Thailand Part 1: Bangkok
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
29
90
Trip End
Jan 06, 2009
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Bangkok,
Thailand
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Welcome to our Thailand trip part 1: Bangkok.
Coming here was most definitely an anticlimax. We had such a great time but why it was an anticlimax you will discover later on and you will laugh your pants off at our naivety.
We checked into our Hotel around midnight and the next day over breakfast, we prepared an itinerary of what to do. A bit OCD perhaps...
For our first night in Bangkok, we went to the top of our priority list: The Ladyboys - a.k.a Calypso Cabaret! Held in a massive Hotel and including dinner which was a delicious buffet followed by lookey-likey Thai Peter Kay on the electric organ! He was fabulous!! Played lots of "Bright Eyes" and "Do you know the way to San Jose"!!! Then came Thai Elvis Presley!!! Soooo funny.
The ladyboys were great. I saw them twice before in Brighton and they were fantastic, provoking the audience to dance and clap along. However, this ladyboys show was not as rowdy. The audience here, were not that engaging. Myself and this other female tourist behind me were the only ones clapping along to songs like "I am what I am" and making a woohoo racket!!! One Chinese man in the front row got tons of attention involving feather boas around his neck and kisses causing screaming hilarity from his Chinese friends. Soo funny. The ladyboys were truly stunning and their costumes were to die for. The bitches. It was a bit of a freak show at the end though as they all queued up for tourist photo opportunities. I felt a bit sad at this but I suppose if you're going to be in such a show you have to bear the consequences.
Fluffy lady boys
The next day we did a Thai cooking course. Cooking and I have never been best friends but I didn't want David to do this alone. An Australian couple did the course too. At the local noisy fresh food market was a bowl of what looked like tiny black snakes in water. The woman there watched my face of intrigue before plunging her hand into the water and grabbing a handful of medusa-like wriggling creatures. My gasps turned her into hysterics!! Next to this bowl was a tub of catfish in water. I was looking down at them when one literally leaped out of the water and did a massive arched dive onto the floor at my feet causing me to suddenly yelp out and leg it down the aisle!! This caused much hilarity amongst the nearby stall holders.
Next: some bloke's house (!) where we tasted pure coconut sugar (soooo good), saw coconut juice turned into cream then watched him leap up the coconut tree and squeeze juice into a cup. David and the Australian guy we were with both climbed up the ladder of the tree while us girlies took photos.
Next: The floating market consisting of wooden shacks on stilts in the water creating a sheltered run of various food stalls. And below in the water, locals in small boats sold freshly cooked food. The furniture section had the most beautiful ornate wardrobes and dressers going for peanuts!!! If you want beautiful handmade carved wood furniture, go to Thailand!!!
Finally: local house where we did the cooking course. Greeted with cold flannels and fresh coconut juice! The cooking course was lame.
A fantastic photo David took of a ladyboy.
Not a genuine hands-on cooking course. But instead each of us simply stirring ingredients in a wok! No chopping, peeling, separating, mixing. All pre-prepared. Bit pathetic but the end result was absolutely delicious I have to admit. David and I booked another tour: The Bridge Over The River Kwai. Have you seen the film? We got to the cemetery of the POW soldiers who had died of malnourishment or disease at the hands of the Japanese. These soldiers were the ones that built the bridge. It was quite moving and we found a Perryman amongst the British graves. Next, a speedboat through the River Kwai and underneath the bridge. Followed by the opportunity of walking along the actual bridge housing the train track - quite a challenge while a million other tourists try to pass you. And a steep drop down to the river below you!! Quite moving to think of all the deaths resulting from building this bridge while they were beaten or malnourished. Tragic. Over lunch, we sat with a Japanese man who was so sweet but I couldn't help wondering how he must have felt walking around the cemetery and the museum. We rode a rackety old train through the jungle. The sights were stunning. We spent most of the rest of the day on a coach being herded around like sheep. We all had stickers to say we were part of a group. Ugh! It was gross for me. But the Bridge was really good so I didn't regret going.
