Exploring Bangkok: photos, photos, and more photos!

I've been in Southeast Asia (Bangkok specifically) for three days now, and am having a great time. Southeast Asia is so incredibly different culturally and architecturally from the US / New Zealand / Australia, and I've been having a blast just observing everything. I've mostly just been wandering around, visiting tons of temples, checking out the crowded streets and markets (and trying to avoid the temptation to buy tons of cheap stuff, especially my weakness, funny t-shirts), and enjoying the amazing and cheap street food! And of course I've been taking photos - here's a handful which help capture an Adrian's-eye-view of Bangkok:

this is the headline that greeted me as I go onto my connecting flight from Singapore to Bangkok. Weak! Luckily, as I'd heard from travel buddies already in Bangkok, Bangkok is actually perfectly safe right now, as long as you avoid the red zones. In all the places I went it was just business as normal and felt totally safe.

Thailand as viewed from the river taxi. Just look at all the temples and other cool structures you can see from here - Bangkok's full of 'em!

Buddhas everywhere! I have already seen thousands! (seriously, I am not exaggerating - besides the temples there are store which are devoted solely to Buddha statues and are chock full of 'em)

me with the view from the Golden Mountain. And yes, I'm sweating like crazy. It was over 40 degrees C, which is over 104F! It's even a sweat-inducing level of hot at 7AM or 11 PM. Grossss.

one of my favorite things - street food! This delicious seafood-over-rice dish cost me a whole 25 baht, which is roughly 80 cents. Just a bit cheaper than food in Australia/New Zealand. . .

spires everywhere! Me at Wat Pho.

a typical Bangkok street (vendors lined up along the street). Except that normally the street would also be filled with motorcycles, cars, and tuk-tuks. . .

me with the reclining Buddha. This statue is HUGE!

another giant Buddha towers over the surrounding buildings

my friendly tuk-tuk driver Nick. He ferried me all over the city for an hour and a half for just 60 baht (2 dollars). Of course, he also took me to a quick stop at a tailor where a super-high-pressure salesman tried to get me to spend $200 on a suit. My driver got paid 5 liters of gasoline for bringing me there, which is worth a lot more than the fare I paid. So I consider the whole thing a draw. . .

cool but creepy wall sculpture

neat ornately decorated doorway. There are TONS of these all over.

I don't have much to say about this, I just thought it looked really cool

the entrance to one of Bangkok's many temples