From the moment I stepped out of the cab from the airport, my nose reminded me that I was back in Bangkok. The unique aroma of bubbling woks and sizzling stir fry combined with freshly chopped vegetables and spices made me want to stop to eat every thirty feet or so.

If you don't see anything that looks appetizing at one food stall, don't worry, there's always another one nearby that probably has what you're looking for.

Across the street from our room at the Taewez Guest house, the market sold fresh meat and produce and was jammed with delicious eats from the food carts.

I think this was my favorite food stand from this visit to Bangkok. The ingredients were always fresh and right there in front of you to see, and the Thai woman who owned the stand made a huge variety of great authentic dishes. Since there really wasn't a menu, I would wait around until someone ordered something that looked good and then asked for one too. She spoke some English as well, so I was able to ask the name of my favorite dishes and get her to write down the name (phonetically and in Thai) so I could order it again.

Beside each food stall, small tables were usually set up on the sidewalks for you to sit down for your meal. Watching what the local folks ordered was usually the best method of figuring out what to get for lunch or dinner since there usually wasn't a menu and I don't speak Thai.

I think this may have been my favorite dish when I was in Bangkok, although I don't know what it was called! Thinly sliced chicken was sautéed in a wok with spices until golden brown. I guess this describes almost every chicken dish in the world, so let's just say that it was a damn good meal!

Maybe your already spicy Thai meal didn't have enough heat? No problem, every food stall provided a deadly dish of freshly chopped spices. Steve was more gutsy than me and usually added a few of these green and red peppers to his meals.

Steve shown here sampling some of the sweet street eats near the Taewez Guesthouse.

We didn't eat every meal in Bangkok from the street vendors. Steve recommended the Yonglee Restaurant for its great food, so we went there for dinner the night that Alex arrived in Bangkok.

The Yonglee Restaurant had dishes of spices too.

We each chose a dish at the Yonglee Restaurant, and then we all tried some of each one.

I know I said the sautéed chicken dish from the photo above was my favorite dish in Bangkok, but I had the name of this one written down by the owner of the food stall on a scrap of paper I kept in my wallet. It was so spicy that it was barely edible, but also really tasty. I ended up pulling out that scrap of paper any time I couldn't figure out what to order while I was in Thailand.

Steve and Alex ordered some Phad Thai for lunch one day.

Another spicy concoction from the Bangkok street chefs.

I think our love of the Bangkok street food took a turn south after visiting this dumpling stand...

When Alex opened the styrofoam container they came in, an overwhelming blast of garlic washed over us like a wave...

Unfortunately, they didn't taste any better than they smelled, so the dumplings ended up as an offering to the ravenous school of gurgling fish that lurked in the Chao Phraya River.

It was almost as if the dark shapes lying in wait just beneath the murky surface could sense (in this case, smell) the dumpling plummeting from above...

The plop of impact rang the dinner bell and the fish quickly glided like small torpedoes towards the helpless dumpling.

Within nanoseconds, the surface of the river resembled a Tickle Me Elmo toy aisle pileup at Wal-Mart, with the sound of cursing suburbanites replaced with the sounds of slimy mouths sucking air and soggy fins slapping the surface of the river.

Some fish rode their fellows like a living wave as they were pushed out of the water while they vainly attempted to snatch a nibble of the disintegrating dumpling.

Mmmmm, fish. After the rotten garlic dumplings and seeing the feeding frenzy down at the Chao Phraya, we were dreaming of hamburgers and french fries.

For some reason, Bangkok is full of Burger King restaurants, including this one at the BKK airport. Steve and I had hamburgers for breakfast here before catching our flight to Luang Prabang, Laos.

The 7 Eleven across the street from the Taewez Guesthouse sold these frozen slices of "Pizza Quik" in shrimp flavor. The dumplings didn't push us far enough away from Thai food to try any Pizza Quik though.

Our return to the open arms of the Bangkok food stalls would come from a most unexpected place: a free meal voucher (pronounced wowcher) from Kentucky Fried Chicken at the Bangkok airport. Even though we had already eaten Burger King for breakfast, we figured a free meal is a free meal and proceeded to fill up on KFC's SE Asian styled vittles. Let's just say it was horrible, I don't remember what we ordered, but we both felt sick from the Colonel's cooking.

Later in the trip we were able to confront the Colonel for his crimes when we discovered him hanging out on the street in Bangkok. Steve and I noticed him sporting his trademark white dinner jacket when we returned from Laos to meet Alex. Although his skin and had an unnatural sheen, that didn't stop Colonel Sanders from smiling genially while Steve accused him of pushing an overpriced and inferior product, even going so far as to challenge Colonel to a duel.

But Sanders wouldn't budge, so we used the well-trodden American technique of speaking with our wallets. I'm really glad I hung on to that scrap of paper with the name of my favorite Thai chicken dish on it.