Jesse: I can't believe that Murray Head would lie to me. “One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster” - the song is not true. One night in Bangkok and the world's your cesspool. But I am getting ahead of myself.
We arrived in Bangkok exhausted, stressed, and relieved to actually be there. Wrapped in our sweaters and long underwear we stepped off the plane onto the tarmac in 80 degrees of humid swamp air. That was our first big adjustment. After clearing customs we headed for the meter taxi stand, all the while fending off the hordes of Tuk-tuk (took took) drivers offering graciously to overcharge us by a ridiculous amount. We had read our guidebook; we weren't going to be ripped off. And yet we were ripped off. While the taxi driver used his meter we forgot to have him reset it so there was already 70 baht on the meter. A ride that should have cost us 130-150 baht came out to 260. That's Bangkok in a nutshell.
The cabs are interesting though. You may have heard us mention that people drive crazy in China. Well Thailand is the same except people are going two to three times as fast. All the taxis are hot pink or neon purple and when we put our bags in the trunk of the one at the airport, I swear I saw nitrous tanks. People drive fast. It's doesn't help that the traffic is a 50/50 mix of cars and motorbikes. Riding down the street feels like you are in a lethal game of Mariokart.
Anyways, we arrived at our guest house at 2am exhausted, stressed, and ripped-off. We were so pleasantly surprised. The Sukumvit on Nut Guesthouse common area was clean and tidy. There was a "jungle cafe" in front with comfortable wooden chairs surrounded by beautiful tropical plants. I have to admit we spent a lot of time there drinking beer. Oh! That's another great thing, the beer! Unlike China it's not all light and it has alcohol in it, and flavor. At the guest house we thought we were in paradise, but we had yet to explore the city.
In the morning we met up with Aaron, for those of you who don't know, Aaron is one of my closest friends from the old hood in Irvington. We have known each other since we were like 9 or something. Aaron, who has been studying Chinese language and politics in Taiwan, had the same holiday and planned to go to Thailand to. You are gonna see a lot of him in our pictures.
We ate a late breakfast at the hostel (bacon, real bacon!) had a beer, and headed of to the Skytrain to explore the city. However, there was one little snag as we walked out the guest house door. One of my Crocs was missing. This seemed odd, as the Thais are very foot phobic. So the idea of someone stealing my shoe was ridiculous and if someone was going to steal shoes, wouldn’t they take both of them? This quickly led me to the conclusion that it must have been one of horde of dogs that roam wild all over Thailand. Most of the dogs are fat and well fed. As you walk down the street you’ll see them sleeping contentedly on the curb, or in a phone booth. Our guest had 4 or 5 dogs that lived in a car port next door. So I told the desk clerk one of my shoes was missing and she walked next door, returning a minute later with my Croc none the worse for the wear. The Skytrain is great. It's air-conditioned, clean and orderly. We were stunned to see people lining up in an orderly fashion on marked arrows to board the train. It also provides you some great views of the city, and the miles of traffic snarls you are shooting over.
Another pleasant thing in Thailand is that almost everyone in the cities speaks a little English. After six months in China where almost no speaks English it was bizarre. Strangers on street corners would see that we were lost and show us on the map where we needed to go. And almost everyone smiles all the time. We learned that the concept of face in exists in Thailand to but it works on a very different level. People try to save others face instead of worrying about their own. The smiling and generally joking nature of the Thai people goes along way towards making you feel like you are in Paradise. Until you talk to a Tuk-tuk driver.
Tuk-tuks are like a cross between a motorscooter and rickshaw. These things tear around Bangkok and most Thai cities at ridiculous speed belching clouds of black smoke and tying up traffic for hours. But being tourists in Thailand we had to take one. Now the Tuk-tuk, while existing almost entirely for tourists, is not really designed for three westerners to sit in. So we were a little crowded as we headed for MBK.
As Americans, sometimes we pride ourselves on our adeptness at capitalism. But after seeing China, and the super-malls of Bangkok, I think we kind of phone it in. MBK is 6 storey super-mall in the heart of Downtown Bangkok. While not as classy as Siam Paragon with its leather seat-pod movie theater and rows of diamond sellers, MBK is a grey market wonderland. Electronics, clothing, media, you can get anything at MBK. Many of the stalls baffled me. I will never understand the desire of tourists to visit a foreign country and buy a stupid tee-shirt, for instance a brown shirt, with a picture of a man on a toilet listening to an iPod and the caption “iPood”. To each their own, I guess. I did wind up buying some t-shirts in Thailand but they were knock offs of Threadless designs, and a little classier. What really interested me at MBK was the store Ten Ten. At Ten Ten you can flip through binders full of cover slips for pc games. If you see one you want, you simply write down the number hand it to the clerk who calls someone on a cell phone and 20 minutes later you have your freshly burned game. I was in heaven, but after awhile I realized you could probably find a cattle prod at MBK, and Carrie might be near buying one to get me out of the store.
After our shopping trip, during which I discovered my undying love for a Green Tea latte and Carrie bought a hat aptly proclaiming “Leadership”, we headed back to the guest house where blew a bunch of money on our greatest Thai expense, beer. Thai beer is slightly dry and delicious, after months of drinking Chinese beer, or as I like to call it “piss water” we really got around to downing the stuff.
The next evening after a day of blessed sloth, we headed out to China town for a walking tour suggested by our Lonely Planet guide. As we wandered through the twisting Sois (streets) of Bangkok, Aaron grew quite excited as he began to be able to read the signs. The walking tour was a bust, all the shops on the market street, which was the bulk of the tour, were closed. So we did get to see some lovely iron shutters and piles of refuse from the days shopping. A little disheartened, we stepped of the back streets and onto a cross between Vegas, Shanghai, and Bladerunner. The main drag of Chinatown was lit up by fantastic amounts of neon signs, blazing with red Chinese characters. We poked around for a bit and decided to eat at a seafood restaurant, where I discovered the most amazing thing. As long as there is no fish, I love seafood. There’s nothing quite liking stuffing your face with garlic fried giant prawn, or cracking into some curry fried crab. After our meal we wandered a bit. As we were walking around looking at our map a gentleman approached us. I was wary about being ripped of, but he seemed nice enough and suggested some local sights to see. He also suggested if we wanted take a tour we should book through the TAT, the Thai Tourist Authority. We got us a Tuk-tuk to the TAT near the night market we wanted to see and got us a decent price. That confirmed to me that he was selling something, but not too aggressively, so he was all right. At the TAT we looked through the options and discussed our plans. We were considering going to the floating market but the TAT price was a little high. As we were hem-hawing about the price, I looked in our guide book and found that the market we considering visiting existed only to sell cheap crap to tour groups. I politely disengaged from negotiations and got us outside where I informed Aaron and Carrie of what was up. In the end we decided not to see the floating market. The real markets that Thais go to are only open on the weekends.
Our Tuk-tuk driver had waited for us, I’m sure he got a commission for bringing us to the TAT, so we were off to the night market of Patpong. At the first available stop light the driver turned to us and said “You want see Ping Pong show?” Carrie expressed an indignant no and we continued on. But that was only the beginning.
I don’t remember much of the market, cheesy t-shirts, rows of belts and such, but what I do remember will haunt me to my grave. At Patpong, every five feet on the street are men holding cards bearing the logo for “Super Pussy” a go-go bar. Every five feet someone will thrust a card in your in face and say, “Sir, you want Ping Pong show?” Being good Midwestern boys after the eighth or ninth time Aaron and I were a little frightened. We tried shifting our position to move in a wedge, Carrie in front with us flanking slightly behind. However that didn’t change a thing except now they were saying, “Madame, you want Ping Pong show?” We got off the market street and paused so Carrie could use the bathroom for the 1473rd time in Thailand. After our pit stop, Carrie wanted to go back to the market and see some more (She wants me to clarify “souvenirs” but I think this is a funny little innuendo), but Aaron and I, thoroughly disgusted and afraid, out voted her so we were off home.
The next morning we decided to see some of the Wats. Approximately 95% of Thai people are Theravada Buddhists. Every male is expected to become a monk for at least a short period of his life, earning merit for his family. There are millions of temples (Thai: Wat) all over the country and Bangkok has some amazing ones. Unfortunately we had drunk a little much the night before to in an ineffectual attempt to erase the horrors of Patpong. So we got a late start and that meant seeing the Wats in full on blaze of Bangkok noon.
We started at Wat Pho, a city block sized complex near the royal palace. Mostly I will let the pictures do the talking as I do not understand the significance of the statuary and architectural flourishes. Needless to say it was beautiful. As a side note the big golden Buddha head of the reclining Buddha does not give you a sense of the scale. That thing is 40 meters long, that’s 131 feet. The building it is in is not much bigger so it’s impossible to get a photo of the whole image. After Wat Pho we hopped a ferry across the river and visited Wat Arun. Wat Arun is described as being built in the Khmer style. Apparently that means it designed to inspire vertigo. Those stairs were steep. When I came down it I had to close my eyes and feel my way down. Again the pictures will tell more than I could describe.
Carrie: After out temple trek we hopped a cab back to the guest house and then headed for the train station and we were off to Chiang Mai. Guide books and traveler’s forums warn about the hundreds of ways to get ripped off in Bangkok, so we walked into the train station to book our tickets to Chiang Mai with wary eyes. A young woman approached us and asked us where we wanted to go. We told her with reluctance and suspicion, even after we saw the official-looking badge around her neck. She whipped out a schedule in English, explained how to read it, and how to calculate the price of the tickets we wanted. Then she politely directed us to the appropriate window. We were taken aback by this helpfulness, but were ready to communicate with the man at the window by pointing at the schedule and using pidgin-Thai. No need! He also spoke excellent English and explained that the train for February 1st was booked, but we could go on the 2nd on an overnight departing at 7:30pm. We LOVE Thailand!
The train was very comfortable, much better than our experience in China. When we started out, the top bunk was folded up and the bottom bunk had been converted to two chairs. When it got later someone came around to convert them into surprisingly roomy beds, each with a curtain to block out the light. Jesse and I had a couple beers and read in the dining car before going to sleep. The warm air coming in the open windows, the clatter of the rails passing beneath us, even the CD with covers of old American music all put me in strange mood. Staring into the moving darkness, listening to Dust in the Wind, it felt good to be traveling, good to be out in the world, good to feel our connections to each other. I realized that I exist in a constant state of restlessness, except for a handful of moments like this.
