mango sliced on top of coconut sticky rice) and another who makes delicious smoothies which are a meal in themselves! I especially like banana/passion fruit and mango/passion fruit/ strawberry smoothies. I'm lucky, most people understand "jay" which means vegetarian and most places can accommodate me.

Everything is transported by motorbike!

Motorbike taxi

I eat a lot of tofu and egg, although not as much as I did in Vietnam. In my room, I also have a refrigerator and hot water kettle so I can make salads, coffee, oatmeal, etc. On my salads, I've been splurging and adding feta cheese, which is between $5 and $8 for 200 grams. Cheese in general is extremely expensive in Asia. I definitely miss Trader Joe's when I'm here.

Flip-flops anyone?

UNESCO also has a canteen serving Thia food. Yesterday I tried pink coconut noodles with egg and tofu. It was a little heavy on the fish sauce but very interesting nonetheless. I was trying not to think about the dye used to make Easter-bunny pink noodles but I guess you only live once and it's interesting to try (vegetarian) things at least once.

Mango sticky rice.

I mentioned the small markets, but there's also one that is probably the biggest market I've ever seen. It's called Chatuchuk Market and it's in the northern part of the city. It takes about half an hour to get there by the BTS (the Bangkok metro) and it's primarily a weekend market. You can buy ANYTHING in this market. My favorite is the fresh coconut ice cream served in a coconut shell. It is delicious. Thailand is very hot, so they give you a cup of fresh coconut juice to cool down before you dig in to your ice cream. There's a section for tourists, with lots of silks and t-shirts and kitschy stuff, housewares, shoes, clothes, instruments, plants, vases, pets, dried food, fresh food, fruit, and anything else you can think of. The problem is actually trying to find what you're looking for. I have a great map of the market but even with the map, it can be challenging to find what I want. I bought some beautiful jewelry there last week and I'll be going back before I leave for more gifts.

Slicing mangos

I live on Sukhumvit road in Bangkok, in a tower next to UNESCO with hundreds of rooms. My room is about 12x12 with an attached bathroom (with hot water, such luxury!) and a small balcony with a sink. I also have air conditioning, which I've been thoroughly enjoying when it gets really hot and humid. My room is quite basic, but it works. It's not too noisy most of the time, although last night around 1:00 a.m. someone was skidding his motorbike intentionally and the squealing was pretty loud.

Two little girls helping their parents on the weekend

I'm working with two units at UNESCO: Education for Sustainable Development and the Asia Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development. I'm about halfway through my internship and I'm getting a good idea of what it's like to work for a government-type organization. So far, I've been writing concept notes, editing case studies, writing newsletter articles, preparing notes and a summary from a conference and researching gender equality, sustainability, graduate employability and other educational topics.

Next week is Songkran, or Thai New Year, and Thais go wild with water guns. I expect to get very very wet. I'm still trying to figure out which part of the city I should go to for the holiday (next Wednesday) but I'm thinking that I should get something to protect my camera before I do!

In three weeks, I'm traveling down to the Thai islands for a week and I'm excited to get out of the city. I may be getting certified to scuba dive while I'm down there; we'll see. It will be nice to spend time on the beach and relaxing.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them!