Bangkok Dangerous

Haven't actually seen that nicholas cage flick yet, but I think I will someday. Had my bit of bangkok dangerous the other day.
So as most everyone knows, bangkok is very famous for its red-light districts, strip clubs, prostitution, and happy massages. The first few times in bangkok I avoided these areas as that is not at all what I'm into. But time and again everyone was telling me I need to go. You haven't experienced bangkok until you go. It's quintessential bangkok. And this wasn't just coming from college guys or single dudes, from girls, middleaged women, families, everyone. It was between so I decided to do it. It was between pat pong and soi cowboy, so I decided to go to the most famous area, pat pong, home to the ping pong shows. It's a huge area full of go go bars and strip joints.

I was at first very nervous to go in and just walked around the area
for a while. Touts offering shows, sex, happy massages, you name it. "just go look, then you pick girl for whole night" But I bought two beers (totalling a dollar!) in the store, chugged them and
went in.

The patpong area has all the, what they call, pussy shows or ping pong
shows. They open bottles with their you know whats, they smoke an
entire cigarette with it, they shoot ping pong balls and bananas out
of them. THey shoot darts and pop balloons. All very crazy, disturbing, and I guess amazing.


The bars are mostly no cover, but charge 3 bucks for a mandatory
beverage (beer is typically less than a dollar here). I guess some of
the bars can try and push and scare you into paying a fee for watching, but you
can say no. apparently they sometimes get extremely pushy and almost
violent. I was able to say no pretty easily and they didn't bother me
too much b/c I think they were hoping I'd pay big bucks to spend the
night with one of the girls. They all come up to you
and try and swoon you and such. It's kind of gross to see the old fat
men making out with these 18 year olds and such. Well these three
mid-age women, from 2 from NY and one from alamosa in fact were
getting hassled a lot about paying extra, so they got up to leave. I
could see they were not being let out, so I got up to head out not


wanting to stay at a place like that. They let me out, but they
didn't let the 3 women out. So I went back in to help them. It was
crazy. The older women of the house, running the place, who were
actually rather large and fat were blocking the door and keeping it
shut. I tried to get to the handle to open it, but the head woman
started shoving me and pushing me and screaming. She said she would
call the police, of course that's what we wanted and that's what the
american woman were pushing for, but there's no way she would b/c she
was actually doing the illegal thing b/c its clearly posted no cover. I was trying to be reasonable and level headed, explaining it said no cover charge. They had paid for their drinks, why couldn't they leave just like me.
It was very intense for about 15 minutes, lots of pushing, shoving,
yelling. The 3 women on the verge of tears and scared. I wasn't too
scared, just frustrated and adrenaline pumping b/c I knew I was
stronger than the woman, though of course I was wary there might be a bigger
bouncer around or something. At the moment I had not been violent or
anything, just trying to push my way to the door, get the handle
anyway I could. But I figured, it if came down to it and I really
needed to, I could get more aggressive. But at one point I got a better look
at the door knob, did what Mr. Arnold drilled into us every football practice, charged in, pushed the two woman blocking it away,
charged at the women holding the 3 americans and the head woman,
knocking them down, grabbed the americans and shoved them towards the
stairs before following. I had someone on my back clawing at me, but
I shoved her off and made it down. I was all scratched up and bleeding a bit, but nothing other than that. Incredulously, one of the touts
below had the nerve to ask if we wanted to go up again. "No cover" he
said. Only looking, buy a drink.
The 3 women were very appreciative and got my mother's address so they can send me a thankyou gift later I guess. They claim I saved their lives. Doubtful, but probably 100 bucks or so.

After that I was a bit shell-shocked and just kind of wondered aimlessly around the nearby market for a bit. A university group of about 20 students from the UK were going by and invited me to come with them, so I did. Their prof took them to a less scandalous place. It was a bunch of thai girls just dancing in swimsuit or something similar up on the stage. I felt better there with all the students and the club was on the first floor with open doors to the busy street. All in all a fairly disturbing, yet unique thing to see. The most disturbing is all these old fat men (both thai and western) making out and then leaving with the young girls. Pretty disgusting.







