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Sunday, 15th January, Classic Place Hotel, Bangkok, 12am

Well I’ve missed quite a few days of typing, so I have to break this entry down and just do a quick recap, because I’m tired and I just don’t want to forget what happened. Basically I’ve been sick for pretty much a week, ever since the “Police Station Incident.” I’ve been eating barely anything, which isn’t going to hurt me, but the scary thing was that, even though nothing was going in, stuff was still coming on out, so I ended up having to drink loads of water, and I was getting really tired really early in the night, so the days I’ve missed have been fairly boring anyway. So here goes, for a quick summary of about a week .
Wat Day: This was the afternoon after my previous entry. James came back, unsuccessfully, from his lens search. With this joyous lack of discovery over our heads, we trundled out into the hot midday sun to go see some temples. Woo. Temples. Because we haven’t seen enough of them yet. This one was a “short walk,” but we did see two statues, one of Alien and one of Predator, made out of bits of machines. We got harassed by tuk-tuk drivers. I got thirsty. We both got hot. The walk was too long. But then we were there, at the oldest temple in Chiang Mai, and we donated money to feed the stray dogs, and we took off our shoes and wandered around the main temple. There was a monk sitting in the corner, and he started talking to us, then he asked us if we’d liked to be blessed with holy water. I declined, as I don’t feel comfortable partaking in any religious ceremony I have absolutely no belief in, but James said he didn’t mind, so the monk said some stuff and shook some water over him, and said “happiness and well-being.” Keeping in mind my sickness following this day, maybe I should have been blessed after all!! After the temple, we sat outside and skulled some water, while a pregnant cat swaggered over and lay at my feet, where I couldn’t resist giving her a few pats. That night, we went to another mall for lenses, and we walked through the supposedly amazing night market, but it was badly set-up and there were too many people and I was soooooooo tired I could barely get my legs to move, and I was nauseous and man I just wanted to sleep, so we sat in a bar for a bit, but I could honestly hardly keep my head up, which started to scare James, but I couldn’t communicate the level of exhaustion I was feeling, so we finally left, and I collapsed on our hard-as-rock bed, but it felt like jelly in a balloon.
Elephant Day: This day was, surprisingly, Elephant Day. We paid a near fortune for the pleasure of a tour to an elephant conservation centre, but it was worth every penny. The tour was cram-packed with exciting things to do. First, we went to a butterfly farm and orchid farm. This was lame, to tell you the truth. There were about three butterflies, and we all joked about the lack of butterflies, aside from a dead one on the ground. Orchids are pretty, but we wanted elephants, so we quickly moved on. Still, it was a nice addition to the tour, and it only took up 15 minutes. Just more value for money. At the elephant enclosure, the first thing we saw were two four-month-old elephants hanging with their mummas. We all rushed over and patted them and took photos with them. One of the babies head-butted James and he almost fell over, so just imagine how strong they are when full grown! This one only came up to our waists! Not long after we arrived, wen bought bananas, but we made sure to feed them to the older ones mostly, rather than the cute little ones, because they probably get less food from the tourists. We went and saw the elephants bathing; they just flopped on their sides, and their mahouts (keepers) were scrambling over their bodies, like they were negotiating a rolling log rather than a live animal. The elephants got scrubbed and washed, then they sprayed the crowd (an unexpected surprise for all involved), and they handed the mahouts thongs back to them one at a time. Then we saw a 45 minute show, where they danced to some music, moved some logs, painted pictures, played soccer and basketball, raised a flag. It was all very impressive and probably very cruel, but the elephants looked well-fed, and the enclosures looked okay. After the show, we went on our trek, which was surprisingly comfy. The seats were padded, on our big bums wedged in nicely so we weren’t sliding around everywhere. Our mahout was very quiet, but then there came a point when he asked if we wanted photos. He jumped off, and we gave him the camera. As soon as we said it was digital, he was off, taking heaps of pics of us, which was great, but the elephant knew we had bananas, so it keep reaching back its trunk for some, so we didn’t get any photos