More Bangkok

Saturday night, we went to Patpong to check out the night market and lady boy scene. Patpong Road reminded me of Bourbon Street in New Orleans with the lights, music, activity, bars, noise, and glimpses of girls in their underwear while walking down the street. We were constantly asked if we wanted to see a ping pong show, which is a show involving various objects being launched at clientele from between a woman's legs... As something we knew we wouldn't be able to unsee, we politely declined these offers. We did, however, post up at a bar at the end of the street to people watch. The adorable gay boys who waited on us, the less than mediocre live band across the street, and the roach and rat sitings provided enough entertainment for us for the night! 

Sunday morning, we took a tuktuk up to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, an impressive 35-acre market with 15,000 stalls! This market has a plethora of merchandise including clothes, shoes, soaps, bags, watches, sunglasses, trinkets, souvenirs, chopsticks, electronics, hats, dried fruit, etc. The market is covered, which means poor air circulation, but many stalls have fans or even A/C units. Jurgen and Lea are heading home to Germany tomorrow so they have been stocking up on things to bring home. Since I am at the beginning of my trip and lacking luggage space, I wasn't making many purchases. However, I wouldn't mind coming back to Thailand sometime for a new wardrobe :-P 

To continue our day of shopping, we headed to the MBK mall. We entered through a store that resembled Bloomingdale's, a high-end department store with fixed prices. Before beginning our Thai mall shopping experience, we went up to the 7th floor food court for lunch. There were lots of stalls along the perimeter of the food court with interior seating just like in an American mall food court. But it reminded me more of the hawker center food areas in Singapore because each stall specialized in only a handful of dishes, and you can only get drinks from one stall. What was particularly different was the way in which one pays for the food. You have first go to the Cash Card Counter to put cash on a plastic card (like a gift card) before you can order any food. It was a bit confusing because you don't know how much to put on it since different dishes cost different amounts. But fret not, you just put more than enough on the card and simply go to the Refund Counter after you eat to collect the remaining balance. This counter is conveniently located behind a maze of merchandise stalls to distract you on your way. Those wiley Thai! I ate Pad Thai for lunch, and it was quite good, especially for 50 baht ($1.50) mall food :-) 

We went down a floor or two and came across a floor that had stalls just like every market in Bangkok. While the comfort of the air conditioning was much more pleasant than shopping outdoors, prices are noticeably higher and there are smaller margins for bargaining. The other floors probably had layouts more like western malls with store fronts rather than stalls, but we were a bit shopped out at that point. 

We took a typically terrifying (not really but kind of) and exhilarating tuktuk ride back to the hotel. We were so beat from shopping that we went and got massages. 30 minutes only cost 150 baht ($4.60), so we couldn't NOT get one! We then got dinner at the place with live music where we had eaten the other night. I had spicy shrimp soup that had great flavor, but half the bowl had large pieces of lemongrass, ginger, leaves, and other items I could neither identify nor eat hah. We went to bed early so that we could get up to see the famed Wat Arun at sunrise! 

We awoke this morning, tired but excited, at 4:45am. We arrived at the pier to cross the river to get to the temple and the boat ride was surprisingly uncrowded. We were a bit confused at this, but figured we were just the first ones of the morning. We got to the entrance of the temple at 6:15am only to learn that it wasn't open until 8am! Contrary to its name (Temple of Dawn), this temple is actually best admired at sunset! Disappointed, we walked back to the hotel and ate breakfast. We brushed it off as an early morning workout and rested the remainder of the morning. Lesson learned!

First days in Bangkok

Man it is hot and sticky here! The heat is soooo draining, just walking around is exhausting. I'm staying with my German friend and his girlfriend for the weekend and then another friend is coming next week and we may go island hopping!

Yesterday I arrived in the city center around 1pm and we went to a nearby street for lunch. I had something like pad see ew for lunch and it was quite yummy. The noodles were a soft, chewy consistency, a result of using fresh rice noodles instead of dried.

We then took a speedy TukTuk (a cheap 3-wheeled vehicle) ride to Chinatown to explore. The driving here is NUTS, but ironically nobody seems to ever get angry despite the chaos. While it's very common for TukTuks to drive on the wrong side of the street, horns are still used much more sparingly than in India or China. It can be very thrilling to ride in a TukTuk! Lots of things to look at but pretty similar to other Chinatowns. There were durians, but their odor was much weaker than in Singapore. I will probably get some sometime before I leave. Lots of big bins of dried goods (fruit, nuts, mushrooms) but I'm very perplexed as to how they don't get moldy from all the humidity in the air. Everything, even liquids, are packaged in little plastic bags with twist ties at the top.