Well, I'm back in bangkok from Myanmar obviously. Staying on a nice street near the wild khao san, but much quieter, yet still happening. I quite like it. Khao San and bangkok in general was quite the culture shock coming from myanmar. So much noise, so much light, electricity, tourists. I can see how the more seasoned travellers aren't huge fans of thailand b/c of the tourists. Coming back from a country where all of the tourists are there for the culture, the beauty, for learning, etc and who are all very respectful and intelligent when it comes to travelling amongst other cultures, it's difficult to see bangkok. People are so disrespectful for a buddhist country...men without shirts, loads of women wearing hardly anything when they would really like you to wear long pants and long sleeves. Lots of the travellers in bangkok as I have new perspective now are there for purely hedonistic purposes: sun worshipping, drinking, sex, parties, drugs. A completely different crowd than in myanmar (and of course different than northern thailand...b/c I think it mainly tends to be bangkok and some of the islands). But all the same it's very fun to sit and crowd watch over a nice smoothy. Even better people watching than in boulder b/c there are lots more. The dress and style of people is so crazy b/c it's a mixture of people trying asian cultures, their home cultures (which include dozens of countries), cultures from places people have just come from (Bangkok is probably one of the cheapest airports in the world to go places so lots of people are stopping by from trips to egypt, pakistan, india, morocco, kenya, etc), and also being away from home and people you know, it seems as though people are a bit more free in how they dress and act. Myself...when I'm out doing activities or treks or whatever, I'm about the same as I am back home, shorts, quick dry t, fleece. In the cities I usually wear manpris (gaypris to yosh) to try and be respectful with a t-shirt. And on the beaches at night I wear a sarong or fisherman's pants with a light longsleeve shirt to stay cool but keep the bugs off. Nothing fashionable, just functional. But most who have never been abroad to beaches would think my beach get up is quite odd.



The khao san area was interesting to come back to at 4am when I got back from pat pong. All the vendors were gone, but there were lots of people passed out on the street, people still drinking, dancing. Pretty crazy. Bangkok is a 24 hour city and always happening. Restaurants and bars are always packed regardless of the time because everyone is on different schedules. You'll seriously be up for breakfast at 8 am and see people chugging beers. There appears to be 3 main schedules. Those who party till 2 or 3am and sleep in til noon (check out time). Those who get up at 8pm and party til 8am and sleep all day. Those who are out seeing things and get up early to avoid the heat. Then of course there's me...stay out late, but still get up at 6am for touring and such. Oh, btw, it's HOT here now. When I left for myanmar, you still needed a light sweatshirt and night and dreaded the cold showers. Now the showers are a relief and I'm in a constant sweat.



Since I've been back in bangkok, back to more civilization, I've been spoiling myself a bit. I'm in asia, why not? Having a couple icecreams a day (for only 50 cents, how can you not), 3 to 4 smoothies (less than a dollar), and lots of fresh fruit. Of course the problem with such cheap food can be that you just always get it since it's so cheap and want to try everything, and then it can end up rather expensive. But oh well, it's worth it b/c I know how much a jamba juice, a fresh fruit salad, or an icecream is at home. I just LOVE the fruit here!



Hmmm...perhaps back to more order rather than ramblings.

The night I flew into bangkok I met Amy Schilling at khao san. We had a smoothie and then went to bed b/c she wasn't feeling great. But the next day I toured her and her bf Kenny around. THe typical temples, river ferry, sky train before they headed off that night to the south. It was good to see a familiar face. I wish she had been there a bit longer or was feeling better b/c it would have been nice to have someone to party with in bangkok. That night I ran into the aussie couple Pat and Sam from new years eve. Random. I also ran into Helen and Johnny from myanmar and was we were feeling the need to splurge a bit from myanmar. We went to 7-11, bought icecream and chocolate and went to see a movie (bedtime stories). The movie theatres in bangkok are amazing. 5 bucks gets you this reclining seat and a blanket. You could also buy a love seat for 12 bucks and 1st class seats are 10 with fully reclining lazy boy type chairs, pillows, blankets, and a waiter. The mall the movie was in was ultramodern. fancier than any mall I've been too and I've been to some in san diego and the rich parts of denver like cherry creek and park meadows. They had an aquarium under one of the parts of the mall. Everything was animated, blinking, etc. Very Crazy!



