Thai Boat Noodles in Bangkok at Victory Monument (ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือ)

Victory Monument in Bangkok, Thailand, and as you can see this is one of the transportation hubs of the city, but I am not here to catch a bus today, I'm here to satisfy my stomach. Victory Monument, known as Anusawari Chaisumarapum in Thai, is a distinct obelisk-shaped monument in the center of an always-bustling roundabout. City buses, vans, taxis, the BTS Skytrain, and motorbikes all contribute to making Victory Monument one of Bangkok's principal transportation centers. And with a constant flow of pedestrians revolving around the monument at all times, the area is home to a massive supply of street shopping, and more importantly, a smorgasbord of street food and tasty snacks to grab on the go. We're at Victory Monument for a little bit of dried fruit. Oh, it's so souring, like burns the back, salty, it's bottled, it's definitely sweetened up by a lot of sugar, but it does still taste good. A trip to Bangkok's Victory Monument would be incomplete without stopping by the famous Boat Noodle Alley, a collection of restaurants serving up a local bowl of irresistible noodles. Traditionally served directly from boats floating in a canal, boat noodles are now often housed in more permanent facilities. The polluted canal at Victory Monument is not such a pretty sight, yet the noodles they serve make the ambience hardly a distraction. And there's also an indoor air-conditioned section. In a rhythmic, high-paced fashion, the boat noodle vendor grabs a handful of dry rice noodles, dunks them into a tank of rich, blood-based broth, and flops them along with a choice of meat and a few sprigs of morning glory into a bowl. Bowl after bowl, pyramid after pyramid of boat noodles are served. These are probably some of the most famous boat noodles in all of Bangkok. Add some vinegar and some chili flakes. Squirt that in. Victory Monument boat noodles. Extremely flavorful, that broth. It's rich, it's meaty, wonderful. A pork ball. These little bowls cost just 10 baht per bowl, and so you try to eat as many as you can. So tasty. Another ball. You can also order something called gen tapo, which is the signature pink noodles. Maybe that's just in my head, I don't know. Finishing up my last bowl of boat noodles. And so the thing about this boat noodle restaurant is that you stack up your bowls and they count how many bowls you ate at the end. It's like a trophy of eating boat noodles. The more bowls you stack up, the cooler you are. I think we did alright today.