Oh those Singapore Nights...: 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)