Bangkok part 2...

Day 2- After an exciting day 1, we got up early to not only find Prashant sleeping in sweat pants and a sweatshirt (Somone tell this guy its its 90 degrees outside) but to take a boat ride up the Khlong to some more temples.  The boat was essentially gondola with an engine.  The driver was flooring it and we felt every... single... wave he hit.  Thankfully  he slowed down to show us around the river as we passed multiple temples and a ton of really poor-looking shed houses.  The word "shanty" comes to mind when you see them.  It was a really nice ride though and we got to see many people living right near the river, doing their laundry and trying to sell fruit from their "backyard."  We even had a vendor ride over to our boat, hang on for dear life and try very hard to sell us some random trinkets we had no interest in.  Somehow Prashant had a few in in hand... which only made the guy think he had a chance for a sale.  To this day Prashant still doesn't know how they got in his hand.  We bought nothing.

After the boat tour we made it to the temples only to find out we weren't allowed to go in because we were wearing shorts (what were we thinking) but if we waited for 2 hours we could pay 100 baht (3 bucks) to rent a cloak to wear.  So we took another tuk tuk ride, complete with stops at fashion stores to "browse", to a couple shorts-friendly temples (there are so many temples) until it was time to don our outfits to enter the temples of the infamous reclining Buddha.  Totally worth it, because the Buddha was about 40 meters (for you Canadians out there) long and it was laying down!  Not sure why this was so exciting but it was.  Snapped a few pictures and headed out to Jim Thompson's house.

Now you might be asking who Jim Thompson is... I was too.  Frankly I still don't know.  Apparently he is ex-CIA or something, then came to Thailand and fell in love with the country so started to get involved in the silk trade.  I guess he also disappeared one day in the jungle and never returned.  Anyway he has a huge house and its a tourist attraction to buy a lot of nice silk and stuff.  If you are into silk or history, great place to check out.  If you are me, you are bored.  It also didn't help that I ate some under-cooked chicken satay from a stand on the street before walking in... not a good choice.  After the silk house I needed anoher Thai massage so we all stopped in to a place close by.  It wasn't as nice as the one before, and screamed of happy endings but we went in anyways.  We all had female masseuses (masseusi?) this time, although the lady I got was big enough to be a guy.  Still, for 7 bucks I am not gonna complain about an hour long massage.  It was great, and shockingly no extras offered.  I wasn't going to take it if there was!  I am just saying I was surprised.  Though bargaining for it would have been fun. (I love to bargain)

Rested from the massage we went back to the hostel to change and go back out, making sure not to step on all of the MILLIONS of cats and dogs wandering the streets.  Seriously, the ASPCA would have a field day over here,  it was one Sarah McLachlan song away from being a commercial.  After showering and changing, we set out to go see one of Thailand's great pastimes: Muay Thai fighting!  I was so amped, and made sure to throw out any Bloodsport references I could.  I wanted to know the fighters back stories, I needed to know if someone was fighting for revenge like Jean Claude.  At the peak of my excitement we arrived at the stadium to see that tickets were $100 per person.  And that was as close as we got to Muay Thai.  Instead, we headed back to Pah Pong to do some more bargaining/running away from trannies.  After Prashant and I taught Rachel how to haggle and she successfully undercut a shopkeeper on a souvenir, we proudly headed out to the Skybar lounge.

The Skybar is one of the most famous bars to visit in Bangkok apparently, and it was featured in the Hangover part 2.  It overlooks the ENTIRE city on the 64th floor of a very nice hotel.  It was one of the best views in my life, looking out over Bangkok at night with the whole city lit up.  It was incredible.  My camera phone was so bad and couldn't capture the scenery but I tried anyways.  We stayed up there for awhile just taking in the view, and then headed over to a very famous street called Soi Cowboy.  Soi Cowboy is basically a street full of topless bars and strip clubs, and the street is crawling with ladyboys.  I was wondering if there were any ACTUAL women there, but we didnt stick around long enough to find out/get confused.  It looked like Vegas, with lights everywhere and a ton of people.  The only thing missing was the slot machines.  Vendors were selling bugs to eat, girl/guys were begging you to come into their bars, it was basically the grown up version of the donkey island in Pinocchio.  It was quite a site.  The night was really late by the time we left, and we had to get up early for our flight so we headed back to the hostel to get a couple hours of sleep before we left.

Thailand was great, and it was one heck of an experience.  I learned a few things while I was there:

1. If you tell people you are American, they assume you work for Obama.
2. A one hour cab ride should not cost more than $8
3. "Crocodile wrestling" meant to Prashant that two Crocodiles would wrestle each other.  "They would be trained to hate each other, and then forced to kill each other. "- not joking that was serious. To which I replied, wouldn't that be Croc fighting?  A new sport in Mexico has been formed.
4. It is not strange to think a male masseuse in Thailand is better than a female masseuse.  No matter what anyone says.
5. The line between man and woman is not very clear in different parts of the world
6. Thailand is called the "land of 1000 smiles" but I only saw maybe 6.
7. There are some people in the world who do not like Bloodsport references. (I can't believe it either)
8. In Thailand, they don't use chopsticks.  This was strange at first, and I now request them.
9. Do not pay full price for anything.  If you do, you are giving up.
10. I don't know the rest of the words to the song,  "One night in Bangkok makes the heart.... go... huh huh....

