We woke up around 10ish again on the 8th and had some good noodle soup for breakfast. Nice and spicy with fish balls and a bit of pork. Delicious. We tried to figure out a plan for the day and the only things we really had to do was Joey wanted to sell some books over in the backpacker neighborhood of Bangkok (Kao San Road), Henry needed to go to the UPS store to pick up his ATM card which apparently hadn’t made it all the way to Citi Bank the day before, and then late at night we were planning on meeting up with this Peace Corps Volunteer named Tracy who was coming in that night and offered to show us around a bit.
Well, I wanted to check out Kao San Road (or KSR as it’s known in the travelling communities) and Paul was down too. Patrick didn’t really feel like going to UPS with Henry so the three of us all tagged along with Joey. We asked the guy at our hotel how to get there and he told us to take the elevated train (BTS) all the way to the end and then from there to take a bus. So we hopped on the BTS and took it to a stop called Mo Chit and then from there wandered around a bit looking for a bus. Well, we couldn’t find one but eventually found a map and realized that we’d travelled quite a distance and we were still the same distance from KSR as from when we started.
We decided to hop on the MRT—the subway—which we started calling the Mr. T. We took that for a few stops because it looked like it would get us a bit closer to KSR. Finally once we got there, we found a taxi who didn’t seem to keen on taking us and instead offered to drop us at one of the canals where we could have taken a boat. By that point, though, we were frustrated with all of our misguided transportation advice and asked him just to take us to KSR. Well, he did it and ended up being a really nice guy. His English was very good and he told us that he’d even lived for a number of years in Brunei. Henry tried to call us at some point after he’d gotten his card and we told him to just take a cab over if he wanted to meet up with us because the transportation was just ridiculous to get there.
Once we finally got to KSR, we were horrified by what we saw. A few images: loose tanktops, pizzas and mojitos, dreadlocks, McDonald’s, Jimmy Buffet, really shitty street food. But these images don’t really do it justice. KSR is kind of revered in a lot of travelling circles for being this almost Mecca for people backpacking through SE Asia. The funny thing is, though, aside from the fact that it’s located in Thailand, there’ absolutely nothing Thai about it. There’s a McDonald’s, a Burger King and a KFC on one side of the street with another McDonald’s a little further down. People are pedaling shitty trinkets, sunglasses, shirts with pictures of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes peeing on things. It really just seemed like a place for where foreigners went in Bangkok if they wanted to get trashed and hang out with other foreigners. The only, and I mean only, redeeming quality was that the prices for rooms were incredibly low (less than half of what we were paying).
Anyway, we walked around KSR a bit looking for this bookshop Joey wanted to find and eventually we ran across it after some searching. I sold a book I’d brought with me but which I’d realized was too big, bulky, and heavy and another one which I’d started and didn’t like. In exchange, I got an Asimov book and a Rough Guide to Laos. I only ended up paying about 3 bucks. Sweet! Henry called us again while Joey was still in the bookstore and said he was at Mo Chit and what to do now. Apparently he hadn’t taken our advice and instead had listened to the same guy from the hotel who’d told us to take the BTS to that station and then a bus. Well, we told him KSR was pretty shitty and he decided to just walk around a bit near Mo Chit and that he’d meet up with us back at the hotel later.
We were pretty much finished with KSR before we even got out of the cab so nobody was too pissed when we decided to leave after we were done with the book store. We walked back out to the main road but the taxi drivers were trying to screw us on prices like they can probably do to the usual KSR crowd. Well, we walked a bit down and then caught a cab back to the hotel.
Back there, we relaxed a bit, played some cards and then decided to go looking for a couple brewpubs that Henry had heard of. One was supposed to be pretty close to our hotel in a mall but when we got there we couldn’t find it. Oh well. So then we took the BTS a little ways away and found the other brewpub. Once we walked in, though, we realized that it was super expensive, like US prices. Instead, we turned around and walked back to this Irish/English pub (there weren’t too many distinguishing characteristics making it lean one way or the other) where we had a couple pints of some various Asian beers.
