Zoological Combatants
Thailand
Thailand
Thailand: Bangkok Day Three (Day 2 of 7 in country)
Ugh
Hangovers. Soon to be a fixture for the rest of the trip, but unwelcome every time they crop up.
Day 2 in Bangkok started pretty late because of the above. We ended up wandering out of the hotel at around 2 in the afternoon, and headed back to the area where we had dinner the night before. I remembered the restaurant frin the first night around midnight yesterday, after I published the last blog edition. it was a very cool place, although I heard that the food was too weak to be satisfactory for the spice hounds in our party (Seth and Ryan).
Banana shakes and some light food was what it took to get us back on our feet. The restaurant was playing a bootlegged copy of The Dark Knight with subtitles that made absolutely no sense. I don't just mean they were bad, I mean it was almost like random words strung together. I'd love to have had a copy to bring home, it was comedy gold.
We split up in the afternoon for a little while. Our original idea had been to go to Ayuthaya, an ancient capital of Thailand, but unfortunately we were up too late to take the train out there. Instead Ryan and I headed out far towards the eastern edge of the city to take care of a little errand I had promised a friend back home I'd take care of. I got to take part in the time-honored tradition of foreign merchants in Thailand: silk speculating.
Jim Thompson, the first westerner to seriously develop the silk trade in Thailand, has a number of stores scattered across the city and, most specifically, a factory outlet store located on 93 soi Sukhmvit road. Since silk is so expensive normally, the 50% slash on bulk silk here is pretty nice.
It took us about a 1/2 hour to make it to the store and then another 1/2 hour for me to pick out 12 meters of silk in 4 different shades. Hopefully they're useable. Ryan was a good sport and spent his time upstairs perusing the smaller silk items that were available for sale. After picking out a light grey, a middle-orange, a light pink and a light yellow, we headed off. There was a very friendly attendant at the front door that called a metred taxi up for us.
The trip out there was surprisingly cheap. There and back probably only cost us about 500 baht, maybe $15. That was also taking into account that we paid 45 baht in each direction to take the toll highway. It was worth it, I think, just to see most of the city. Bangkok really did remind me of Tokyo during the ride. It is about as dense, the only differences being that the buildings are generally shorter and also that the whole place is filled with GIGANTIC billboards. Huge. I guess they kind of ruin the skyline, but in some cases they also distract from the slums that they loom over. Boy, if anything will drop your property values it's a 150 meter billboard on your front lawn.
When Ryan and I got back to the hotel we discovered that Seth, Don and Melissa had all taken a break and gotten various kinds of massages for the hour and half that we were gone. We had caught up with them just in time to head off to the Bangkok zoo together.
The trip to the zoo took FOREVER. We thought we had plenty of time, but the absolute gridlock that characterized the majority of the trip kind of made us worried that we'd miss our chance to get in. As it turned it we made it there a little past 4 with plenty of time to spare. The zoo was pretty fun and we got to see a lot of the wildlife that is indigenous to Thailand, including the usual smattering of exotic African animals and whatnot. We saw a Pelican eat a very large fish at one point, right out of the water. I thought that was pretty neat to see.
We left the Zoo shortly before closing and took another very, very long cab ride across the city to Luphini Park, where Lumphini stadium is located. Our goal: authentic Muay-Thai (Thai kickboxing). When we first arrived at the stadium one of our cab drivers directed us to a fellow in front of the ticket gates. He was saying something about getting cheaper tickets if we paid for him, since the match had already begun in earnest. I'd read that this was a common grift, so I was highly skeptical. In the end it didn't really matter though, we ended up leaving to find food first anyways. There's a very large night bazaar right beside the stadium that featured much higher scale shopping than that which we had seen so far. We stopped at a nice little restaurant in the bazaar, had dinner, and then carried on, back to the stadium.
We bought tickets for the third class section, which were the cheapest. The view was still quite good though and it was a visceral event to watch. The atmosphere was great, with the rundown stadium really adding to it. The section we were in was so sketchy that everytime someone walked by the floor would sag noticeably. It was also kind of neat hanging onto a chainlink fence, straining forward to get a better view of the pugilists as they went at each other. The second fight and the third fight we saw were really good. Muay Thai is highly entertaining. I prefer watching it to UFC or standard boxing, mostly due to the emphasis on kicks and the lack of grappling. Hearing the crowd surge when one of the fighters landed a couple of good strikes pumped your adrenaline way up. Be that as it may, we were all pretty tired from our crappy sleep the night before and running around all day. Energy levels were critical.
After the big bout of the night finished so too did our stay at the stadium. We left for our final destination of the night, Soi Cowboy, another strip of go-go bars. We were really determined to find some ladyboys apparently. I wasn't all that happy to be headed out to another red light district, I'd had my fill the night before. When in Bangkok...
Soi Cowboy is definitely glitzier than Patpong though. Tons of neon, lots of crazy mirrored-plexiglass-LED-lighted bars. At the end of the street you get a wonderful view of three skyscraper hotels which seems poised to funnel their cargo of balding, overweight, middle-aged men directly into Soi Cowboy's bars like so much congealed animal fat on a highschool cafeteria stove.
We hopped around the bars a little bit looking for a good one. The first one that we sat in was quickly rejected due to the old Australian quotient. We eventually found a place and settled down for a few hours. I nursed a number of beers throughout the couple hours we were there. Since I was declining the approaches of all of the women in the bar, one of them jokingly suggested that my beer was my girlfriend. I smiled, gave my Heineken a hug and followed it up with a big swig. Everyone's a comedian. Melissa, Don and I spent our time drinking and singing to the music, which was actually pretty good. I hope I did Enter Sandman justice.
That was pretty much the night. It was interrupted at times by hucking ping pong balls for 100 baht tips, which seemed pretty fucking misogynistic in retrospect. I guess when you're 7 or 8 beers up you can't be blamed for a small digression. I just hope that the way the women acted when they caught a ball was an act, because if it wasn't that's super depressing.
After a few hours we hired a cab and headed back to the D&D. Before hitting the sack we booked our flight down to Phuket for the following morning. I snapped a few pictures off the top of the hotel. Soon thereafter it was time to hit the sack. More travelling awaited us the next morning.
Phew. Getting towards the really interesting stuff soon. I remain, as always,
Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello
(Pictures: #1 Bangkok, on the way to Jim Thompson, #2 Siberian Tiger, Bangkok Zoo, #3 Muay Thai Boxers preparing for their match, #4 Muay Thai Boxers going at it, #5 Bangkok from the roof of the D&D Guesthouse)
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