December 17, 2025
Day 106 — Bangkok
Marilee here.
Everything old is new again!
Thirty years ago, Tom and I were eager young folks with big backpacks out to see the world. One bracingly cold February day in Kathmandu we packed up our scanty belongings and jumped on a plane to Bangkok. We had no plans about where to stay and would probably have ended up in the seediness of the Khaosan Road tourist hell, but for the intervention of two nice Danish girls on our flight who invited us to share a cab from the airport into town with them. Thanks to them, we found ourselves at the Tavee Guesthouse, a quiet, relaxed, friendly spot tucked into a neighborhood along the banks of the Chao Phraya river that was our home for the next several days while we acclimatized to the steamy heat after weeks in the Himalayas.
When we were planning this trip, Tom and I started reminiscing about that great little guesthouse of long ago, but we couldn’t remember its name or location— just the amazing iced coffees, the ample breakfast fruit platters, the chill vibes and clean rooms. Then just a few weeks before we left I came across a forgotten shelf of old journals, pulled one out at random, and there it was — the entry detailing our arrival in Bangkok in 1995, and the name: Tavee Guesthouse. Google confirmed that it was still in existence, and just like that, we knew where we’d be staying when we got to Bangkok.
Our first day in Bangkok started with — what else— fruit platters and iced coffees, which we appreciated just as much as we did 30 years ago. We strolled around the neighborhood in the early morning, where everything we encountered seemed to be shouting “you’re not in Japan anymore!” — the stray dogs lying in the road, the smells in the covered market, the scooters zigzagging around pedestrians in the middle of the road, the street food stands crowding the sidewalks. We’ve gone through the looking glass —everything here is the opposite of orderly, quiet Japan.
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Tom then spent a couple of hours rebuilding the bikes, which thankfully seem to have survived their boxless flight here unscathed. In the afternoon we headed out again for a wander around, without much of an agenda. We poked our noses into a couple of wats that we encountered along the way, and eventually found ourselves in the area of Khaosan Road, where we remembered exactly why we felt lucky not to have stayed there 30 years ago, and even luckier now: crowds of foreigners sitting aimlessly in bars and coffee shops, touts everywhere asking “where you from”, and (new addition) tattoo parlours, weed stores, and chain restaurants on every corner.
The wats, by contrast, were incredibly beautiful: ornate, glittering with gold leaf and gilding, bursting with over the top ornamentation. After the restraint of Japanese temples, these almost made us giddy.
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By the end of the day, we were pooped — from the heat and from absorbing so much that was new and unfamiliar. We found our way to a little restaurant built out on stilts over the river and enjoyed a coolish breeze off the water as the sun went down and the lights of the city came up along the riverside. It took us a long time to make it back here, but we’re glad we did.
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