Back in Big Old Bad Bangkok
Well I’m back in good old BBK; what an interesting place this is, you get here and you hate it and want to leave but once you leave you want to get back and once you get back you want to leave again. Mike described the city as organized chaos before I left and he was oh so right. Everything from the traffic to the markets to well…that’s all there really seems to be here, traffic and markets. You go to a part of the city that’s described as a market area but it looks no different than an other street that is lined with millions of food stalls and kiosks sells clothes and anything else you can shake a stick at.
It’s been an interesting last couple of day’s here; I caught the bus from Krabi and a group of people that I was hanging out with there were on there way to BKK also. Two Swede’s, Erik and Jonas along with Jonas’ g/f Bow who is Thai. Jonas and Bow are staying at Bow’s parents place so Erik and I split on a guest house room and I’ve been hanging out with them the last couple day’s. It’s been really great touring the city with a Thai and someone who knows enough Thai language to get around easily in Jonas. It’s been really good in fact; on the bus ride to BKK the guy forgot to give us a transfer slip and when they came around to check our tickets we had none and Bow had to call up the travel agent place and get them to talk to the ticket collector guy. We’d probably would have to of paid again if she wasn’t there.
I’ve also got to have an interesting tour of the city because of Bow and Jonas; I’ve gotten to go see a lot of places that no other “ferang” (tourists) go. I was in this part of town today and I swear everyone was starring at us with a look of, “what the hell are you doing here?” on their faces. We went into a department store and some of the cashiers and employees were even pointing at us, it was really cool. I’ve seen a lot of extremes here ranging from watching a family living in their boat and bathing in the river to the huge ass super mega mall complex where all the foreigners and rich Thais go and shop. The place blew me away and I took a slew of pictures of it all I think because it seemed to out of place as to what else I had seen throughout the city and country thus far. They got everything here, even more than Oz; Dairy Queen, Outback Steakhouse, Baskin Robins, it’s pretty much like home actually. Seeing this place and what it has to offer makes me think Australia is the backwards country, not Thailand. After a couple hours in there though I was quickly reminded why I never went places like that back home and was eager to get away. We also took a look at the Grand Palace and the National Museum. After all that over the last couple day’s I am now officially touristed out and don’t care for anymore sight seeing along those lines.
Another extreme occurred last night when we went to meet a friend of Erik’s from England who was in town. It was his old boss and was a bit of a surprise for him. We met him in this really weird part of town that is frequented by a lot of old, fat, balding foreign men look for Thai girlfriends aka sex tourists, it was really bizarre and weird. You see it all over the place, older guy’s with young hot Thai women but you still don’t seem to get used to it. What’s even more weird is when you see young guys like our age with doing the same. There was this one street that Alek’s boss told us to go down that was near the bar we met him at. It was much like the red-light district Pad Pong but on a smaller scale. We took a quick walk through it and that was all we needed to see. It was like a David Lynch movie, there were young beautiful women standing outside of the bars, smiling and waving and trying to grab you and pull you into the bar. It was very surreal. Pad Pong is suppose to be like 1000 time worse then that so I think I’ll be keeping my distance from there. That was just too much for me. I couldn’t help but look at the older guy’s and think that most of them have to be fathers and grandfathers.
It was really cool to see Bow’s parent’s place and how the average Thai person lives. I was old that the two things Thai’s like to show off as a status symbol is there cars and there mobile phones. I swear, I’ve seen what appears to be the poorest of the poor persons on mobile phones and dam nice ones at that, much better than the one I have. Even on Ton Sai all the longboat drivers had mobiles and here and the street vendors, food stall cooks and tuk tuk drivers all have brand spanking new phones. And cars. When coming here I thought that all the cars would be pieces of crap but never in my life have I seen so many nice cars. I guess most people would rather have a really nice car and live in a shanty. Bow’s parent’s place was alright, wasn’t a mansion but the SUV her dad had was insane. It was an Izuzu something ‘er rather with plasma screen TV in it and the whole 1 million yards. I have never seen as many BMW’s on the road as I have here.