David: Actually, we found out the film is wrong - pure Hollywood (which they never denied) based on a French work of fiction (which had some elements of truth).
David up a coconut tree
There never was such a thing as a bridge over a River Kwai. However, there was a railway built between Thailand and Burma, and it was built by POWs. And many of them died doing it. And there was a Bridge over some river or other where a lot of people died, but it was on a flat plain and pretty boring for film purposes. There was a river that sounded a bit like Kwai that the railway line ran alongside for a few miles but it never crossed it. Then in the 70s or so, tourists started coming to Thailand trying to find the bridge over the River Kwai but obviously there wasn't such a thing. In fact all but one of the POW built bridges had been demolished or replaced and that one went over the River Maekluang. The Thai government, not to miss a trick, renamed this part of the river the Kwai. So, now there is indeed a bridge over the River Kwai. And that's what we walked over!!The train journey took us along an important section of the track, a bit where many men died constructing a wooden viaduct thing stuck to a cliff face next to a river... it was quite moving (we were, not the viaduct, that was pretty solid after all these years.)
Upon recommendation, I eventually persuaded my husband to come with me to MBK. A mall Eye-poppingly enormous with every single thing you could possibly want in life and more. Shoes £3 upwards, cosmetics/toiletries were revoltingly cheap. Crackers Maracas. Strangely though, there was just nothing that really appealed to me!!
In China women look absolutely stunning whether shopping for bread or going to a restaurant.
A rice field
Never failing to look feminine and elegant in little dresses and the highest heels. (David: Equality AND feminity... how peculiar) Tragically, however, their dress sizes are teeth-grindingly sickening. If you're not a size zero forget it, sisters!! Contrastingly, the style of Bangkok women is not a case of elegance and femininity but more a Vegas-Showgirl satin and sequins look!? Gorgeously sexy for a dinner-dance or wedding but trying to find a casual linen dress for the day was impossible. Have since decided to re-kindle my relationship with high heels at the next opportunity. We embraced the seedy side of life. Not only recommended to us but you can't come to Bangkok without seeing some filth and depravity. So, off to Soi Cowboy. Quite small and well-tamed. Just one street rammed with neon-flashing lights and girls outside in kinky cowboy or rubber outfits jiggling for custom. Oh and a baby elephant wandering up and down inviting you to feed it melon!! After a tongue-swelling curried stew, we headed to Long Gun bar. The infamous ping-pong girls!! Long Gun did NOT let us down. Crikey!!! We were immediately confronted with a platform of nakedness jiggling around poles and a haggle of salivating men beneath them. We sat at the back of the bar, ordered drinks then burst into hysterics: if the girls sliding didn't excite you then you could always catch up with the snooker on the giant projector screen behind them!! (David: worth an hour of lazy puns in anyone's book: 'Oh look, he's sunk the pink'; 'He's shifted the brown'; 'He's chalking his knob'; etc.
Us and Ozzies on a boat
you get the idea.) We didn't really get the pole-dancing frenzy. But things hotted up for David when 2 girls did a lezzy act later on. Bless him. If a wife can't treat her husband to an eyeful of bush occasionally....A group of Europeans came and sat beside us later. The balding German guy gave his oriental friend his 'Ronnie Corbett' glasses and she leaned out of her chair to get a better look at the jiggling naked bodies. I laughed out loud and said "is the view better with those on?" so she handed them to me and I looked like Buddy Holly!! Later, one girl laid down on the platform and then proceeded to shoot a banana out of her La-La!! hilarious the first three times...Then 2 girls did pea shooting at balloons. All you could hear from me was "how do they do that??!" while David reiterated "pelvic floor muscles darling!!" (David: Kegels)Then an old guy sat next to us later on. Shortly, he got two thai women paying him a lot of attention. David suddenly whispered, "look where his hand is" and his fingers had suddenly vanished up this dancing thai woman!!! She was loving it!! if that was England he'd be out on his ear!!