We went back around our hotel for dinner and the restaurant had a live guitarist who played Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the like. My dinner of Pad Thai (40 baht = $1.24) cost less than my large Chang beer (80 baht = $2.47), totaling $3.71. With these kinds of prices, I almost feel like I'm stealing!! Throughout dinner, vendors came up to tables from the street offering large scorpions on sticks (as a snack), trinkets, and friendship bracelets that say various crude things like HAIRY BALLS, BIG COCK, and SUPER PUSSY. Dinner and lots of entertainment!! You can also get large towers of beer so that you can have your own "tap", which come in 3-liter and 5-liter towers for roughly the cost of 2 pints of beers in the States. We had a fairly early night and went to bed around 10pm.

Woke up at 8am and had breakfast in the lobby of hotel (which is included with the room). Again, a choice of eggs and toast or rice soup. Today I opted for the western breakfast. When we came back to the room we noticed something outside our window. The building across the street is under construction with very modest bamboo scaffolding around it. There was a guy on the top floor (about 5 stories high) who was standing on one bamboo rod and sanding the outside of the building, no rope or anything for safety. He seemed perfectly calm, but it definitely made us nervous! Definitely different from how things are done at home!

We wanted to check out some sites so we walked about a mile to the Grand Palace. Along the way we were told by several different people that temples won't let us in because of our clothes (shorts, tank tops) and that the temples were only open to Thai tourists now so we would have to go back later. This is all a scam to get you to go on a boat tour instead!! All the temples provide robes or clothes that you can borrow (for free or for a deposit that you get back full upon returning the clothes), and most are open with typical hours everyday.

In looking for the entrance of the Grand Palace, we accidentally went to Wat Phra Chetuphon (Reclining Buddha Temple). This was fine because we wanted to see it anyway! A ticket cost 200 baht (about $6) and each ticket includes a bottle of water, a nice perk :) As is custom in Buddhist temples everywhere, shoes are removed before entering the buildings. Donations of small change can be made throughout the various buildings, along with flowers and incense. This temple was much shinier than other temples I've seen, with lots of gold and glossy tiles. The tiles on the roofs resembled fish / dragon scales. One of the buildings was enormous and had a very high ceiling. There was a Buddhist with a microphone who was talking to a group of students and it seemed like a class of some sort and visitors could quietly sit and listen to / observe the lesson. It was very peaceful and interesting to witness. This temple was pretty big and it was very nice that some areas had nobody but us there. At one point, a few students came up to Jurgen and interviewed him about Thailand! He gets approached a lot in Asian countries due to his blonde hair :-P

Afterwards we went looking for the entrance to the Grand Palace. When we arrived, we saw that the clothing rule was more strict. A deposit of 200 baht ($6) was required to borrow clothing and the tickets were 500 baht ($15). None of us had enough baht to cover the costs and we were pretty tired from the previous temple anyway. We decided we would check out pictures online and if it looked really awesome we would just go back tomorrow!

We walked back towards the hotel and stopped for ice cream to help cool us down a bit. I got taro root flavored ice cream for 25 baht (~$0.75). It was funny walking down the street eating it because it was melting so fast!

We got back near our hotel and walked down Khao San Rd, which is a busy road for tourist with lots of vendors. Here you can get name brand clothes, sunglasses, electronics, and even fake IDs for lots of different countries! Merchandise here is much more expensive (although still ridiculously cheap) compared to other roads, and most of the prices are fixed so you couldn't bargain with them. The vendors were also considerably more rude here.

Had lunch by the hotel of vegetable red curry that was of course delicious. We are now back at the hotel resting before we go to the red light district tonight! Should be an interesting night!! :-P

One thing I forgot to mention in the previous post is how the buildings of Bangkok are. When riding the train to the city center from the airport yesterday, I noticed something. There are tons of tall buildings, but instead of them being clumped together and concentrated in a main city center area, they are all spread out. I mean ALL spread out! It was pretty interesting to see so many tall buildings spaced so far apart. Will try to get a picture later.