Bangkok, Day 1

There are a couple of options to get to Bangkok from Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is up north while Bangkok is down south of Thailand, so to everyone else, taking the 1-hour flight seemed like a no-brainer. But not us! I, for one, detest getting to the airport two hours early only to wait in line for security checks again. And there is something special about looking out the window and watching the world go by. When I was a kid, I used to tell the school bus driver to drop me off last even though my house was the closest to our school so I could just sit there and stare out the window. It is a little quirk that has stuck with me all this years. In today's world, it feels like such a luxury.

And so it was the easiest decision ever for us: yes, of course, let's take the 12-hour train. Why would we take the 1-hour flight? This is a no-brainer.

We ended up spending 12 hours on it, mostly just sitting back, talking, and watching the world go by. I finished Amanda Mortell's Cultish in one sitting, occasionally glancing at the window to watch the landscape shift from green fields to small towns and finally to the jumble of buildings that is Bangkok.

When we finally got there in the evening, my stomach was growling because I hadn't really eaten since morning. Mainly driven by desperation for food, we started exploring our surroundings and ended up in Chinatown which I somehow missed on my Bangkok trip last year. Exploring one street food stall after another and eating on the streetwalk is something I won't have the chance to do in Berlin, so I tried to savor every moment, and it made even a plate of simple, humble fried rice taste so good to me.

We started bright and early the next day. Our first stop was a coffee shop that doubles as a record store, aptly named "recordoffee". We met at a music festival last year, so it was only fitting for us to be drawn to anything related to music.

To our disappointment, the record shop wasn't open. The barista said it might open later in the day, but he has no idea when. Running the record shop isn't the owner's primary job after all; he comes by whenever he feels like it. So that means no music for the morning, but we spent the rest of the morning enjoying our coffee and chatting with our barista. It was a good, relaxed morning; definitely the kind of pace I needed to get used to.

He showed us the various equipments that he has in the cafe and treated us to various beans using different ways to brew, and along with that I decided to try a glass of dirty coffee which seems to be the latest coffee craze in Thailand. It's not your regular coffee with milk; instead, it's a combo of cold milk and espresso. What matters is the contrasting temperature between the cold and hot, plus the texture of the curd that is created by blending condensed and regular milk (and even cream if you fancy).

Our visit coincided with Bangkok Design Week, something that was unplanned but I found out shortly before I left through my friend Najda who was supposed to be there, but had to cancel for one reason. Now, my friend and I hadn't really set out with plans to visit any specific places – we still hadn't outlined an itinerary at this point, and in fact, we never really did throughout our trip. But as fate would have it, we ended up in the Talad Noi area which was a location for many of the design week's events and artwork.

I was here last year, wandering around and discovering things on my own. The alley still held some street photographs from back then, though there were new street art pieces that were created specifically for the design week this time around, of course absent during my previous visit.

This sustainable map, that was really a map of Talad Noi with markings of various places of interests, was created by waste materials found in the Talad Noi area.

Of course, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to sketch. I casually mentioned that this door would be a nice one to sketch, and my friend asked why not, and yes indeed - why not? It's not like we really have plans for the rest of the day anyway, so we grabbed a couple of chairs that were conveniently available and got started on our sketches.

I feel much more comfortable with sketching now than I did last year when I was in Bangkok (which was only a few months ago!). I made a couple of sketches, but mostly just quick pen sketches. At that time, I didn't have all the right tools except for two Micron pens, and to be honest, sketching felt more like a task than a fun activity. Now I have my own set up, my set of pens, my watercolor kit; I know my way around things (except drawing with a proper perspective). It's funny how so many things can change in just a short time.

Turns out, we weren't the only ones who found this door intriguing for sketching. On our way out, we passed a guy setting up his work on the street. His pieces were spread out on a mat, including one of the same gate that we both sketched just a few minutes earlier. He mainly works with pens, most of his work were intricate pen work of buildings with funky perspectives which reminded me of how I used to do my sketching, but of course he was more skilled. When we saw him, he was working on a commissioned piece of a building, adding colors with various pens to create the details and shadows.

We got to talking, and before we knew it, we were all deep in a conversation about sketching and how he got into it. His name is Piow, and sketching is his full-time gig now. In a previous life—something you'd never guess—he worked as a designer for theme parks! That sounds like such an intriguing job. He worked in different theme parks all over the world, from Singapore to Dubai to the USA, before finally making the switch as a full-time artist. I asked him plenty of questions, including of course, what pens he's using for drawing. He showed me his pen holder, revealing a collection of Lamy safari pens. I pulled out my mine (my only one!) and said, "I've got one too!"

The rest of the day was pretty random; we stopped by the best Thai milk tea place in the world (according to us, at least), stopped for yet another coffee break, crossed the river to check out the market, and went to see a stand-up comedy show.