No shirt, no service (aka my day in Bangkok)

Yesterday, for my one and only day in Bangkok I decided to meet up with someone I had met earlier in Luang Prubang. We started off in Chinatown, but unfortunately the corner of Chinatown we started in was the industrial one. All the store front were machine shops, auto mechanics, etc. It's like this in Asia - it's as if there are few or no zoning laws. You have these storefronts near the centre of the city that are more industrial than anything else. All the big cities I've been to (i.e. Hanoi, Saigon, etc.) are the same. Hong Kong wasn't much in this way though.

Anyway, we hopped on the metro and went to the park. At first you think this is an ordinary park, even with a nice lake and all, and then it happens. You see a large four foot long lizard! There is hundreds of them just swimming and strolling around the park. They are not behind a fence, and as far as I can tell there is nothing technically stopping them from walking right out of the park!

Now I knew to expect this, because my friend told me the novelty of the lizards is why I might enjoy the park. She was right!

All of the sudden we saw some storm clouds in the distance so we decided to go find somewhere to have dinner. I have never seen darkness descend on a city so fast. The clouds moved so quickly, that within a couple minutes they went from being at the edge of my field of vision to right on top of us. Needless to say, I got absolutely soaked by the time we found a restaurant. After a delicious dinner, my friend had to go back to her apartment to make a phone call back home to North America, and I wanted to go back to my hostel to get into dry clothes.

After talking to three motorbike drivers, I finally found one willing to go to my hostel (we were kind of far). He wanted more than I was willing to pay though, so I decided to take the metro closer to my destination and find a motorbike taxi there (even though it ended just two stops in the direction I was going).

Well, they wouldn't let me on the subway! First I went through security (to get on the subway in Bangkok you must pass through a metal detector), and thought I was OK after I explained my disdain of wearing wet t-shirts, holding up my soaked t-shirt for effect. Then I saw another security staff, who asked me to stay put while she called over another person. He in turn called over someone else, and I tried to explain to them that while I had a shirt, I really don't like wearing wet t-shirts (honestly, I really don't. The metro in Bangkok is air-conditioned, which sucks if you're wearing wet clothes). I told them I didn't want to cause trouble, and that I would rather take a taxi if I had to wear my shirt. They agreed I should take a taxi, so I did (more on that later).

Apologies for the picture formatting... I rotated it on my computer, but when I uploaded the picture it wasn't rotated upright anymore...