Around 9 PM we headed back to the hotel and relaxed outside while we waited for Tracy. Eventually she showed up and we sat around talking for quite a while. The original plan was that she was going to meet up with us and then take us to an island about 4 hours to the east. I was not aware of this, though, and had assumed we were going to head down to the southern part of the country where there are a lot more options as far as islands go. Turns out, though, that Tracy was a bit broke at the time and she had wanted to go with another volunteer who was supposed to be coming back from vacation the next morning. She ended up deciding not to go with us which may have been for the best because then we were able to change our plans and head down south instead.
The next morning, Tracy went with us to the train station and we found out that the train heading down south to Surat Thani—where we would need to disembark to go to any number of islands—didn’t leave until 7:30 that night. Bummer. We pretty much just hung out at the train station all day, walking around a bit, playing some Settlers, eating some street food, and Henry and I poured a bunch of baht into this PS2 system that was set up and played each other in soccer a bunch of times. I think at our final tally we were tied at 2 games apiece and when time ran out, the 5th game was also tied.
We got a bit more food and then loaded up on the train. We were taking third class which wasn’t too bad to be honest. Sure beat second class in Cameroon. The seats were basically just benches with straight upright backs. We weren’t too sure about how the seating worked out so we just stretched out over a bunch of seats that were facing each other and relaxed. Patrick and I had bought a big piece of grilled chicken before we left so we slowly munched on that throughout the trip. The trip was fairly uneventful. We took turns watching stuff on Joey’s and my computers, and I think around 1ish I stretched out on one of the benches and had a pretty rough sleep. I didn’t sleep that well but it was a bit odd because every time I woke up I didn’t seem to mind too much.
Sometime before dawn on the 10th I woke up. I was pretty tired but managed to stay awake for another few hours until we got to the station (around 9). Right away we decided to go across the street and get some food and I think I got some spicy fried pork over rice. It was pretty good if I remember correctly.
When we emerged from the restaurant, we didn’t see any more of the buses that would take us to Don Sak (or Dog Sack as we called it), a town around 60 kilometers to the east where the ferry terminal was. The buses had left almost immediately when we got there and so we had to take a bus to the town center/bus station, and then from there we got a shared taxi to Don Sak. And by Shared taxi, I mean a pickup truck with a covered back and three rows of benches going length wise. It would go along the highway and periodically stop to pick people up who would then hang off the back for a while and then drop others off. It rained a bit while for the hour long ride to Don Sak and the mist coming up from the back tires made my pants pretty wet as I was the one sitting closest to the back.
We had decided to go to the island of Ko Phangan in the Andaman Gulf (eastern coast of the peninsula). I’d read about a bunch of different islands that were possible to go to but most either sounded incredibly touristy or pretty difficult to get to. Ko Phangan had been described as somewhere in between. Yes, it was big on backpacker circuits but it didn’t seem to have the extravagant resorts and deluxe dining options that some places like Phuket, Ko Phi Phi, or even neighboring Ko Samui had. So we chose Ko Phangan and caught a ferry just in time to make it there. The ride was a little over two hours and we passed the time by napping and playing cards.
We got in to the port town and once there everyone was trying to rip us off to hop back into the share pickup taxis and so after a bit of try to haggle we did what would become our go to move when in a new town on this trip: walk away from the port/bus station/etc., find a place to sit down and have a beer. That way we could relax a bit, pull out the guidebook, and even ask some of the locals around about what to do in our situation. Around the corner from the little corner store we were sitting at was a weird shack with a TV and loads of Thai guys watching it. I think that on the TV was Thai boxing, but it could have been any of a number of martial arts. I didn’t see any money out, but I got the impression this might have been some sort of underground betting place. It was also the only place selling beers so I bought one for each of us (a bit pricey) and talked with the guy who was running it a bit. His English was pretty shaky but he seemed pretty chill and somewhat confused by what I was doing buying beer and trying to start a conversation from him. After a couple minutes of trying, I gave up and walked back to the corner store.
