Old Faces and New Beginnings in Thailand's Crazy Capital...

Sa-wat-dee ka! Sorry it's been a while- seems a long time since Christmas, chilling in a hammock in Don Det. Going from there to Thailand's capital was quite a shock to the system...Before I unveil the craziness of Bangkok, I’d like to wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! We certainly had a very ‘different’ New Year’s Eve, that’s for sure…

   Whilst last year Emma and I were up at 6am to secure a spot in a Sydney park, this year we woke up on NYE with throbbing heads and nausea. New Year’s Eve Eve was to be a more drunken affair than NYE itself, thanks to our reunion with our brilliant Melbourne housemates, Coco and Matt. As we picked up where we left off and regaled our respective travel tales, we got through many, many bottles of Chang that afternoon- a deceptively lethal lager at 6.4%! Of course, party carried on into the evening, venturing into the infamous Kho San Road. Now, I’ve heard a lot about Kho San, but I still couldn’t prepare myself for the eye-popping neon extravaganza that it was. Clothes stalls, pad-thai stalls, fruit shake stalls, pirated movie stalls, massage parlours (of the innocent kind), fish spas and street bars squeeze into any tiny space available, fighting for your attention with billboards full of promises: ‘Buy One Cocktail Get One Fish Massage Free!’ ‘Foot Massage:  only 100B for ½ Hour!’…I mention these two because we were drawn in by both of them! More on that later…

    Now, in the last few months, Patrick and I have haggled for a lot of things- accommodation, tuk-tuk prices- but never alcohol. I thought it was impossible, but we somehow managed to bargain with a nice promotional man wearing an orange t-shirt that said ‘We Do Not Check ID Cards’ (a comforting statement for the underage). As we settled in with our bucket, assured to be ‘f****** strong’ by our new friend, we were approached by an old lady wearing a traditional Thai village hat, leather bracelets draped on one arm, pointy rainbow hats draped on the other, and a wooden frog in her hands. These vendors are EVERYWHERE on Kho San Road, preying on the exceedingly drunk who think they look hilarious in their village hat. Even when she scraped a wooden stick across the frog’s back to make it croak, I resisted the huge temptation to buy any of her goods. Memories of the ‘pregnant frog’ episode in India kept flooding back; why do they all want to sell frogs to me?

   Anyway, enough about that night- onto NYE! As mentioned before, NYE day was a little slow, but we soon got back on the bandwagon that evening with Coco, Matt, and their friend, Neil. Poor Matt was suffering from an infected eye, so we stayed and had a few Changs at their place for a while. Somebody (it might have been me- ahem…) mentioned the words ‘ping-pong show’, and before we could say ‘ladyboy’ we were in a taxi on the way to Patpong, the home of such performances. Within seconds of our arrival, we were offered a ping-pong show, complete with smacking-lips sound effect (in case we were in any doubt about what it entailed). Haggling down from 300B to 50B, we were taken upstairs to a slightly dingy joint. We heard ‘Ping-Pong Show’ over the loudspeaker, and before we knew it, a ping-pong ball was flying across the room. Just after midnight struck, one came flying our way at quite a speed; Matt was lucky he didn’t get blinded in his other eye! Having seen (more than) enough, we decided to leave- but they weren’t letting us go for under 100B. When insisting the guy had told us 50B, the formidable lady owner scowled: ‘That was outside- you’re inside now’. She actually barricaded the door when we tried to leave; at this point, we just paid up and left for another bar- not before a quick dance with some lady-boys on the street though! We danced the rest of the night away to the sounds of a pretty good Thai live band. Coco and I even made our own singing debut; we stole the microphone from one of the guitarists to wow the audience with that karaoke classic, ‘I Love You, Baby’. Oh dear. All in all, a great night- will certainly remember 2011 New Year’s!

I thought Kho San Road was going to be a ghost town on New Year’s Day, but it was surprisingly busy; people were living by the ‘hair-of-the-dog’ philosophy, apparently. We just spent the next day eating, eating and eating some more- just when I think I’ve had enough ‘Pad Thai With Egg’ to last me a lifetime, the cheap 40B price lures me again and I can’t resist! The pad thai stalls are just a tiny part of the street food metropolis:  fresh fruit, noodle soup (delicious with roasted duck!), tiny sweet taco-type things, fried quail eggs, dumplings, spring rolls, tom yum…then a walk through Chinatown, with red lanterns swinging above our heads- was like traveling back in time to one month ago. I love that I’m into spicy food now- it makes my life a lot easier! In fact, I often find myself asking for dishes ‘extra spicy’! I know that’ll be a shock for my family, formerly being a ‘korma’ kind of girl!

