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Big Lights, Big City (Big Noise) and a BIG Snake
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Damn, this is a big city! It's so sprawled out and massive, and very very noisy with tuk-tuks farting all over the place, motorbikes roaring in and out of traffic, beeping, and police whistles screeching to try and direct 'traffic' (but it's difficult to direct stationary vehicles, so why not make as much noise as possible?). I'm extremely glad not to be a driver in this place.
Did a few touristy things, like seeing Wat Pho, the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. The light is really crap for taking pictures at this time of year (ooops, didn't plan that very well)--really bright and hazy--so my pics aren't very nice. But it was cool to see the very big, very gold reclining Buddha at Wat Pho--very impressive (especially his toes!).
Buddha and his big golden toesies
I'm so surprised at how outrageously elaborate the wats are, esp at Wat Phra Kaew. All glittery and gold and fancy-schmancy everywhere you look. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering what many other religious places of worship look like--just think of all the gold in the Catholic cathedrals, or the colours on a Chinese temple. Maybe mosques are the only ones I can think of atm that are quite simple and aren't over the top? Hhmmm, something to think about...
Besides that, I've wandered around the area where I'm staying on Sukhumvit Road. Turns out it's got some of the seedier areas specializing in prostitutes of every shape, size, color and age (unfortunately-child trafficking is huge here) and sex shows. I mistakenly found myself in a dead-end of very busy sex bars when I followed the neon lights, thinking it was a shopping center where I could buy some sun lotion. Opa! I was definitely the only single western woman in there and turned several heads to say the least. I walked pretty fast back onto the street, just in the right place to see the crispy bug vendor guy. Had a bamboo worm, not bad--salty, a bit airy. Will have to try something meatier next time I guess, maybe a scorpion...
And even though I wanted to avoid staying at a guesthouses in the so-called backpacker ghetto of Khao San Rd, I did go there to check out the people-watching possibilities and they are HUGE, I can tell you. I was really surprised to see loads of Thais there as well as loads of sterotypical hemp-and-dreds backpackers. There are lots of good deals to be had on food (15 baht--less than 50 cents--for a tasty Phad Thai), clothes, tickets for bus/train/boat/plane, jewelry, CD's and DVD's, ISIC sudent cards (and international driving licenses) and oh-so-much-more. They're in the process of ripping up the road itself, so it's a pretty dusty affair atm, but interesting anyway.
I got to meet up with Tii, who I met on Ko Samet. We went to a great little hole-in-the-wall Chinese dim sum place and had a feast. I'm glad he knew what he was doing cause he ordered about 10 little bamboo containers, each with different combos of shrimp, fish, won-tons, tofu, sushi, and I'm not sure what the other stuff was, but it was all great. We even ordered a second batch, incuding what's called '1,000 year old egg'. Not such an appetising name, I have to say, and although it's basically a hard-boiled egg, the white isn't white but a kind of transluscent blue-brown-maroon colour. Uummmm...I made Tii prove its edible-ness by going first, then I ate mine. It wasn't bad, just tasted like a dry, boiled egg. But my brain was having problems dealing with the color, like when my sis Shawna and I made green eggs and ham and dyed our milk purple when we were kids--it just tastes different for some reason...A testament to the power of the human brain I guess? We finished off the evening with a nice driving tour of Chinatown and--surprise, surprise--Khao San Rd, which Tii confirmed as a very trendy place for Thais to go and hang out. Go figure.
I also took full advantage of the cheaper travel injections you can get here in Thailand by hopping on the Sky Train (=stepping into a moving freezer, the A/C is on so high) and visiting the Red Cross. I was the only foreigner in the whole sprawling complex, and it was quite an interesting process, including going up and down 8 flights of stairs a few times to deliver receipts and money, plus being escorted a few times to be sure I ended up in the right places with the right paperwork--so far, the Thais are REALLY nice, including the nurse who laughed and joked her way thru 4 jabs into my arse and hips, oi...
And since I was in the neighborhood...
Slithering with the Snakes
I took a deep breath and walked around the corner to the Queen Saovabha Snake Institute--gulp. I'm so determined to get over this snake fear, but it was tough going, I can tell you...
It was a bit unnerving getting there early for the 'show', cause all you can do is wander around the garden, peering into huge glass cages which were...disturbingly empty. Ummmmm...I'd feel a whole lot better if I could actually see them. And I jumped twice due to not noticing a green and yellow lawn hose until the last minute while I was walking around--bloody gardener... They had bizarre piped elevator Muzak in the outdoor 'arena' area as well--a few Elvis tunes, a few Carpenters hits, Moon River.
It was all turning a bit Twilight Zone-ish, so I wandered over to the musueum, which had lots of jars of snakes in jars of formaldehyde and displays of some skins--a few very looooooong skins. My favorite thing was the name of a certain kind of krait, one of the most poisonous snakes in SE Asia:
Bungarus flaviceps flaviceps
Who gets to come up with these names and what kind of little green pills are they on?
Outside the museum there was a yellowing newspaper article completely dispelling the myth that drinking snake bile is good for your health (no kidding!?!?), as it's actually rather poisonous--but only because the liquid it's usually served in is only about 30-40% alcohol at the most, and not at least 70%, which is the minimum to kill off whatever small insidious things are in snake bile before you drink it. Think I'll skip that cultural tradition...
The slideshow soon started and it was like being whisked back into 3rd grade science class with gouged, blurry and off-kilter slides and a scratchy recording about scientists and snakes in their natural habitats. I did learn that anti-venom (which is developed at this Snake Farm) is a horse blood derivitive. Eeeewwww...And horses are bred especially for this job of being blood donors, and get to retire at age 12--not a bad job (easy for me to say!).
A brochure handed to you at the ticket counter was also pretty informative. If someone you're with is bitten by a snake, for God's sake:
"Bring snake if still viable.
If victim develops respiratory distress while in transit, apply to mouth or "Ambu-bag" respiratory passistance until a medical person takes over."
I'm so glad I know what to do now!
We all shifted outside to the arena to watch several extremely serious looking guys in white lab coats provoking large, poisonous snakes with hooks and their feet (the guys, not the snakes). At one point they had 3 King Cobras out there slithering around below us (thankfully all us civilians were sitting in a raised bench area). Then they pried open a poor python's jaws and stuffed several pieces of raw chicken down its throat to demonstrate feeding time, including a few drumsticks, bones and all of course. While I'm not a great lover of snakes, I do have to say I genuinely felt sorry for the thing. Especially when later it was plonked down on every person's shoulders for photos after the show. gulp Yes, even I did this, my first snake-on-the-shoulders, and even though I was smiling (with panic in my eyes I'm sure), god was I freaking inside!!
As my dad said in an email, I look close to panic, but the snake looks bored!
But I'm proud to have taken that first step to getting over my fear of them. Not sure what else this process entails, but that's more than enough snakes for now...
Soon heading up north a bit to one of Thailand's old capital cities, Ayutthaya...
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| 3. | Big Lights, Big City (Big Noise) and a BIG Snake - Bangkok, Thailand Mar 17, 2004 (  9 ) |
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