One woman who was riding by in a food cart attached to a moto stopped to see if we wanted anything to eat. We politely declined but then she asked us where we were staying. We told her and she said something like “Oh, that’s far.” We asked her how much it should be, if she knew if hotels sent cars to pick people up, etc. She offered, though to call the hotel for us to ask what to do. She talked with them and then said they were holding two rooms for us and the price of a shared pickup. She was super nice, so I bought a beer from her and then gave it to her as a present.
We got the share taxi to the hotel, which was quite a ways away, and the price was only about half of what they had been asking earlier. Joey and I stood at the back of the pickup so we could see the scenery and talk a bit more. It was really good catching up with him. He and I have had our differences in the past but I’m really glad we’ve gotten past them and that he came to meet up with us in Thailand. Anyway, the ride was gorgeous. I’d been expecting a pretty small island but this place was really big. It took around 45 minutes to get all the way to our hotel and we were driving through small mountains, dense forests, a bit along the coast, up really steep hills and zipping around corners so we had to hold on tight to not get thrown. It was great.
We got to our hotel and the scenery again was amazing. It was right on the beach on the northeastern part of the island and it was situated in a little bay with another island a little ways off that you could walk to on a sandbar at low tide. (The hotel’s called the Royal Orchid, by the way.) We checked in and got each room for around 6 dollars a night. I found the place to be really nice and charming but somebody made the comment that in the states (or many other places) a hotel like this could be considered roughing it. Our rooms didn’t have A/C or hot water and consisted really of just a bed, a fan, a bathroom, and a porch with a hammock. To be honest, though, I couldn’t have asked for more.
We got settled and ate a little supper there: overpriced and underspiced—I guess I could have asked for one thing more. We talked a little with a couple Germans who were also staying there but then at 9:30 our share pickup came to take us to the Full Moon Party across the island. Patrick opted not to go as he was too tired, and didn’t think he’d enjoy it but Joey, Henry, Paul and I all decided to suck it up and do it. You’ll have to wait for the next post to hear about that debauchery and nonsense.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Welcome to Thailand: hello, change of scenery
Paul, Henry, and I arrived in Bangkok mid-afternoon on December 6th by way of Nairobi. Flying into Bangkok was a bit of a head trip. For one, we could see a bit of the evidence of the recent flooding on the outskirts of town. I read that Bangkok was spared most of the damage of the flooding because the government diverted the water and flooded a lot of suburbs and cities nearby instead. We didn’t see too much water and, to be honest, some of that could easily have just been rice farms, but whatever the case I saw a lot more water around a huge metropolitan city than I would have expected somewhere else.
On that subject of huge metropolitan cities: Bangkok is gigantic. I’m not sure of the exact population but it might be the biggest city I’ve ever been to—and I’m including New York in that list. It’s like a mixture of the tall buildings everywhere from New York mixed with the spread-out-ness and car culture of LA, all wrapped with an Asian flair. Oh yeah, and they drive on the left side of the street too. Who still does that?!
Anyway, the three of us arrived and waited around near the baggage claim for Patrick who was on a different flight from Addis Ababa which arrived only a short while after us. We met up with him and then took the sky train into the heart of town. It was when we were on the sky train that the level of development really hit home for me. We were flying through at speeds of probably close to 100 km/h and from the windows we saw ten-lane highways, huge condominiums, shopping malls seemingly every twenty seconds, and (my personal favorite) Manchester United billboards all over the place. (MU has a big following in Asia and many companies are official sponsors so they use MU logos and images in their ads.)
Well, we got to the heart of town and rather than try to figure out the elevated train, we decided to walk what looked on the map to be just a few blocks. Well, it was a bit more than a few blocks but we made it and found a hotel to check in to. Patrick went and bought a SIM card for his cell phone and we ate our first Thai dishes. I got a Pad Thai (a bit cliché, I know) and it was fantastic. I had a few more Pad Thais from this women over the next couple weeks but this was definitely the best one. I think it was so good because it was my first meal in Thailand as well as my first taste of Thai food in about two and a half years.