The people here are all pretty friendly but you definitely have to watch yourself. I’ve had lots of idle conversations with Thai’s on the streets and it leave to a simple good bye and maybe some directions but there’s been some that you walk away with looking over your shoulder to see if anyone’s following you. Talk for instance this one fellow I met. He started a simple conversation with me asking where I was from and what I was doing. I told him I was from Edmonton Canada and from there he procedded to tell me that his Sister, a doctor was on her way to Edmonton to be a doctor there and would really appreciate any insight on the city. He couldn’t name the hospital she was to work at only that it was the second largest in the city. I sat down with him and chatted up a bit and he proceeded to tell me about his sick mother and how since his sister was leaving for 2 years his mother was very worried and might die. He then went on talking how he could teach me Thai and about Thailand and how I could in return teach him about Canada and help him with English, regardless of the the fact that he spoke extremely good english, which I see as a major warning sign. About that time his phone rang and lone behold it was his sister and how her and her mother were home just a few blocks away and how it would be great to meet me and get some info about Canada. That’s when he got up all excited and was all ready to go with me to visit his mother and sister, asking if I had my camera so I could take a picture for a souvenir and that his mother would cook a real Thai meal for me and blah blah blah. This is when my phone rang and I had to go meet my friends down the road and would unfortunately have to miss out. I’m really curious as to how often this little scam works for him…
Now for the most important part of the journey and a fundamental reason why I am here; Food. The food is great and it is everywhere. I am under the impression that Thai’s don’t cook for themselves simple because it’s just cheaper to eat off the street stalls and probably better tasting. Everything from Pad Thai, to chicken on a stick to fruits that you ain’t never seen or tried anywhere else, to amazing noodle soups to curry’s up the wazoo to the oh so good Som Tom (papaya salad), this place has got it all. There’s plenty of western/ferang food restaurants but I think the food there sucks. It’s pretty much just burgers, sandwiches, pizza, western breakfasts and other crap food like that. Seeing that kind of food makes me realize how I have no interest in “Western Food”. The only bad meal that I’ve had here was my first day in town when I had a western style breakfast the rest of the time I think you’re hard pressed to find a bad meal so long as it’s of a local variety. Just this night Bow took us to a local market where we were the only white people there. It was funny to get split up and look over the crowd to try and find Jonas or Erik and see a tall blond head of hair over the hundreds of jet black heads a few inches lower than them. At the entrance to the market I was enticed by this guy’s stall where the most pungent curry I had ever smelled caught my nose and I was drawn in. I made my order and he said it’s very spicy and I said good. It was this amazing green curry with fish over noodles and you would sit yourself down in the stall where all these veggies were, load up your dish with whatever veggies you wanted and dig in. I finished off my curry and had some noodles left so I asked for a bit more, expecting to pay a bit more. He put some more on and looked a bit surprised that I could take the heat. After I finished off it off he asked if I wanted more. I said no that I was good but he insisted and said it was free so I couldn’t refuse and wolfed down the second bowl. It was one of the best meals that I’ve had in Thailand and it was all for a whopping 20baht, not even $1 Canadian. It was so good and so nice and spicy hot. I went and met up with Erik, Jonas and Bow afterwards and they said that my lips and around my mouth were a different color from the heat. The guy from the stall walked by us and he stopped and talked to Bow saying something in Thai to her and gave me thumbs up. I guess he said that he though it was really cool that ate that curry with no problems as it was considered extremely hot and that even most Thai’s can’t handle it. Champion of the Universe.
As for my other guilty little pleasure, coffee, it’s been hit or miss. On my last day in Oz I found this place where the person that was awarded Australia’s best barista (coffee maker) worked so making the transition from that to here was a bit rough at first. I’ve had some ok cups of coffee and few bad cups but to off set that I’ve also had a couple amazing cups. In Ao Nang I found this little cafe that served nothing but coffee and man could those lady’s pour an amazing cup. I kept going back there over and over when I was in town and was never disappointed. I thought that I had been spoiled while in Oz with the amazing coffee they had there and thought I would never have another good cup until I got to Laos or Vietnam but lone behold I was wrong and would rank the cups I had there as some of the best coffee I’ve ever had.
So that’s Thailand thus far, I took a bunch of pics of the Grand Palace and other places but just need to load them up, in which I link to in a bit.
Tags: Thailand
misfittroy
wow troy – it sounds like you are having some great adventures – i think it is a good idea to wait on your cooking classes until you decide to come back home. Anyways, be safe and have fun!! You must be enjoying not shopping every day huh? Take care!