of it looking straight on. The open maw is much cooler anyway. There was a baby elephant on the trek as well, with his mumma. Halfway along we heard this roaring, bellowing, so loud we kept jumping when the trumpeting sounded. Then we saw it was coming from the baby elephant!! It was chucking a little tantrum, and was just whingeing and wailing, like any little kid would. We just couldn’t believe how loud it was!! From something not even an eighth of the size of a full-grown elephant! Oh, and James has something to add about elephant poo, and this is a quote: “They were like limp tennis ball launchers dropping yellow blobs merrily along the way, pluke sploosh was the sound as they plopped into the river and went gaily down the stream. Chickens, lucky to be land dwellers, got the prime cut of the poo: they would fight over rights to crack it open and sift around for some undigested seeds. Beak lickin’ good.” He’s done now. Hopefully he’ll just go back quietly to his football and camera lenses. Funny thing is, it’s a pretty good description. The chickens would ransack all the poo, and the poo did float down the stream. Oh, and he’s been reading “The Wind In The Willows” hence the onomatopoeias and “gaily.” Anyway, so we went to a lame hill tribe on the elephants, and it was filled with fat (and I mean fat, not chubby or a little porky) villagers, which kind of went against that whole “poverty” thing most villagers have going. I decided it must be a genetic thing. Or they make a stupid amount of money of tourists. Their wares were rubbish, so we quickly got on the ox-and-cart to get back for lunch. Lunch was a HUGE buffet, and it was all so good, but I ate too much, and spent the whole bamboo after lunch raft trip feeling sorry for myself. But we wore conical hats, and saw a baby cow and some crazy Australian women’s group (James said they were the “Barrel Annual Bowls Vacation”), all raucous and thinking they were funny. They reminded me of my mum. At one stage they all chanted “aussie, aussie, aussie”, and there were two women wearing matching “same, same, but different” shirts, and conical hats, and they took go’s at steering the rafts, and they told our slow raft to “get a wriggle on.” But they were having fun. We pretended to be English. After the raft trip, we drove to a cave that, truthfully, isn’t worth mentioning, so just pretend I didn’t. But after the cave-that-I-didn’t-mention, we went to the Longneck Karen Tribe, which is a tribe from Burma that has crossed the border, and has women with their necks stretched by copper rings. The rings are really heavy. The women were amazingly beautiful, though, the most attractive tribe we’ve seen. All were young, with beautiful skins, and their necks were really elegant and swan-like. They were so quiet, as well. They just nodded and smiled, then continued their weaving. They didn’t try to sell us anything. So, we bought, purely because they hadn’t asked us too. We got two scarves. Then we went home, and I snoozed, and we went out for drinks where the waitresses were hookers but we didn’t realise until they started dancing on the bar, then I got stupidly exhausted again, like the night before, so we went home and I slept.
(continued rather belatedly, in Palau Pangkor, Malaysia, 10:58am)
Travelling to Sukothai Day: This day is about as exciting as the subheading suggests. We got the bumpiest bus ride ever, and I spent the whole time feeling queasy after my eggs in the morning. This day was the start of a week of no appetite and gut problems, which got quite concerning. I couldn’t read on the bus because the suspension meant that the slightest rise in the road had us bouncing up and down in our seats dramatically. So we suffered the ride, jumped in a tuk-tuk and accepted the hotel they were trying to sell us. It was a nice, quiet place with a leafy front area and a large, bungalow-style room. It was called J & J’s Guesthouse. Since we got in late and I was feeling ill, we spent the evening played “Space Quest” on the lap top, and we also checked the internet. We were pleased to find somewhere that had a half-decent and secure-seeming set-up, so we could book our hotel for Bangkok. James went and did that while I napped, feeling sorry for myself. He made an accident, though. He was going to book us by bus to the Thai border, then we were going to cross and travel to Penang. But he booked the wrong window, and ended up booking us a 7am flight to Penang from Bangkok. This isn’t regretted at all. The travel to the border would have been a total nightmare, and it would have eaten up much more of our time than we could afford. Plus the flight only cost us about $90AUD, and with several buses plus any other messing around, we’d have gotten close to that overland (maybe about $60). So we finally had a plan!!