After we ate, we decided to walk around some and retraced our steps a bit back towards the sky train as we’d seen some cool eateries and bars near a canal that was a few blocks that way. Well, we got there and the food stand was just that: a little stand with some ingredients, a few tables, and a few coolers filled with soda and beer. Well, we pulled a table out behind the stand near the canal. We ordered another plate of food, a few beers, and started playing some euker (a card game I picked up from other PCVs in Cameroon). Well, the light was getting pretty dim so we moved back closer to the stand and snagged a table there under a light. We saw an older white man sitting at another table chatting with the women there in Thai and sipping on a beer himself.
Well, we continued our game of euker and the woman from the stand came over at one point and looked on a little incredulously. Then, she started laughing and rattled something off in Thai towards us and went back to cooking. The white dude behind us laughed a bit and told us that she thought we were gambling. We asked him to explain to her that we weren’t gambling but merely playing a game. He shrugged it off and said it didn’t really matter because the police wouldn’t bother this woman. I did a bit of a double-take and asked something like, “Why would the police care if we played cards?” To which he responded, “Well, gambling is illegal here and if the police wanted to they could come up and arrest you or extort a big bribe from you for gambling because how are you going to prove you weren’t?” He really shrugged it off when we asked if we should quit playing or not which later made me wonder if playing cards was really such a big offense. (Note, however, I still have not seen anyone else playing cards in Thailand—foreigner or otherwise.)
About that time my buddy Joey from college called Patrick’s phone (I’d left the number at the hotel) telling me he was waiting for me at the hotel. Sweet! Joey has been travelling for over a year now and was most recently in India. I told him a while back that I’d be in Thailand in December so he decided to meet up with us for a bit. Well, he dropped his stuff off in Paul’s and my room and then we headed back to the bar/eaterie. By the time we got back the white guy was sitting at our table (stole my seat!) and was giving Paul and Patrick loads of advice and tips about Thai culture, customs, laws, etc. I found out his name was John and he was Australian, but he’d been living in Thailand for a very long time, he wouldn’t really say how long, only that he was on his third Thai wife. Some of his advice for us was pretty bizarre, though. For example, “don’t insult a ladybody, she’s much more beautiful and stronger than you are,” and “don’t rip, throw, or kick the Thai money, because the king’s face is on it!” Well shucks, I sure do love just kicking money.
After a while of talking with John we decided to head back to the hotel and turn in for the night. Paul and I split a room with Joey crashing on our floor and then Patrick and Henry split the other room.
****
The next day, I was the first awake at about 10. Jet lag will do that to you but luckily this was about the worst we got of it. We ate some grub and then went to the Citibank Bangkok office because Henry needed to pick up his new ATM card which he’d arranged to have sent there for him. Well, it wasn’t there and they just told him to call the US hotline and ask what to do. So we walked around a bit and I was incredibly tempted to hit up a Starbucks, though it was on the other side of the 8-lane street. Passed. We found a really cool outdoor market and basically sport-ate our way through it. Some of the things I remember eating: sushi, Thai sausages, grilled chicken, mangoes. We wandered around this sprawling market for a while, got lost, and when we came out the other side we just kept on walking. I think we walked for a ways through one of the financial districts before finding some noodle soup to snack on.
Eventually we found our way back to the elevated train and took it back to the hotel where we grabbed a couple beers, played some Settlers of Catan and relaxed. We started chatting with a French guy named Julian who was also staying at the hotel and he was at the tail end of a month-long trip that took him through Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
After chilling for a while we started hearing a faint cheering sound which was to be the main part of our night’s entertainment: Thai boxing. At one of the mall’s near our hotel they set up a rink and have Thai boxing matches every Wednesday. So we walked over and looked down on it from the platform of the elevated train. It was some pretty cool stuff and an American woman was even one of the participants. She lost, though, I think she took a few too many kicks to the guy. We started getting bets going about who would win each match: either the red trunks or the blue trunks. We also stipulated that we had to chose our corner before the match actually started, so we were basing the majority of our judgment on physical appearance, coolness of name, and how well they performed their dance before the match. Oh yeah, I had it down to a science as the players I supported won almost every time.
