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Week 42 - Y2 (Dec 17th to Dec 23rd) |
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Thursday Dec. 21,
Got up at the crack of dawn to catch an airport bus to
get a flight to . . . Bangkok! Yay! I'm quite
impressed with myself, I packed incredibly light and
only have a backpack with me.
The flight felt like forever, and immigration and
baggage claim felt like even longer, but finally when
I got out on the other side of the gate, Ryan and
Lindsey were there waiting for me. They are so tan,
having just come from Malaysia, and before that, the
Phillipines.
They guided me to the bus back into town (thank god,
cause I had no idea where I was going!) and the trip
took a long time due to traffic. They had already
booked a hostel for us in Khao San, which is kind of
the main tourist/foreigner centre in Bangkok. I had
been worrying that the room was going to be really
shady (ever seen the movie "The Beach"?), but it was
actually pleasantly secure. After I dropped off my
bag, and changed into some lighter clothes, we headed
out for dinner at a really pretty patio restaurant. I
felt like I was in heaven-- great weather, sipping
beer on a patio, wearing a skirt and a tank top--
Damn! I could do this all the time! Also, the
shopping looks incredible . . . I can't wait! I want
everything!
After dinner, we walked along Khao San road for
awhile, and found another outdoor bar to get drinks
at. People are really aggressive here-- you have to
be careful about getting scammed out of money with
taxi drivers, bar staff, everything. Things like buy
1 get 1 free coupons, where they actually charge you
the price of two anyway, so on. I'm glad that Ry and
Linz are with me for the first leg of this trip so
that I can get myself acquainted with Southeast Asia!
As we were walking down the street, we were stopped by
this tuk tuk driver (kind of like a motorized three
wheeler, it's the most common way to get around in
Thailand) who wanted to take us to a sex show in
Patpong (the go-go bar district, it's infamous!) for
free-- a little suspicious, but we figured, we were
going to go check it out anyway (it's like a rite of
passage for coming to Bangkok). So we agreed to go,
and the guy didn't take us to the main street, but
instead to a little bar off on a side street that
wanted too much money for entrance. So we said no,
and the guy took us to another one, also off the main
road. We had to bargain the price down to something
reasonable-- seems like everyone's trying to scam
everyone in this city! The sex show itself was creepy
and weird-- dripping hot wax, shooting ping pong
balls, etc. etc. . . the details aren't essential
here. Anyway, all three of us were a little weirded
out, and we left for home.
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Friday Dec. 22:
The sun rises super early here! We got up around 9am
and checked out of our hostel to move to a nicer and
cheaper one just down the street. Over breakfast
(there's bacon and eggs, pancakes, and waffles abound
here! Didn't realize how much I missed breakfast in
Korea!), we mapped out a loose itinerary for Bangkok.
However, our itinerary got turned around when we
realized that the big market is only open on weekends!
So we took a tuk tuk to the river front and decided
to try to take a river cruise instead. We wanted to
rent a longtail river boat to take us along the river,
and maybe to stop off at some sights along the way.
But there were 2 catches: first of all, he wanted a
ridiculous amount of money for it; and second of all,
we were not dressed appropriately for temple and
palace tours. Here, there is a dress code for that
sort of stuff-- you should be covered to your elbows
and knees, and have closed-toe shoes on your feet. Of
course, it's bloody hot, and no one wants to be that
covered! So we had to go back to our hostel to
change. Finally, back at the pier, we managed to
bargain down to a reasonable price for the boat, and
once we got on the water, it was actually lovely. He
took us up to a part of the river that has a bunch of
traditional stilt houses that lean out into the water.
Some of them were just shacks that looked like they
would fall over if the wind blew too hard. Others
were incredibly fancy. As we went along the river,
women in little boats would come by and sell things
like water or fruit-- apparently Thailand has a long
history of "floating markets".
Our last stop along the river was Wat Arun, a
beautiful and very old temple-- it's stunning! There
was a huge pagoda made from ceramic of all different
colours-- I've never seen anything like it before, and
it's hard to really describe it. Even my pictures
won't be able to do justice to the scale of it . . .