Sukothai Day: This whole day we spent wandering around Sukothai National Park, the main section of the ancient city. It was beautifully preserved, with enormous Buddhas and temples and beautiful stone spires stretching into the bright blue sky. Of course, I was too sick to appreciate it. I was so tired and weak the whole time that we had to sit down regularly, and we kept having to buy water (the only thing I could stomach). We sat by one lake for quite some time, watching the fish and the dragonflies and the frogs. Eventually we managed to make it around the whole park in a few hours. You’re supposed to hire bicycles, but we opted out of that and just walked. It was nicer walking anyway. We got to see all the doggies lazing in the shade under trees, and we didn’t have to worry constantly about the bikes being stolen while we entered a building. In the evening, we had a drink in a bar called “The Poo Bar.” And yes, we only went there because of the name. The girl at the bar had an amazing rack, and I was admiring her form when I realised that she wasn’t a woman! As she shook my cocktail, I realised by the firm set of the jaw and the broad shoulders that she was a fairly convincing lady-boy. Her name was Jenny, and when she served me my cocktail (the best in all of Asia!) she didn’t disguise her deep voice. She was really sweet, and they kept topping up our peanuts because we kept nibbling them all. The owner, a Belgian man, came over and chatted to us for a long time. He explained that the bar was named after his partner, Poo, a woman who’d had a motorcycle business that was doing poorly, so he’d suggested that they open up a bar together. Jenny had been a celebrated cocktail maker in Chiang Mai, and they’d asked her to come work for them, for a change of pace and a nicer lifestyle. I think she was a friend of Poo’s or something. Following our drink, I thought I could stomach food, so we walked to KFC (the first fast food we’ve had in forever!). But I took one bite of my burger and couldn’t have another. I was so upset! I wanted my burger so bad. James, on the other hand, wasn’t upset at all, because it meant he got to eat my burger. On the way back, we stopped at a bar called the “Hello Kitty Bar,” aftertaking a bet on whether or not it would be a strip club. But it wasn’t. It was just filled with Hello Kitty and Doriamon toys and souvenirs. It was very funkily designed, and we had a drink and watched a documentary on Gangsta Rappers bling-bling, which was fascinating. It’s amazing how much people spend on stupid things. Mind you, a lot of the stuff was pretty cool as well (like hubcabs that double as a clock! Neat!). As we walked to and from KFC we saw two squashed froggies and two squashed micies.
Stinky Baby Day: The next day we left early for Bangkok. The bus was amazing. Cool, comfortable, and half-empty. At least, that’s until the first stop, when it filled to the brim with locals and a couple more backpackers. This would be fine but for one problem. First, I was still sick. I was rugged up with a blanket and a pillow, and was snoozing happily. But then the baby came alone. The baby who sat directly behind us. Now he didn’t cry or anything. No, he was very quiet the whole time. But he did hang over the backs of our seats and grab at my hair with his stinky little fingers. I got quite annoyed, and surreptitiously pushed his arm off my chair, and he didn’t bother me much after that. Instead he decided to proceed with pooing his pants. Constantly. Endlessly. Stinkily. The worst poo ever. It was stomach-wrenching, nausea-inducing, nose-blocking awful, pervasive, wafting poo that was worst when I turned my head to the left and just bad when I was looking straight ahead. I made no pretences. I scowled and covered my nose with my blanket, glaring at the stinky baby. James even had to block his nose. I hope that baby was being taken to the hospital or something though, because whatever came out of its bum was not healthy. So that’s me definitely put off children for another ten years. There was a toilet on the bus as well, so the least they could have done is take it in there and rinse off its botty a little! Ugh. On top of that, this old man opposite kept trying to talk to us in Thai. He didn’t speak a word of English, and James just had to shake his head and say “uh…sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.” The old guy kept getting the girl in front to translate, but then finally he asked her a question that she refused to ask us. We think it was “are you married?” because he then turned to us, and held out one finger indicating me, and one finger indicating James, and then brought them together. We just laughed and said “No.” We’ve been asked heaps on our holiday if we’re married or honeymooning. Inevitable, I guess. We finally got to our hotel which was really nice, we collapsed on the super-sized bed and then succumbed to the horror of realising there were only four channels on the TV, one of which was GodTV. But there was ESPN, so we were happy. After our welcome drinks (a sickly sweet fruit punch), we headed into the red-light district, so I could finally see what the hubbub was all about. We were going to find somewhere to eat on Nana Plaza, but it was too seedy to seriously contemplate eating there. Plus James got attacked by an eight-year-old girl. It was quiet scary, actually. She clung to his side with desparate, wild eyes and demanded 20 Baht before she’d let go. James called for me, and I turned around and saw Barnacle Girl. We had a laugh, said no, but she wouldn’t let go. Then we started worrying that she was picking his pocket (I carry the money, but still, it’s the principle). I said more firmly, “No!” but still the girl wouldn’t let go. I grabbed her hands and tried to get her off, but she was a stubborn little brat. Some working girls behind us said something in a sharp voice to the girl, but still she clung. I was starting to get really nervous by this point, and quite anxious. Her hands kept slipping loose of mine and snapping back around James’ waist. Eventually I had to grab both her hands in one of mine and push her in the chest to get her away. Not hard, but enough so she knew we were serious. So that turned us off Nana Plaza. We decided to head back to a nice traveller’s restaurant called Gulliver’s (the meals in Bangkok are insanely expensive, though!), but I wasn’t hungry, so James got a curry and I watched the antics of the working girls.
King Kong Day: The next day was spent wandering around looking for camera lenses. We were unsuccessful. We slept in, so we didn’t set out until about 10am. The plan was that if I was feeling better, we’d both go, but if I needed rest, he’d go alone. But I was good, I managed to eat a tiny bit of breakfast, and then we were off! We went to department store after department store (we were originally going to catch a taxi, but the taxis outside our hotel were annoying, so we just walked to the nearest train station and caught the train in), and along the way we checked movies. We decided that we’d see King Kong in the evening. We found so many different cinemas, it was insane. It was like every department store had its own Cineplex. Finally we found one screening an 8pm King Kong (we ended up going back to this cinema again later, because it had a huge selection of English Language films). The weird thing is that you have to choose your seats! We selected some in the middle, hopefully not behind or next to or near anyone else. It turns out that the row we chose is the row most people chose. That or the one in front or behind. And who did we get in front of us? But King Kong himself! This guy was enormous, and he just lounged like Jabba the Hut, taking up three seats. The seats in the cinema lean back as far as your body makes them, so suddenly my legs were being pressed against by this Mountain Man. So we decided to shuffle down a few seats. Then what happens? King Kong moves as well!! Straight back in front of us!!!!! We were so furious. We just glared at his seat, the back of which was almost bending in half, and then moved back to our original seats. The weirdest thing is that before any movie, they screen footage of the King (whom the Thai people absolutely adore), and you have to stand and pay your respects to him. The film was like a memorial video, though, with footage of rolling Thai lands and rivers, and still images of the King dropping across the screen in round balls like raindrops, while what I assume was the Thai national anthem plays in the background. It was all very bizarre. Everybody (including us, it’d be horrifically rude not to stand as well) just stood and stared solemnly at this kitsch display (although James and I exchanged “Man this is weird!” looks), then solemnly sat down again. The movie itself was really neat. We enjoyed it immensely, it was a lot of fun to see, but I must say that it would suck to not see at the cinemas. It needs the big screen.
Ping Pong Night: This was our Crazy Bangkok night. During the day we went to the main markets, but they were just too big. We bought some kitchenware for our soon-to-be London home, as well as some ties and a belt for James. The markets were swelteringly hot, and the only really strange thing we saw were pet squirrels for sale (strings tied around their necks). At first we didn’t think they were real, but then we realised they were breathing, and some were standing wild-eyed, trying to figure out how to get free. We spent a long time in the pet section playing with the puppies and kittens. Other than it was all mostly same-same stuff. The best markets I’ve seen so far are the night market in Luang Prabang and Chiang Mai (the one in the square by the wall, not the one everybody knows). In the evening, we went to Si Lom, where Pat Pong is. Also known as “The Ping Pong Show” area. There were some amazing markets here as well, actually. We bought a couple of shirts each. Then we wandered into the section where all the strip clubs are. A young guy with greasy hair latched onto us and tried to steer us into a number of different bars. We politely declined, then decided to go into any bar he hadn’t shown us. You have to be really careful in these places, because it’s common for you to be told the show is free, but then when you go to leave you get whacked with a bill for 300 Baht for every show you watched. We decided to go for one that had girls out the front, and that hadn’t tried to sell too hard to us. The girls said there was no cover-charge. So up we went, giggling about the very weird thing we were doing. Inside, about six girls danced topless (well, more swayed topless), and a couple waved to us as we entered. They were completely undisturbed to see couples, and we were pleased to see that there were a few other couples in there as well. We sat, we ordered a couple of drinks, then we let the fun begin. The first amazing feat was a woman who wrote us a message. With a permanent marker held in her hoo-hoo. She was writing for ages, then when she finally held up the A3 sheet of paper we saw she’d written “Welcome to the Super Bar. Please enjoy your night and we hope to see you again soon” (or something along those lines, either way it was something amazingly long and well-written). James said, “Her writing is better than my handwriting!!”