Itouched Bang-kok

Let's start by saying I had no intention of staying in Bangkok. A fun 12 days later I found myself not too excited about leaving the wonderful digs and hospitality of Jiggy, who I met during the clean up dive in Kho Tao. Her swank place had all the wonderful amenities of home and I took advantage of the chill out and break from lugging the pack. I got to have a taste of the city as a tourist, farang (foreigner) and as a quasi local expat. Highlights:

Finally seeing some temples and testing out the itouch camera. The Grand Palace is grand and the giant reclining Buddha, is well, giant. Its amazing how easy it is to be templed out even though it was impressively beautiful. Vimanmek Teak palace was worth walking around for and so were the handmade art, gold and textile collections at Dusit Palace.
Eating Thai spicy street food and feeling the burn on your tongue and lips (new trick learned - take plain rice and let your saliva break it down to alleviate the pain)
Learning the Spanish sexy look, hanging out with cool Filipinos (complete with pop star and manager) and a sweet Natalie Portman look alike.
Walking around street markets...ok Patpong (BKK's most famous road) is quite an experience cause you get accosted by people trying to get you to watch their ping pong show while you're trying to look for fake Raybans! Chatuchuck weekend market is so big you need to get a map to guide you from the food area to the furnitures and antique to the Thai silk textiles... Basically you should only fight the masses if you actually want to buy something and going after a Mexican party the night before is not so good. Chinatown ditto unless you want to eat as well. Fave place: this random street market on an abandoned railway track. They sold cool hip kitchy retro stuff from refurbished warehouses and so sold drinks and cocktails from old 60s VW vans which they converted into drivable bars.
Other random moments I enjoyed were drinks at Khao San Road and the forgotten lap dance, having wine and great red meat again, eating good non Asian food and late night chats about men and boys (reminiscent of good ol girlfriend times)
Ok so I did go to Soi Cowboy for their infamous "shows". I'd like to say that we went for a tamer and less disturbing experience...so no razor blades or fish or blue water thingy but I was oddly impressed with the darts! Like how do you even find out you've got that talent?!?!
The oddly cool "climate change" weather was a nice break...seems that I left the islands and south just on time to escape the terrible floods.

So Bangkok was alright but what really made it for me? Getting Jiggy with it! ;) Thanks Chica!