I love birthdays. I especially love my own, but in general, I just love birthdays. An extra special feature of our trip to Thailand is the fact that I got to celebrate my birthday in Bangkok. Serious upgrade from the last two summers when I had to work on my birthday…

When I asked our friend at the front desk to help me make dinner reservations the other day, I casually mentioned that Saturday was my birthday. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Birthday!” she said. Clearly it was noted down, because on breakfast at Saturday, I got a mini cake with a candle in it from the hotel. Though it was awkwardly delivered to me while I was standing at the toaster, all up in the breakfast buffet, it was still very exciting.

We spent the bulk of the day at the Chatuchak Weekend Market. One of the world’s largest markets, we never could have navigated it without the well-renowned Nancy Chandler’s Map of Bangkok. The 27-acre 15,000-store market had its layout posted on a couple big signs and there were relatively clear markings about which “street” was which, but our map — or Nancy, as we called her — helped us understand where to find textbooks versus beach dresses versus live fish.

Official Chachutak map

Wandering from booth to booth, we checked out the wares, inspecting everything from gimmicky t-shirts to elephant-shaped pillows. We perused the book aisles and spotted several back issues of various American magazines, Chaz’s ninth grade Spanish textbook and our summer reading from freshman year: “How Proust Can Change Your Life.”

Some of the market stalls seemed more legitimate than others; we walked through the Fifth Avenue of the marketplace, which was lined with fancy clothing stores that had real doors and air conditioning. The entire market was packed from wall to wall; frequent signs warned about watching your valuables and I noticed the police chiding tourists for being too cavalier. One saleswoman did complement me on my super secure zipper-and-snap closure messenger bag and double-zip wallet. (Thanks, mom!)

In the middle of the shops was what the map called a Thai “food court.” And this was unlike any mall food court I’ve ever seen. Woks over open flames, with noodles being thrown into them; roasting spits; frying spring rolls; rapidfire chopping and assembling; and a whole lotta Thai people yelling. We chose a picnic table filled with people and their emptied plates. Always a good sign.

We ordered iced coffees and pad thai. Pad thai is the most common dish in American Thai restaurants, from the cheapest holes-in-the-wall to the fanciest, and the same is true in the motherland. Pad thai is made and consumed everywhere from grungy street corners to Bangkok’s Mandarin Oriental. The recipe is always the same: rice noodles tossed in a tangy-sweet sauce and garnished with lime, bean sprouts, scallions and peanuts. The best pad thai recipes — from my totally objective standpoint, of course — contain chicken, egg and tofu, and maybe a few vegetables. The risk one runs with ordering pad thai in a restaurant is often that it is too sweet. Alternatively, Chaz and I once tried to make pad thai and put in way too much soy sauce, resulting in a dish far saltier than intended.

The pad thai we ate in Chachutak was perfect: the sauce was not too sweet, the tofu was browned to perfection and the noodles were soft, without being gummy. Our waitress was clearly amused by the degree to which we fawned over our food, but trust me, it was worth it.

Revived by our lunch, we continued perusing the market, getting lost in its many sections and alleyways. After finding our way out of the maze a few hours later with souvenirs in hand, we boarded the SkyTrain to head back downtown. Throughout our time in the bazaar, the weather was sweltering. Right now, it’s the rainy season in Thailand, which means that Bangkok is about 90 degrees at all times, except during the mid-afternoon monsoons we’ve found ourselves in a couple times. On Saturday, the rain held off (it never rains on my birthday! Seriously!), and so the heat was rather oppressive.

On our first day in Bangkok, we had wandered into one of the city’s nicest five-star hotels to check out the restaurants and the air conditioning. While inside, we had taken note of the luxurious pool. We had also taken note of how easy it would be to return to said luxurious pool. And so as a bit of birthday adventure, we did exactly that — this time with bathing suits. It could not have been more amazing. (Special shout-out to my Uncle Steven, for planting this idea in our heads long ago.)

We made a brief trip to the top floor of the State Tower, one of the city’s tallest buildings, for a drink and the view. On the ground, Bangkok is hectic and gritty, but from up above, the skyline is beautiful. It helps that at night you can’t tell that the river running through the city is, well, brown.

We ended a fantastic birthday at Blue Elephant, Bangkok’s most renowned (and fanciest) cooking school, where a gorgeous restaurant serves all of the dishes that have been perfected within the school. We began with a complementary house tasting: a bite of a fresh spring roll and a betel leaf with something spicy inside. The difference between a fresh spring roll in a gourmet restaurant in Thailand and one in the U.S. is that in the states, it kind of just tastes like rice paper with some vegetables hanging out inside. Here, every single flavor is pronounced — from the fresh scallions to the crunchy carrots to the shrimp. We ordered what basically amounted to a banquet, but given the setting and the occasion, we felt compelled to just go all out.

We started with the betel leaves we have come to enjoy so much already, golden bags stuffed with shrimp and crab and fish cakes.

Due to technical difficulties (i.e. we did not bring my big camera and I am incapable of using Chaz’s iPhone), we do not have photo evidence of the main course. However, the crab curry and the spicy mango salad were both absolutely phenomenal. Both were very hot, but in different and very flavorful ways.

The meal finished as all birthdays should. There were some language barriers when Chaz tried to covertly order my birthday dessert, but all turned out beautifully nonetheless: