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Trip Start Jan 21, 2009 Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh, Thailand
Monday, January 26, 2009

21st Jan 09    
        
Leaving the airport was sad. There were plenty of tears from those who had to the airport to see us off. "Go on jasper, go" they shouted at me, and waved me down the platform. I walked down into the plane, but something held me back. I went back to them. "Shoo Jasper" they said, "You have to go", so I followed Joss back down through the tunnel. I stopped and turned once more, to face my family and friends for the final time. Through choked tears I heard those who had raised me from a savage cub say "Go Jasper, Just Go". Like me, that had realised I couldn't stay there any longer. We had been through a lot together, they had found me, an abandoned wild childe, and taken me in to look after as one of their own. This was the start of a special relationship, which took us on many great adventures. But now we had defeated the baddies and it was time for me to leave. The wild was calling me back and I couldn't say no.

The plane ride was sad but exciting. Take off was delayed for a long time because passenger 12F got lost in the airport looking for Hungry Jack's and they arrived late. We were given ham cheese and tomato relish sandwiches for lunch. They were pretty bad. Sydney was lame, we didn't even see the opera house.  2 hours in Sydney was enough so we hopped onto our international flight. I got seated next to a middle aged male travelling alone. He oozed grossness. He said he comes to Thailand every year for the surfing, but so far I have not seen a single surf bored or beach. He also mentioned that he was staying in Bangkok for the entire holiday, which is odd, because I don't think Bangkok is on the coast. On the plane I took out the leather diary my dear friends Bob, Chris and Miles had given me as a good bye present. I proceeded to touch the diary, then I smelt it, mmm it smelt good. As I read the good by messages I cried. But I probably didn't cry as much as Kelly would off if her dog Jack was hit by a car.


Dirty Bangkok.
The first thing I noticed about Bangkok was that the urinals were a lot closer to the ground than they were in Australia. The second was that customs didn't want to check our bags and the third was the smog. In true Joss and Jasper (or for the purpose of this blog we will refer to ourselves as T.S.J., which stands for Team Sexy J's) style, we had not booked accommodation for our first night. Seeing as it was 11 34pm, we didn't think it wise to just walk around Bangkok looking for a place to stay so we went to the airport accommodation booking service and got the cheapest hotel we could find. It was 1000 Baht / $50 night, and decent value seeing as the bed was nice, the view was OK, we got a free buffet breakfast and the toilet didn't flush. Also, this hotel was not in the tourist area, so when we got up in the morning and jumped in a Taxi (or Taxi-meter as they call them Thailand) we got to see what the real Bangkok was like. Driving in the taxi-meter was pretty crazy, there was a ridiculous amount of cutting people off and driving in no lane in particular or dodging motorbikes travelling the wrong direction down one-way lanes. While stopped in traffic we watched two dogs make sweet puppy love to eachother. Everyone had a good time.

Our first tourist attraction was a boat ride down Bangkok River (if that is it's real name). They wanted  to charge us $50 each, but we said "No". With our negotiating skills we got the price down to $35 each, which was still probably more than a true tight ass would have paid. It was worth it. We walked through the shack out onto a jetty and were surprised to see that the back verhanda of the grotto was the jetty. We were the first people there and jumped on the little speed boat/gondala. Then it took off, with no one else on it. So that was pretty cool. We just cruised up and down the river for an hour and a half , just TSJ's & our driver. It would have been romantic if the river wasn't so full of rubbish and trees and coconuts. But we would have gone to Venice if we wanted a romantic gondola ride. Instead this was eye opening. There would be a huge 5 star hotel, right next to 500m of squashed up little timbre river shacks all full of junk and rubbish. There were people searching through washed up rubbish and fishing and it was jut cool. When we went down a canal a man paddled his tiny boat in front of ours and we rammed into him. But he was used to it and just grabbed our boat as we collided. Then he pulled his boat to the side of ours and began talking to us. At first I thought he was a pirate, but soon realised that instead of trying to steal our goods, he wanted to offer us souvenirs. We didn't want any, but then he offered us beer for $5. We managed to negotiate him down to $2 and were on our way once again. It was a definite highlight of the day.

After our adventure on the high seas we checked out a giant shopping complex called TBK. Seeing as we were not in Bangkok to shop, it sucked. We walked home and saw more of the real Bangkok. We ate at a street stall and I asked for some sort of dodgy looking soup, they all laughed at me and said "Beak Soup Beak Soup!". They laughed even harder when I changed my order. But next time I think I'll eat that beak soup. I'm just a bit suss on the water. I even asked for no ice in my drink, but joss told me not to be a wuss and from that moment on I have been getting as much ice in my drink as possible.