. Which is true. She came around for a tip, and we congratulated her and gave her one. Through the whole night we gave away quite a bit in tips, but the girls weren’t greedy. They only came around for tips if it was their only trick, or if it was their main trick. A lot of the smaller tricks didn’t ask for tips. So the night stretched on, and the craziness intensified. We got more drinks, and eventually got moved into a better viewing position, where a camp waiter pounced on James (and made jokes about following him into the toilet), and a strange, lizard-like girl with a touch too light and a gaze too blank attached herself to me. She rested her tiny hand on my leg, and I was like “hmm…okay,” but I just ignored her, talked a little bit. Another girl spoke to us for quite awhile as well, and she and Lizard-Girl marvelled over my breasts, exclaiming that one of my boobs was bigger than their hand (not that that’s hard, as their hands were the size of a six-year-olds). The boob conversation made us laugh, though. We’d expected that at least one stripper would comment on her envy over my breast size. Eventually Lizard-Girl asked me if I was going to buy her a drink, but I didn’t have the money. I turned to James, and she rolled her eyes and left to find someone else who would actually hire her. The other girl talked to us for ages, and she explained that she had a young child at home (she had very slight mummy-tummy), and she was from some place north or east or something, which James reckons is where nearly every sex worker in Bangkok is from. During this, we saw a girl shooting a banana out of her and catching it, a girl “laying” an egg (she actually dropped it from a height into a glass on the ground, where it hit the rim and cracked open!), a three ping-pong up there at once show, plus some naked fire-twirling and a few surprises (just when you think they’re not going to anything, suddenly they’re pulling ten metre long chains of fake flowers from themselves, or a twenty metre long ribbon!). Eventually we’d spent enough money and seen enough hilarious tricks (it wasn’t disturbing at all, because the girls were so flippant and fun and friendly, so we didn’t feel like we were being perverse watching it all. It was a strangely inviting and accommodating atmosphere. Opposite us a woman and her daughter were watching in open-mouthed shock/fascination/admiration, and there were three young Thai couples watching, as well as another English couple and a very attractive young Kiwi guy who had three girls crawling all over him. There were only two old men, one of whom Lizard-Girl eventually attached herself to). Oh yeah, at one stage, during the naked fire show, the lights flickered on the briefest second. Suddenly the flame was out, the tits were covered, and the girls were back onstage, dancing in bikinis. Three men walked in, probably got their pay-out to be quiet, and then they walked back out again and it was naked business as usual. So we saw a mini raid!! We managed to get the last train home, and then we collapsed in bed after deciding we didn’t care about the stupid buffet breakfast the next morning (which finishes at 9:30am and which you can never find a table for).
Khao San Rd Day: So we skipped breakfast. We slept in nice and late, and then caught the train to Si Lom, where we had some sushi for lunch. Then we caught a taxi to Wat Pho, the temple of the reclining Buddha. Now James had insisted it was worth seeing, but I didn’t quite believe him. I mean, how exciting can a Buddha be? But this was no ordinary Buddha. This Buddha was enormous! It was about forty metres long and five metres high, and it took up all the space in its private temple, from the floor to ceiling. I couldn’t believe the sheer magnitude of it, in glistening gold, its gently smiling mouth bigger than my whole body. It was really, really impressive. The soles of its feet were made of mother-of-pearl, which images of religious significance designed like a patchwork quilt. We wandered the grounds for awhile and checked out a few more temples. The plan was to then walk to Khao San Rd, but it was getting so, so hot that we ended up trying to catch a taxi. We jumped in one, and said, “Will you take us to Khao San Rd?”. He said, “No.” We sat in stunned silence for a moment, then said, “Are you serious?”. And he said, “No Khao San.” So we were like, “okay then…” and we got out of the taxi and into the one behind, who had no problems at all with taking us there. The road itself was really unremarkable. Nothing but jewellery shops and t-shirt stores. There weren’t even that many restaurants playing movies, like I’d heard. It was boring, drab and unexciting. Apparently it’s changed enormously though, from the Khao San Rd that backpackers once knew and loved. Bizarrely, we saw Dean there, the guy who we’d met in Vietnam who had been bitten by a monkey! His rabies shots were complete, and he was now passing time in Bangkok before heading home. We chatted for some time, then James and I tried to find some markets that apparently exist at the end of the road (all we found was a nursing Daschund who barked at us and made us both jump). So I’ve seen Khao San Rd now. Nothing exciting, nothing worth going back to. Just lots of body jewellery and other hippie products. So we caught a taxi back home. That evening we wandered through Soi Cowboy, the notoriously seediest part of the red-light district, but we weren’t in the mood to enter any of the clubs. We just walked along the neon-light, Vegas-like party town that is Soi Cowboy. Then we ate some dinner and went back to the room for an early-ish night, ready for our early morning journey to Kanchanaburi (aka The River Kwai).

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 10:16 pm and is filed under Travel, Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.