Chinatown, Bangkok, Thailand

We met up with Eric's friend, Jimmy, last night who's been traveling the world for years now and is especially acquainted with Southeast Asia. We decided to go into Chinatown since Eric and I have never explored that part of Bangkok. It really felt like a whole different world when we got into Chinatown - the brightly lit signs in Chinese characters, the restaurants offering bird's nest soup, and all the shops full of dried medicinal herbs.

One of the first things Jimmy asked us was, "What do you think of all the rats?" And of course, Eric and I ask, "What rats?" We haven't noticed a single rat. Jimmy was incredulous. He couldn't believe that we didn't encounter rats at our last place. He's staying right next door to the place we were at. He continued to tell the story of the huge rats in the building, how they come up through the drains in the bathroom, and how they're so fat that they often get stuck in the pipes. His story left me thinking about how we probably lucked out in getting the less dingy place right next door.

After our bowl of noodles, we're walking along the sidewalks, and to prove his point about the rats, Jimmy points to a massive rat's head sticking out behind a pile of trash bags. Suddenly, that's all I see. There are rats everywhere. They're behind the trash bags; they're running past us carrying huge chunks of food in their mouths; their tails are sticking out from under boxes.

And if I hadn't been grossed out enough, Jimmy made sure to mention how likely it was that they could bite you if you accidentally startled one and then rabies would be imminent.

I hope it's not one of those things where all of a sudden you see something you never noticed before, and then that's all you notice. We're left wondering if the rats are just way more visible in Chinatown because we've never seen them before. It was late in the evening and there were trash bags full of the day's trash all over the sidewalks.