The next day I did some errands. stocking up on books (I went through all my books with the long bus rides in myanmar!) b/c the best variety is in bangkok, washing my clothes (and my body). Bought some toiletries (toothpaste, shampoo, deoderant) which cost me a small fortune. I didn't want the chinese toothpaste for fear of the lead poisoning and other things that's been going around, so australian was quite expensive (I had bought some cheapo earphones for my ipod in myanmar b/c they were crushed on a bumpy bus ride, and I kept thinking about the chineselead stuff in those, but I figure as long as they're not in my mouth). They don't have deoderant here really, unless you pay about 10 bucks for a travel size one from nivea or axe. But they have these rock crystals that apparently kinda work, so I got those. Then I headed out for the chatuchak weekend market. Thailand is infamous for it's markets, and Chatuchak is the end all. Something like 6000 stalls. It's so huge they give you a map when you come in. You can get everything there from food to pet squirrels to garden supplies to watches to mosquito zappers to fashionable clothes to used clothes to arts and craft...just about anything. It would be the perfect place to go for those people that are hard to shop for gift for. And of course everything is incredibly cheap! I talked to some fashionable british gals on the sky train loaded with suitcases and bags and they had spent 100 dollars and they think back home the same thing would have cost 600 to 800 dollars. The lonely planet warns you that people go, end up spending the whole day and leave weighted down but with empty watches. I was doing pretty good besides buying smoothies, shakes, and fruit, having only gotten a bracelet and some new fishermans pants and shirt I needed (total 3 dollars), when as I was leaving I came across a weakness. Cool environmental shirts. They were pretty awesome, good quality. So I bought 4, for 12 dollars. Which is great b/c the one "earth is our playground" brand shirt I have from REI cost me 15 bucks on sale. I had opened my wallet, so then I also bought a thai souvenir shirt. But WOW! what an intense market. I usually don't like shopping, but it was just cool to see all they had and the prices. Usually you see guys being drug by their girlfriends, but not here, the guys were plowing through as well. As I was walking through I was thinking, wow, I could actually make myself fashionable with several outfits here for only about 50 bucks including watches, hats, slacks, shirts, all of it...you guys wouldn't even recognize me. After the market I went on a semi fancy dinner cruise on the chao phraya river. Another splurge...well kinda of. Only 12 bucks for the meal and cruise. And then after that of course was the pat pong experience.



Today I got up at 6am to go to the floating market. I had gotten raving reviews from my aunt dianne about it. It was actually quite cool in the canals and all that. I had read it was quite touristy...and it was with almost all the things being sold relating to tourists...souvenirs, fruits, cooked food, but it was still very neat. Much different than the floating market in inle lake in myanmar. At inle the locals far outnumbered the tourists, not the case here. And most of the wares being sold at inle were for the locals: spices, herbs, roots, uncooked vegetables, fish, raw meat, cooking ware, etc. But this market was more happening here and also more colorful with all the fruits (of course I partook in the eating of them...so many crazy interesting looking fruits to try, and of course delicious). the ac broke down on the way back, not a huge deal b/c we have windows, but in thailand they do things differently. Instead of getting us to our destination, he drove a bit out of the way to get it fixed, so we could stand outside in the heat and wait an hour to get it fixed! Since I went to the market I missed the superbowl. Since I was in myanmar with now espn.com or news, I didn't even know who made the playoffs, let alone was in the superbowl until I got to bangkok. The steelers and who...? crazy. I wanted to go check out the muay thai boxing here tonight. If you know anything about boxing you've probably heard about muay thai. It's kind of light ultimate fighting I guess. I went to get tickets, but ringside is 60 bucks and upper level is 30 bucks. Too much for me to pay for a sport I'm not too into. But I guess it's a sweet atmosphere, like a duke/carolina b-ball game. And there's betting involved and all that. Of course the thais only have to pay 6-12 bucks, which is what I was hoping to get away with.



Tonight gonna go out on the town. Could possibly be my last night in bangkok depending on how I get from Laos to the South thailand. Off tomorrow to Ko Chang in SE Thailand. An Island! The beach! yay! Hopefully this time I'll make it...

2.04
In Ko chang now and island in SE thailand. it's beautiful here. Nice water (so warm!), and a very mountainous jungly interior which I love compared to flat islands. I think I will spend some days here. motorbike tour around the island, snorkel tour, the beach, and a trek to some waterfalls in the jungle. I met some cool aussies on the taxi to the beach I'm at that I'll probably hang out with and I met a nice aussie gal on the boat over here and we went out to a bar last night b/c it had a free bbq if you bought a beer. We also made friends with the bartender and he gave us a free alcohol bucket (their infamous around here)...normally 7 dollars, but a huge thing of mixed drink alcohol.