After a bit of that, we walked around and found some more food. I was being restless and kept looking for different food and ended up walking quite a ways. Finally we found a place that looked decent but as soon as we approached these shirtless guys sitting outside near our table were trying to get us to buy the food there. We kept asking them how much the dishes were and the prices were fluctuating incredibly. I mean, c’mon. If you’re going to scam us, at least be smart and consistent about it. We ended up leaving and going back towards the hotel and found something to eat around there. We talked with Julian a bit more and then found out that he had to wake up at 4 to catch a cab to the airport. Well, it was almost 1 at this point so we all decided it’d be a good idea to crash. (Un?)Fortunately, Joey and I weren’t that tired so we decided it’d be a good idea to call a bunch of our friends from back in Seattle and Phoenix using Gmail Call (1 cent a minute!). Eventually ,we got tired enough to go to sleep and Patrick told us the next day that they’d heard us giggling from the next room until about 3 am. It’s still hard for me to tell whether this was jetlag or just Joey and I whenever we get together. Probably both.
On that subject of huge metropolitan cities: Bangkok is gigantic. I’m not sure of the exact population but it might be the biggest city I’ve ever been to—and I’m including New York in that list. It’s like a mixture of the tall buildings everywhere from New York mixed with the spread-out-ness and car culture of LA, all wrapped with an Asian flair. Oh yeah, and they drive on the left side of the street too. Who still does that?!
Anyway, the three of us arrived and waited around near the baggage claim for Patrick who was on a different flight from Addis Ababa which arrived only a short while after us. We met up with him and then took the sky train into the heart of town. It was when we were on the sky train that the level of development really hit home for me. We were flying through at speeds of probably close to 100 km/h and from the windows we saw ten-lane highways, huge condominiums, shopping malls seemingly every twenty seconds, and (my personal favorite) Manchester United billboards all over the place. (MU has a big following in Asia and many companies are official sponsors so they use MU logos and images in their ads.)
Well, we got to the heart of town and rather than try to figure out the elevated train, we decided to walk what looked on the map to be just a few blocks. Well, it was a bit more than a few blocks but we made it and found a hotel to check in to. Patrick went and bought a SIM card for his cell phone and we ate our first Thai dishes. I got a Pad Thai (a bit cliché, I know) and it was fantastic. I had a few more Pad Thais from this women over the next couple weeks but this was definitely the best one. I think it was so good because it was my first meal in Thailand as well as my first taste of Thai food in about two and a half years.
After we ate, we decided to walk around some and retraced our steps a bit back towards the sky train as we’d seen some cool eateries and bars near a canal that was a few blocks that way. Well, we got there and the food stand was just that: a little stand with some ingredients, a few tables, and a few coolers filled with soda and beer. Well, we pulled a table out behind the stand near the canal. We ordered another plate of food, a few beers, and started playing some euker (a card game I picked up from other PCVs in Cameroon). Well, the light was getting pretty dim so we moved back closer to the stand and snagged a table there under a light. We saw an older white man sitting at another table chatting with the women there in Thai and sipping on a beer himself.
Well, we continued our game of euker and the woman from the stand came over at one point and looked on a little incredulously. Then, she started laughing and rattled something off in Thai towards us and went back to cooking. The white dude behind us laughed a bit and told us that she thought we were gambling. We asked him to explain to her that we weren’t gambling but merely playing a game. He shrugged it off and said it didn’t really matter because the police wouldn’t bother this woman. I did a bit of a double-take and asked something like, “Why would the police care if we played cards?” To which he responded, “Well, gambling is illegal here and if the police wanted to they could come up and arrest you or extort a big bribe from you for gambling because how are you going to prove you weren’t?” He really shrugged it off when we asked if we should quit playing or not which later made me wonder if playing cards was really such a big offense. (Note, however, I still have not seen anyone else playing cards in Thailand—foreigner or otherwise.)
