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!