The happy couple behind me

The real star of the shot

Didn't get the splash on purpose

Talk about waterfront property...

Millions of catfish

Feeding the catfish... tourists...

Boat-side service.

Reclining Buddha!

The rest of reclining Buddha

Jim Thompson House silk

Bangkok at night

Dome at the skybar.  And crappy focus by me.

You can't tell... but it was sooooo cool.

Soi Cowboy!

There was a halal kebab cart... seemed out of place.

Why not? It's Bangkok! Day 1...

Two full days in Bangkok.  How do I make them count?  Here we go:

Day 1- We arrived after midnight the night before and it took forever to get to our hostel so not much happened that night.  Hence, I will start this blog with the interesting stuff.  (I try to use hence whenever possible)  We start the morning off with a one hour trip on down to a Crocodile farm just outside of Bangkok.  Who goes all the way to Thailand to see Crocs?  We do, thats who.  Although it was Rachel's idea.  After bargaining with the cab driver (they don't like to use the meters there, so you have to agree on a set price ahead of time) we made our trip.  We finally arrived after the long drive excited to see some animals.  Our cab driver asked us how long we would be and said he would wait for us.  I was surprised, but I just assumed business was slow.  We went in and saw a big pile of crocodiles in an arena style area where they were putting on shows having workers come in and put there head/hands inside the Croc mouth, etc.  It was entertaining, and there was a giant field trip going on so there were a million little Thai kids in uniform watching and cheering.

 The park also had a zoo, it was not just about Crocs, but there were more Crocodiles than I had ever seen in my life in one place.  They had feeding stations where you could hang down a skinned chicken on a fishing line and try to get them to jump up and eat it.  While intrigued, I decided against this because just seeing them from far away was enough to creep me out.  I dont need them jumping and snapping at me while hungry.  After leaving the Crocodile area we walked around and saw the rest of the animals, which was really cool because they were all so much closer to you than a normal zoo.  This was primarily for feeding reasons because you could pay 75 cents for an ear of corn or loaf of bread to throw to whichever animal chose.  I dont know if I ever want to be that close to a Hippo's open mouth again, but it was cool.  While seeing all the animals was pretty neat, I started to feel bad because most of them seemed like they were begging for food, which is probably out of habit from customers feeding them, but still it was kinda sad.  They also had a section where you could take pictures with baby tiger cubs and monkeys.  Rachel was all over that, and made sure to get her picture taken with a monkey in a dress... don't ask why they were dressed up but they were.  Playing with the animals was a lot of fun though.  So while Rachel was taking her pictures a woman employee ran by us screaming something in Thai, and headed over to the Croc lagoon.  People started going after her and we were all wondering what was going on.  I decided to run after her because my curiosity got the best of me, but not before yelling back "A tiger is on the loose!  Someone fell into the Crocodile lagoon!"  At the time... it seemed funny because I had no idea what was actually going on.  Turns out, I was half right.  When I got to the lagoon, there was a bunch of people looking out into a swarm of Crocs all thrashing in the water about 100 meters away.  No one could really see what was happening because the water was all murky and discolored.  Finally someone who speak English said someone jumped in, and immediately we all looked to see if we could see the person.  Now in general, I don't want to see someone eaten by a Crocodile.  But it was sort of like a car accident, I couldn't look away and I had to see it for myself.  Sure enough, a hand came up out of the water... with no body attached to it.  Then a foot... and it was just a feeding frenzy.  It was one of the craziest things I had ever seen, and then the employees finally stopped watching themselves and started ushering people away.  Feeling like we had finally gotten our moneys worth of the park, we left feeling very uneasy about what we just saw.  When we left to meet our cab driver outside, he was not there.  Typical.

Our next logical step was lunch, so after bargaining for another taxi and taking anther hour long cab ride we headed over to a place called Khao San road, where they had all kinds of little shops and food stations selling made to order pad thai for less than $2.  The food was fantastic, and so cheap it made me question my decision not to live there permanently.  We walked around the shops and were attacked by tailors and shopkeepers begging us to go into their stores.  We decided to take a tuk tuk (tiny bicycle-like taxi) driver up on his offer to take us to 3 temples in an hour for only 10 baht (30 cents).  Seemed too good to be true, but we consented anyways.  He kept to his word and took us to the three temples.  We got to see some amazing buildings, golden Buddhas and beautiful artwork.  What he failed to mention is that the tour was so cheap because we had to stop into 2 different tailor shops for 10 minutes and browse the merchandise.  Whether we bought something or not, they gave him a gas voucher for bringing them customers.  I have never seen such aggressive sales people than in these suit shops, and bargaining with them was hilarious.  (I love to bargain with people, it comes up a lot) After driving a really hard bargain and getting it for less than half of what they were originally asking, I bought a custom fit 3 piece suit and shirt for about $160!  It looks great, and they made it and delivered it back to my hostel the next day.  Talk about service.

