A New Life in Bangkok

For those of you not in the loop, I've moved to Bangkok. At least for 6 months anyways. Much shorter than my Indonesia time.

Anyways, I arrived on Friday night. As I stepped out of the plane door, I was reminded of the smell that is Bangkok. Hot, humid, and just a whiff of something rotting in the swamp. But I had little time for such things. It was almost midnight, and I had to make my way through immigration ("Excuse me sir, I have never seen this type of visa." "It's a research visa" "Hmmmm... I'll have to ask" "Do you need my paperwork?" "No"... 5 minutes of consultation with an equally confused manager and then a 90-day entry stamp).

Finally I arrived at my somewhat seedy hotel right behind The Poseidon, a huge "massage and entertainment" complex.

Here was the view from my hotel the first morning (sorry, no photo of The Poseidon):

As you can probably tell, there is a permanent layer of smog here.

I spent most of the morning looking for apartments. I had set a budget of 8,000 baht (about $260), which actually left me a number of good options. The problem was that I didn't like any of them.

So I broke my budget and got a place for 9,000 baht ($300). It is pretty nice with a good location. I'm on the 11th floor. The building has a pool and fitness area - pretty much the same as what I had in Atlanta (where my portion of the rent was $750).

My seating area - lots of mirrors. 

The built-in cabinets - more storage than I could ever need.

The view from the kitchen

Unfortunately, the security deposit was 2-month's rent. Apparently that is common in Thailand because every place I went to asked for that much. My ATM card won't allow me to withdraw more than $300 in one day (who knew?), so I had to go exchange some of my emergency cash late on a Saturday night.

I hopped on the subway planning on visiting the touristy area. When I got off I was met with this:

A huge, brand new mall. It definitely wasn't there when I came here a year ago. It was beautiful - nicer than any mall I have ever seen in the USA. Each floor is dolled up to look like a major world city. San Francisco, Paris, London, etc. I'll take some pictures sometime.

Anyways, so I live in Bangkok now. Tomorrow I have to go report myself to the National Research Council and say goodbye to another $300 deposit, so that'll be fun... I guess. This research thing is getting expensive. By the end of this week, I'll have over a thousand dollars tied up in deposits in Bangkok, which I think is a little fishy. On the other hand, if the dollar tanks in the next six months, I'll make a healthy return when I get the money back. Always a bright side, right?