   It wasn’t all party, party, party in Bangkok (though to be fair, it was most of the time). We also sneaked in a tiny bit of sightseeing, to a place called the Golden Mount. The Buddhist temple, which you walked up stairs to reach, ringing a line of big brass bells on your way, had impressive statues of Buddha within. However, it was the view of Bangkok from the top that really made the ascent worth it, and made up for the slight tinnitus you got from the tourists’ bell-ringing! The ferry ride along the river also showed a few ‘wats’ (temples), their white exteriors made more striking when caught in the early evening sun. Above the dozens of heads in the ferry (god knows how the ticket inspector knew who she’d already checked!), I spied a sign that said ‘Space for monks’. Earlier that morning, Coco had been telling me how women are not allowed in any circumstance to sit next to monks on buses, even if there are no other seats; it was interesting to see this rule in practice.

 
As I mentioned before, we were lured by the offer ‘Buy one cocktail, get a fish massage free!’ What is a fish massage, I hear you ask? Basically, you place your feet into a glass water bath, where hundreds of tiny little fish are waiting to eat the dead skin off your feet. Lovely. It really tickles at first- I kept lifting my feet out with a shriek - but once they’ve been nibbling for a while, you actually do get used to it. They seemed to especially love the taste of Patrick and I’s feet- guess all that barefoot walking has taken its toll! Overall verdict on the fish massage: good for the feet, yes- relaxing, definitely not!

   Soon after, we wandered past one of the many Kho San massage parlours, and dozens of people laying in beds getting their feet rubbed. Jealous of their contented smiles and in need of a relaxing foot massage experience, we decided to join them- Changs in hand, of course. Despite all the masseuses laughing at my feet as soon as I sat down, the massage felt HEAVENLY- so heavenly, in fact, that we went for another half an hour…and a Thai-style massage! I actually fell asleep half way through the latter, then abruptly awoke when she pulled me up and twisted me to crack my back! We stumbled back like zombies to our hotel, feeling almost boneless. Bliss! I could definitely get used to this relaxing lark!
   Coco and Matt wasn’t our only reunion; we also met up once again with Suyra, our Nepalese guide! We met in a bar with a ‘buy one, get one free’ offer on Chang- dangerous times. It was great to see him again, and to hear about the progress of his newly founded trekking business and son, both of which are growing rapidly! Surya even asked one of the barmaids to join the band on stage and sing a song at one point, but unfortunately his request was declined. We heard that Sau, our other Nepalese trekking companion, has written a song that is now famous all over Nepal- good on you, Sau! From one height to another, eh?  This wasn’t the last time we were to see Surya; we agreed to meet him in his apartment on our last day in Bangkok. Five taxis, one train ride and 2 hours of walking later, we finally found his apartment in suburban Bangkok. We also had the privilege to meet his son Neth, officially THE most adorable 3-month-old ever! With big eyes, long eyelashes, and a gentle, quiet disposition, it’s harder to get cuter than him! Chilling with pizza and watching ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (which has taken on new significance since visiting India) was a really great way to spend the afternoon before catching our evening train to Chumphon. 

A random Thai lady gave us each a pack of condoms and asked us to hold them up to the camera. So we did.

Gate-crashing a 7-Eleven staff party in the street, 3am

   So, final verdict on Bangkok? It’s loud, it’s proud, it’s generous price and portion wise, it’s food-mad, it’s sprawling, it’s naughty- just pure wackiness, really. And I wouldn’t have it any other way…I look forward to returning in a few weeks with Colleen and Bob! Can’t wait to see you guys! As I write, we’re on a random beach called Hat Thung Waen Lun; in true tropical fashion, it’s been sticky-hot with ferocious waves! The heat’s obviously gone to my head, because I very nearly gave Patrick a sexy 90s-style bowl cut while cutting his hair- went for the ‘wild chopping’ rather than the ‘layering’ technique. He managed to salvage it pretty well, though! We’re off to Ko Tao tomorrow morning by boat- hopefully it won’t be a rocky ride!

Things you cannot do in a Thai cab...if anyone can identify the first picture, let us know...'Do Not Draw Cartoon Cows', maybe?