After Wat Arun, we took a river ferry back across to
Wat Po, which is one of the biggest and most important
temples in Bangkok. This one was quite a bit more
touristy, and it was pretty packed with Europeans. It
was also beautiful, but a lot more glittery and gaudy.
The highlight was this incredibly huge reclining
Buddha statue-- again, it's impossible to describe
exactly how large and overwhelming it looks!
Again, while trying to get back to Khao San, we had to
bargain hard with our tuk tuk driver-- I hate that you
have to fight to get anything in this city! It seems
like foreigners don't trust Thais, and Thais don't
trust foreigners, and everyone's so paranoid that
they're going to get screwed around with money that
they all end up being jerks about it. However, it's
important to realize that here, the equivalent of a
dollar goes way, way, way farther than it would in
North America . . .
After a rest at our hostel, we went for dinner-- my
first Thai food in Thailand! (Actually pretty much my
first Thai food period!) Again, no problem with the
food-- I had a really good green curry.
After dinner, we did some shopping on Khao San road--
I bought some sarongs, a top, a scarf . . . everything
here seems to be exactly in my style--my colours, my
fabrics, etc.! Thailand fashion is made for me.
While shopping, we stumbled upon this little side
street bar way up on the 4th floor that had a Thai ska
band. The club was tiny tiny tiny, but the band was
fantastic, and it was packed with very
underage-looking Thai kids who were all dancing and
having a ball. It was great! We ended up hanging out
and dancing with the kids who were sitting at the
table behind us, and had a great time. In fact, I
would go so far to say that that bar was one of my top
ten favourite nights out!
When the band stopped, we went back down onto the main
street, and met a group of French guys, who we ended
up having a few drinks with while sitting on the
street curb. At one point, this very cracked out lady
boy came up and started trying to mess with us a
little-- I guess she (he?) was pissed that Lindsey and
I were maybe taking away potential customers? (Linz
and I were the only girls in a group of maybe 6 guys,
including Ryan) At one point, I thought she (he) was
actually going to beat us up. And actually, she did
get a good whack at Lindsey's arm and my back before
taking off down the street to harass some other
helpless people. I should explain-- sex changes are
actually quite common in Thailand, as parents often
think that they can make more money off of a daughter
(after all, the sex trade is one of the biggest
industries in Thailand). So there are a lot of lady
boy prostitutes, strippers, so on.
Anyway, after the lady boy incident, we decided that
maybe it was time to go into a bar instead of hanging
out on the curb (although tons of foreigners
congregate on the curbs to hang out every night). We
went into a bar that had a really nice closed patio,
and were given a bucket of "Thai whiskey"-- literally
a bucket with straws! I declined and stuck with beer,
but Linz and Ry were working on the bucket . . . I
don't know what was in that thing, but it was STRONG!
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Saturday, Dec. 23:
Wow, slow morning. We didn't make it out of bed til
noon. And Ryan and Lindsey are very very hungover.
We had planned to go to the big market today--
apparently this is one of the biggest markets in
Southeast Asia . . . you can buy absolutely anything
here for rock bottom prices! However, getting there
was a bit of a challenge. First we had to find a tuk
tuk driver to take us to the train station for a
reasonable price-- not easy, as it seems that everyone
ups their prices even more on the weekend. The trip
took forever, as there was a lot of traffic, and all
three of us were definitely not at our best. Once we
got to the train station, we got on the sky train
(Bangkok's equivalent to a subway system), but we
didn't really know what stop the market was at, so we
had to ask a few people on the train to figure out.
Once we actually got there, we were completely
overwhelmed with the sheer size of the market-- it's
insanely huge! And not well organized either-- a
flower shop will be next to designer jeans next to
puppies for sale. Linz and I had been looking forward
to some serious shopping, but when we were actually
there, it ended up being intimidatingly large, and we
certainly were not in the mood to deal with the
throngs of people. However, the few purchases that we
each made were incredibly cheap-- it's way easier to
bargain in the market than on Khao San road. Anyway,
we only spent maybe an hour there, and then we had to
find a tuk tuk to take us back to Khao San.
The rest of our day/night was pretty lazy and chilled
out, and we ended up crashing out pretty early.
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