We’ve now moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a decent view in the Sathorn district of Bangkok. So for just shy of a month, we’ll have our base camp in one of the city’s many, many unnamed neighborhoods where you’ll find just about everything needed for day-to-day existence within reasonable walking distance – including a 7-11, several tiny restaurants, a couple of laundry shops, and one really good massage place. Both Charlotte and I enjoyed a 90-minute Thai massage there and we were both impressed. Next to it is a yoga studio that I’ll have to check out someday.

The apartment is a 15-minute leisurely stroll along busy Rama IV Road to Lumpini Park where I spent about an hour near the clocktower (seen near the bottom on the right of the photo) this afternoon. I found a spot to practice Qigong at under a tree full of a dozen or so noisy crows. I managed to focus to the point where I was completely unbothered by the crowing and let the rowdy birds do their thing while I did mine. Will be back tomorrow morning to meet with a lady that teaches Tai Chi at the same location.

Nowhere near as large as New York’s majestic Central Park, Lumpini is still big enough to provide sanctuary from Bangkok’s insane intensity. Not sure if the trees can absorb and convert the surrounding pollution into clean air, but it at least seems easier to breathe when I’m there.

Pleasantly surprised by how it’s not as devastatingly hot as we expected it to be. Da Nang at night was a comfortably cool 24C and it’s not that much warmer in Bangkok, at least not a few hours after sundown. I barely broke out in a sweat, even when in direct sunlight, during my 14k walk earlier today. I suppose this is the new normal for November. My earliest memories of Bangkok, just about now but in the fall of 1988, are otherwise somewhat clouded, but there were surely monsoon rains and probably a general haze from those backpacking days of yesteryear…

More images from Bangkok here.