One day in Bangkok and my Moby Dick story

Because we canceled our Laos plans, we ended up having a day layover in Bangkok before getting to the Philippines, so we decided to have an expedited tour of the city. I visited Bangkok last summer, so I was semi familiar with getting around. We took the MTR to the central part of Bangkok and quickly found a place to eat before we set off on our day trip through Bangkok.

No visit to Bangkok is complete unless you visit at least a couple of temples, so we grabbed a map, waved down a tuk-tuk and had him take us to a few that were recommended to us. The highlights of the temples were Wat Po and the Golden Mount. Wat Po is the really famous temple with the giant reclining Buddha (an amazing sight because of it's sheer size) and the Golden Mount is pretty much exactly what it sounds like - a giant, golden conical structure on top of a huge hill. Temples are always really amazing to me, but after a while, they all start looking the same, so we decided to relax a bit at Khaosan road, an area with a lot of little shops selling fake stuff and what we were really after - street food!

Riding a tuk tuk.

Golden Mount.

Reclining Buddha.

Carolyn started off with some phad thai, which is awesome to watch being made because the ladies have a hot wok with a bunch of ingredients on the side of the wok, and they just add whichever ingredients you want as you order it. I remember a lot of really good food when I visited last summer, so I was trying to retrace my steps to relive the experiences. I started off with some chicken satay, but was really after two things: steamed chicken and rice (kind of like hainanese chicken and rice from Singapore) and a banana/chocolate roti type thing. I walked back to the places where I got each one, but to my disappointment, they were gone. Becuase I'm stubborn and was starving, I kept looking around and asking different vendors and luckily I stumbled upon a couple of places that sold pretty much the same things. The temples and sights were awesome, but being able to eat those two foods is what I was really after.

Mmmm, scorpions. One day I'll be brave enough to eat one of these.

Chicken satay.

What I was looking for: banana/chocolate roti.

While in Bangkok, I was trying to decide what I wanted to do in the Philippines for my first couple of days before meeting some co-workers in Manila. Once Carolyn mentioned this, I was dead set on doing it: swimming with WHALE SHARKS! From that moment on, I made it my sole mission to accomplish this, so I did some research, booked a flight to Donsol (south of Manila), and crossed my fingers that I'd be able to see one since it's not guaranteed and it was the end of their feeding season.

Here's how the next day unfolded:
4AM: landed in Manila and waited a few hours before flying to Legazpi (just north of Donsol)
9AM: Fly out to Legazpi
1030AM: Arrive in Legazpi and wait for the shuttle bus to fill up before we can head to Donsol
1230PM: Arrive in Donsol, catch a motorized tricycle (with a couple of Germans), and head straight to the tourist center to book a trip for the next morning
1245PM: Arrive at the tourist center to find that a group of people (from Minnesota) are about to head out because there's a typhoon warning for the next morning and trips would be canceled
1PM: Head out on the boat with the Minnesota-ans/ites and Germans, with expectations at an unhealthy high level (timing's been perfect thus far. I'm destined to see whale sharks, right?)
1PM - 4PM: Drive around the ocean looking for whale sharks, occasionally drifting to sleep, waiting (hoping) for a yell that awakes me telling me that whale sharks are close
4PM: Arrive on shore, dry as a bone, not one whale shark seen

Before heading out on this adventure, I tried (reaaaallly tried) to set realistic expectations that I may not see a whale shark. But as I tried to be realistic, I kept imagining what an amazing experience it would be to see them, and how awesome a feat it would've been to pull off the planning and timing  just one day before to have everything fall into place. So when after all of the pieces fell into place and I didn't see anything, I was pretty bummed out.

"Realistic expectations, realistic expectations..."

On the long journey back to shore.

I headed back to my cottage, trying to kill some time before heading back to Manila the following day, but all I could think about was "the one that got away" (there have been many ones that have gotten away in my life, but never one this big). I sulked for a bit (which is exactly a bit too much for someone that gets to do what I'm doing for three months), but then remembered that the journey is sometimes more important than the destination (thank you, igoogle quote of the day!) and I was really happy I at least gave it a shot. And never has this been more appropriate, but I suppose there are plenty of other fish in the sea (and yes, nerds,  i know whale sharks are technically mammals. Nerds.).

All was not lost though. Donsol was a beautiful little coastal village and I was able to just relax and soak in the views. My cottage even had a basketball court, so I could at least vividly imagine playing since they didn't have a ball. Our group of failed whale shark swimmers also decided to try to salvage our trip, so to replace the whale sharks, we went firefly watching... But in all seriousness, it was really cool as we floated down a river right after sunset and saw thousands of fireflies light up the sky. A really cool experience, and my first time ever seeing fireflies.

Beautiful ocean view by my cottage.

On the river to see some fireflies.

Trust me, the fireflies were there. Something just must be wrong with your computer.

The mango pancakes helped ease the pain.

After all that, what was the lesson learned? I'll leave that to the lady at the tourist office that so sensitively and wisely said, "Next time come in March."

This whale shark will have to do...until next March.