After a failed attempt to convince us to visit another shop for him, our tuk tuk driver took us back to Khao San road where we got our first Thai massage!  We found a reputable looking school for massage, and went on in.  I had a male masseuse for the first time in my life, and I gotta say I was pretty impressed.  The strong hands were a plus, and I didn't have any temptation if the question of a happy ending came up (it did not).  It was a fantastic massage, and a wonderful experience.  For an hour it was only $8... don't know if I mentioned that part yet.  Why don't I live there again???  After the massages we got dinner on Khao San, and for 7 plates of food including pad thai, fried rice, fried noodles, green curry, spring rolls, papaya salad and tom yam soup it was only $11!  We were stuffed and headed back to the hostel.

It did not take long to realize how little English people in Thailand actually speak.  I am spoiled here in Singapore. I figured out that either the phonetic spelling of Thai words is wrong, or my pronunciation is so bad that nobody can understand a word I say.  I am assuming its the phonetic spelling.  It took us FOREVER to get back to our hostel because the one map we had sucked, and we had no idea how to get there.  Once we finally made it back, we vowed to always have directions to and from wherever we were going.  This vow was broken fairly early on. After showering and sitting down for a bit, we headed to Pah Pong, which is a night bazaar down a really crowded  street.  It was a sea of people selling counterfeit bags, watches, clothes, shoes, everything you can think of.  It was a bargainers paradise.  Thailand is home to probably some of the best counterfeits I have ever seen.  Since most of the factories are located there, the quality is pretty impressive.  We had some fun walking around and low-balling the shopkeepers until they finally shooed us away.  While there, we were also bombarded with men trying to bring us into ping-pong shows.  In case you are unaware, it has nothing to do with the sport of Ping pong.  The guys were relentless, but we were able to make it through unscathed.  We did happen to see an endless stream of "ladyboys" on the streets and outside the bars.  There are some who have succeeded in providing some doubt as to their sexuality, but then there are just men in dresses.  It doesn't phase the drunk men on the street however, as they are given so much attention.  I really worry for some of those guys the next morning...

After a very long day with many ups and downs, we finally headed back to the hostel to sleep since we had to get ready for another busy day 2.... (day 2 on following blog)

Croc performers

Wouldn't you want to jump in?

The way this bear was sitting made me laugh

Rachel feeding an elephant

It was cute at first, but it was actually chained to the basket...

I got to pet the tiger, he was cute

Someone had to stay awake to pay the cab driver

Traffic... worse than Southern California

Khao San Road

$2 pad thai and spring rolls!

Random temple

Huge Buddha

Tuk tuk driver aka scam artist

You can buy fake id's on Khao San...

Thai Pepsi.  Not as impressive as Mexican Coke

Thai dinner... so cheap... so good

Outside our hostel that nobody knows

Night bazaar

End of Ramadan and Exercise

Fasting just ended this Saturday!  It was a loooooooooong month, but we made it through!  I can finally start working out during the day again!  ....I didn't say I would but I could!  I am sure that was the reason I wasn't working out.  Anyways an Eid Mubarak to all those fasting.  This was the first year I was not able to celebrate at home with my family, so it was a little sad not to get to go through the usual routine that included Dennys for breakfast.  But instead I chose to go through the Malyasian traditions of Hari Rayah, complete with outfit I was forced to wear but still pulled it off, by going to visit my buddy Matt's in-laws house.  So Malaysians love to wear these pajama-looking outfits for Hari Rayah, which is their celebration for the end of Ramadan.  Families choose to dress in the same color, which is probably so they can find each other after prayers.  I chose to go with a vomit-green color suit, because it was the only one I could find for really cheap.  I did happen to find some people with my same color on, and considered making it extra awkward and sitting with them and pretending to be apart of their family.  Matt's family and I had breakfast together, and I got to try some more authentic food in a day that centers around eating.  All in all it was a great experience, and I was happy to get to try something new. 

For some reason I ended up getting a lot of exercise this weekend as well.  On Saturday I went on a 10k treetop hike, that was around Singapore's reservoir.  It was so hot, but worth it because we got a ton of exercise and saw some monkeys as you may have seen in from Rachel's video.  What you didn't see however, was the group of monkeys attacking a man as we watched and stealing his bag that had trash in it.  They warmed him and ripped the bag right off his back!  It was hilarious.  They thought they had food, but it turns out there wasn't any in it.  We watched in shock and then had to walk through them as they just sat in the middle of the walkway glaring at us.  They were not afraid of people at all, and seemed intent on proving they were the boss.  I am just glad I didn't have any food on me, because I probably would have been attacked myself.

Today we took a ferry to a small island only 10 minutes from Singapore called Palau Ubin.  On the island, we rented a bike and rode around through the trails and coastline.  We got to see more monkeys, and a family of wildebeests.  This prompted some singing of the Lion King which I do not apologize for.  The island was beautiful and very hot, but it was nice to be by the coast and get more exercise.  I am pretty sure I broke the bike, which I maintain was already broken when I got it, but I retruned it without the guy checking so I am in the clear!  All in all, it was a good weekend and am looking forward to this Thursday when I head to BANGKOK!!!  More to follow...