About that time my buddy Joey from college called Patrick’s phone (I’d left the number at the hotel) telling me he was waiting for me at the hotel. Sweet! Joey has been travelling for over a year now and was most recently in India. I told him a while back that I’d be in Thailand in December so he decided to meet up with us for a bit. Well, he dropped his stuff off in Paul’s and my room and then we headed back to the bar/eaterie. By the time we got back the white guy was sitting at our table (stole my seat!) and was giving Paul and Patrick loads of advice and tips about Thai culture, customs, laws, etc. I found out his name was John and he was Australian, but he’d been living in Thailand for a very long time, he wouldn’t really say how long, only that he was on his third Thai wife. Some of his advice for us was pretty bizarre, though. For example, “don’t insult a ladybody, she’s much more beautiful and stronger than you are,” and “don’t rip, throw, or kick the Thai money, because the king’s face is on it!” Well shucks, I sure do love just kicking money.
After a while of talking with John we decided to head back to the hotel and turn in for the night. Paul and I split a room with Joey crashing on our floor and then Patrick and Henry split the other room.
****
The next day, I was the first awake at about 10. Jet lag will do that to you but luckily this was about the worst we got of it. We ate some grub and then went to the Citibank Bangkok office because Henry needed to pick up his new ATM card which he’d arranged to have sent there for him. Well, it wasn’t there and they just told him to call the US hotline and ask what to do. So we walked around a bit and I was incredibly tempted to hit up a Starbucks, though it was on the other side of the 8-lane street. Passed. We found a really cool outdoor market and basically sport-ate our way through it. Some of the things I remember eating: sushi, Thai sausages, grilled chicken, mangoes. We wandered around this sprawling market for a while, got lost, and when we came out the other side we just kept on walking. I think we walked for a ways through one of the financial districts before finding some noodle soup to snack on.
Eventually we found our way back to the elevated train and took it back to the hotel where we grabbed a couple beers, played some Settlers of Catan and relaxed. We started chatting with a French guy named Julian who was also staying at the hotel and he was at the tail end of a month-long trip that took him through Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
After chilling for a while we started hearing a faint cheering sound which was to be the main part of our night’s entertainment: Thai boxing. At one of the mall’s near our hotel they set up a rink and have Thai boxing matches every Wednesday. So we walked over and looked down on it from the platform of the elevated train. It was some pretty cool stuff and an American woman was even one of the participants. She lost, though, I think she took a few too many kicks to the guy. We started getting bets going about who would win each match: either the red trunks or the blue trunks. We also stipulated that we had to chose our corner before the match actually started, so we were basing the majority of our judgment on physical appearance, coolness of name, and how well they performed their dance before the match. Oh yeah, I had it down to a science as the players I supported won almost every time.
After a bit of that, we walked around and found some more food. I was being restless and kept looking for different food and ended up walking quite a ways. Finally we found a place that looked decent but as soon as we approached these shirtless guys sitting outside near our table were trying to get us to buy the food there. We kept asking them how much the dishes were and the prices were fluctuating incredibly. I mean, c’mon. If you’re going to scam us, at least be smart and consistent about it. We ended up leaving and going back towards the hotel and found something to eat around there. We talked with Julian a bit more and then found out that he had to wake up at 4 to catch a cab to the airport. Well, it was almost 1 at this point so we all decided it’d be a good idea to crash. (Un?)Fortunately, Joey and I weren’t that tired so we decided it’d be a good idea to call a bunch of our friends from back in Seattle and Phoenix using Gmail Call (1 cent a minute!). Eventually ,we got tired enough to go to sleep and Patrick told us the next day that they’d heard us giggling from the next room until about 3 am. It’s still hard for me to tell whether this was jetlag or just Joey and I whenever we get together. Probably both.
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