Then something absolutely hysterical happened. David and I were howling with laughter. The acts on the stage were a bit dull - just a gaggle of nakedness for a group wiggle. Anyway, one guy, the absolute double of comedian Bill Baley was sitting at the stage on a stool. Obviously had the munchies with all that thrusting minge, so from nowhere he produced and suddenly started scoffing this whole roasted chicken on a stick!!! Just sat there so indifferent to his environment with a bag of greasy chips on the edge of the stage while he chomped on this chicken on a stick like a caveman!! The naked women were still writhing about above him!!! When he finished, he just wiped his face, threw his bag away and returned to groping a wandering dancer.
Er...David..being..er...happy?!
I will never ever forget it. Classic. Around 2am, we caught a tuk-tuk to Pat Pong. Pat Pong is the other notorious area for ladyboys/strip clubs etc. We actually got there when the place was closing but from what we saw it was more like Ayia Napa. Bustly, noisy and night-clubby. Whereas Soi Cowboy was smaller and more intimate. We found a late night bar and ordered drinks. Some staff came over to chat, including the manageress. Everyone was really friendly. David got his cards out which turned into a mini magic show and floored everyone! (David: I was provoked by the in house magician who needed a lesson) Then it was time to leave. I was quite drunk but David was plastered bless him and when the bill came they had billed us for drinks for all the staff too!!! So a small heated debate ensued which enraged the manageress and then David tried to get her to pay him for his magic show!!! I tried to calm the situation a bit as the manageress was displaying Bull-rage expressions because we weren't prepared to pay for their staff's flaming drinks!! Eventually we left when we slapped down a couple of notes and walked out. David, bless him, can't remember antagonising looks from the manageress nor me trying to calm the situation down! (David: I remember the look of panic on her face, when I tried to charge her $500 for my magic show - that was priceless)
Next day, we went to the much recommended Jim Thompson's house. Briefly, Jim Thompson was born in US, served in the army then fell in love with and settled in Thailand.
Floating market
From here, he discovered the beauty of Thai silk and started exporting it to all the big fashion houses of the world hence contributing to, and making his name in, the silk industry thereon. In '67 he mysteriously vanished in the highlands of Malaysia never to be seen again. Rumours abound: eaten by tigers? Slipped? Kidnapped? No one knows. Anyway, his house, made entirely of Teak wood, is absolutely beautiful surrounded by small lotus-flower ponds, sky-reaching palm and ferns, garden hideaways and exotic flowers and plants. It's an architecturally historic house to visit for its Thai design and uniqueness at the same time. Exquisite. David persuaded me to go to the cinema. A horrific idea while on holiday but Journey to the Centre of the Earth done 3D style was apparently something incredibly unique Hmmm, sigh. Anything for you darling............in the cinema we all had to stand while the Thai National Anthem was played on screen (but no one sang..) and then we had to don more Ronnie Corbett 3D glasses. The film was actually flaming brilliant. Bit Hollywood in places i.e. corny and cringey but really good. Myself and this Thai girl next to me were the two screamers in the cinema!! Being 3D, naturally the dinosaur really was coming to eat our face! And the plummet down the earth's core really was happening to us there and then......
Our experience of Bangkok was an anticlimax, as I mentioned at the start, because: I, for some unknown, Lois Portelli has a bizarre imagination, reason, naively pictured Bangkok as being this mini-Las Vegas City with neon lights and rubber-clad lady boys asking for 'a good time' everywhere and the whole place just being alive and electric. Realistically, I think, its only a small area that houses such an electric and sexy nightlife while the rest of Bangkok is just like any other City. London, Shanghai, Hong Kong even. Loud, bustling, congested - the traffic in Bangkok is INCREDIBLY bad!! - a myriad of markets, shops, trains, buses, metros and pedestrians. A great place to visit but nowhere near as sordid, racy or 24-hour non-stop partying as we are led to believe. I've seen worse in SoHo in London!!!
Now, our sickening blog is next. Prepare yourselves, blog fans. We went to Paradise. Oh yes, we really did.
Love, us xxx