When we got home we got depressed. Something about this crazy dirty city just felt too much, and we were spending a lot more than we would have budgeted for had we decided to make a budget. To try and make ourselves feel better we went to the tourist area Koh San Rd in the evening. This picked up our spirits right away. This area was cleaner, it didn't smell of sewerage and there were pubs and internet cafe's everywhere along with markets and banana pancakes.

We think it was the full on-ness of the Bangkok not catered to tourists which we found really hard to handle. Still, it was definitely worth experiencing.

From the tourist area we caught a Tuk Tuk down town to Pad Pong, the red light district. This was pretty nasty. It was a market place and night life precinct. We spent a good 40 minutes trying to find a cheap bar which didn't have strippers and when we did I didn't like Joss to leave me alone because the hookers would approach and then they would laugh at me when I said  "No No No". I just couldn't afford them. After drinking a decent number of Thai Whiskeys at the bar Chicken Devine (which logo consisted of the famous photo of Marilyn Munro trying to stop her dress blowing up, but for some reason she had tail feathers and a chickens head instead of a persons head) we went to the next bar in the ally which was danker and dingier. Here the whisky was cheaper so we stayed there fore a while getting drunk and talking to an English helicopter engineer who was on holiday with his wife and kids.

We also met the first Jackass of our adventure. He was Danish and proceeded to try and push Joss off her seat so he could sit and talk to the Lady-boys (girls who were once guys). He was extremely proud to inform us that his country had discovered two of the world's greatest destinations, New Zealand and Tasmania. What a wank-stain.


What happened next was disturbing, but I better not write about that here. Email me if you want the details.


Day 2. Bangkok, 22/01

This morning I woke up and went down to the buffet breakfast, which had an impressive selection of Western and Eastern cuisine. After breakfast I came back up to my room and vomited.
We had to get out of the area we were in so checked out and caught a Taxi Meter to the Koh San Rd (the tourist area) where we found a hostel overlooking a street full of markets and food stalls for $10/night. Bargain.

Day 3, Bangkok, 23/01

Last night we drank a 4L beer tower, and a bucket each of a delicious mixture of San Song (Thai Whisky), red bull and coke. We are feeling a bit seedy today. But we are about to leave dirty Bangkok and visit Vietnam for a few weeks. Just realised today that for some reason, our flights from Asia to London are booked on different days. Joss is set to head out on 12 Feb and I am stuck in dirty Bangkok until the 16th. We have contacted the travel agent, hopefully we will fly together.

We are at Bangkok airport now, so sterile.

Day 5, Ho Chi Minh, 25/01

Our hotel in Ho Chi Minh is up 3 very steep flights of stairs. But it is worth it for the view of one of the main tourist stretches. I just vomited in the sink.
We caught a  Cyclo around Ho Chi Mihn in the morning. Our Cyclo Rider/ Guide who's name I had forgotten, was an electrician from South Vietnam in the days before the war. He was shot two times, once in the head in 1970 and then again in the thumb in 1971. Seeing as he was on the loosing side of the war, he was no longer aloud to be an electrician, instead his only option was to be a cyclo operator. He was a right legend and had plenty of knowledge of everywhere he took us.

The war museum was pretty disturbing. Not as disturbing as things that happened in Thai Land, but it was close, and cheaper. If you worked out the dollar to disturbed ratio, you would find that the museum worked out far better value. Just like the Dad's in the store. We got seasons 1-12 of South Park, season 1-3 of Deadwood and a new carry on backpack for $50. All legit. Just like the Hugo Boss wallet John brang back with him a year ago.

We didn't have a single drop of alcohol yesterday; I can't believe how much this adventure has changed us.

Day 6, Ho Chi Minh, 26/01
It's PARTY TIME! Last night was Chinees New Year and today is Hottes 100 day. All that we could find last night was fire works, and we aren't into fire works. We still went down to the river to have a sticky beak but it was soooo packed, so we left. We saw them from our balcony, kind of, and they were nothing special.

We are having a break from being tourist today. Just relaxing in our hotel room listening to the hottest100 on the laptop with internet we are stealing from the pub across the road. The pub is open 24 hours a day and wakes us up every morning with some street drummers.

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