A Narrow Escape From Brokedown Palace

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Trip Start Jul 09, 2008 Previous
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  Bangkok, Thailand
Friday, July 11, 2008

  So, turns out this morning was not quite as productive as we had hoped. We didn't wake up until noon (!), which is semi-understandable because of the time difference. We weren't feeling so great, so we decided to hop in the shower. As Nick went into the bathroom, he claimed that it lacked a shower. Susan went in and pointed out the shower head hanging from the wall and the drain in the middle of the floor. It wasn't that scary, however, and the cold water was actually refreshing in this heat. We choked down some Mrs. Freshley's granola bars (this horrible dollar store brand that we recommend you never, ever buy) and bought some delicious mango slices off the street. We decided to get our overnight train tickets to Chiang Mai, because we had read that they sell out fast. Luckily, we weren't planning on leaving until Monday night, so they still had tickets for us. They were about $20 for a fanned sleeping car. You can open the window, so we're hoping that we don't die from the heat. Then we decided to buy our malaria meds and headed over to a pharmacy. (Note: all of these things are located right on our road so that the farangs don't actually have to ever venture into the city.) Apparently, they don't sell Malarone (the best and most expensive of malaria meds) in Southeast Asia, so we had to go with Doxycycline. It's an antibiotic that is often used as an anti-malarial, and we have to take it for 30 days after coming home! But, it was worth it, for whereas the Malarone would've run us about $500 in the States, our total for 70 Doxy pills here was, oh, $12. Equally heartwarming was the pharmacist lady's awful use of the English grammar and the way she continually cleaned the front of her shop despite the fact that it was already immaculate. Later, we used this awesome discount on medication as an excuse to spend money while out on the town. Bad idea.
    We then grabbed our first pad thai off the street. It was delicious, and they provide you with sugar, chili peppers, hot sauce, and a variety of other items to kick it up a notch, so Susan was in condiment heaven.  The selection is almost as good as the popcorn powders they have at the movie theater. Almost. Best of all, it cost 25 baht, around 75 cents. Khao San Road is just as crazy during the day, though in a different way. The street is packed with vendors of all kinds - peddling knock-off brand-name clothes (which Susan will be devouring upon our return to Bangkok before the flight home), hair-braiding services, other types of services we won't mention here, tailored suits, food of all kinds, and even fake IDs (where was this four years ago, right?)! It is an assault on all of the senses, but a good one. Though it's not exactly crawling with locals (the only ones are the ones selling stuff), it is kind of a fun little community of farangs where you see the same people over and over. After a quick nap at the hotel, we met up with Anthony (henceforth known as T) and Justin for what was to be an epic night.
     We decided to head to Chinatown because we had read about a $5 all-you-can-eat buffet that only was offered on Friday nights. We won't go into details, but suffice it to say that we got lost at least three times and walked for several miles and that Nick was about to tear our map to pieces. The only highlight of this absolute failure of a navigation exercise was Justin introducing us to durians, this Asian lumpy yellow fruit that tastes like either creamy sweetness or rotten steak depending on the bite. We like our druits consistent, and both of us failed to finish them. At last, we took an overpriced tuk-tuk (motorbike with a seat in the back) to the train station and found a cheap Chinese place near there. We both got pork with rice and a lot of spices (T actually ate a habanero pepper whole and proceeded to choke, cry, and hiccup for the next 20 minutes). We also ordered some big Tiger beers to wash down all the heat (this has to be a great country, right - they name their beer after one of Susan's fave animals!). We had been giving various people American points all night (you can get points for doing really American things like wearing trekking pants in the city, having your backpack on the front, wearing no shirt to go shopping in the silver district (Nick's personal favorite in addition to points for douchebaggery) or being loud or stupid - see Susan and Jen's Peru/Ecuador blog for more details), and at this point we decided that it would be fun to try to up our Americans. For example, we had to finish our beers before heading to the fight and therefore decided to chug them - increasing the number of Americans we represented by about 100.
    After our meal, we decided to try and navigate the subway to the boxing stadium, which went surprisingly well, other than T trying to up his Americans by doing jungle gym tricks in the subway car (this actually worked out better in this case than in Chinatown when almost knocked down a tree in front of the locals). We hopped out and were immediately assaulted by various people trying to sell us ringside tickets and telling us that the cheap tickets had run out. We resisted the temptation, however, and went right to the ticket booth like good little farangs and got the cheap seats - which, in a stadium that size, were actually still really good seats. Plus, we got to sit with all the Thai people, which was way more fun and amusing than sitting with all the farangs ringside. In Thailand, Muay Thai is the national sport. There really aren't a lot of rules - it's like boxing, but you can kick, elbow, etc. And the Thais love it. We could already hear them yelling outside the stadium, but weren't prepared for the mayhem inside. It was a scene straight out of Kickboxer or Bloodsport. There were 10 fights of five rounds each, with the headliner right at the end. We arrived during the third fight. After the first two rounds, all the Thai men (Susan was probably the only girl in our section) begin standing, shouting, and betting frantically. It was great fun, and we tried to learn how to say "Red" and "Blue" so we could cheer for whichever fighter we liked (though hopefully not placing bets in the process). The only other applicable word we knew was "Yes," so basically our cheers were "Yes, Red!" and "Yes, Blue!" or at least we hope so. During one fight, these guys started doing these incredible moves on each other, and we started cheering like crazy. All of the Thais turned around and started laughing at us. Only a few minutes later did we realize they were laughing because the fight was fake. (Though Justin maintained until the end that it was real - but we think that was the beer talking). Nonetheless, it was way better than WWE. The main event was the only knockout. We were not impressed with the headlining champ and then out of the blue in the third round he unleashed a furious combination -- boom, match over. We went crazy - fueled by the beers we had been continuing to drink, no doubt - but the Thai people were surprisingly quiet. That we really couldn't figure out - we think it was because the headliner was supposed to win, so it wasn't exciting. The loser was carried out on a stretcher in like 30 seconds - they were definitely prepared for it.
     As we left the fight, Susan had the highlight of her night. Standing outside the stadium, like a jewel in the mist, was an ELEPHANT. The men let her pet it, and a little tipsy, she was so excited she almost started crying. They wouldn't let us take a picture with her, though, unless we bought some corn to feed her with. So we headed over to explore the nearby night bazaar. It was an enormous market - acres upon acres - with food, souvenirs, and regular household goods. We stumbled on a real gem, however, when we found the biggest beer garden we've ever seen in our entire lives. It was basically a food court - probably about the size of the Diag - that was ringed with beer stalls and anchored by a stage with live music on one end. Nick went to the bathroom, and when he came back, Susan, T, and Justin greeted him with a big beer bong-thing. (Like the ones you can get at the Heidelberg in A2 or Les Brasseurs in Geneva.) After polishing that off, we decided it was time to head to the Patpong, the red light district (or the RLD, as we like to call it). Since it is a major part, if not THE major part, of Thailand's tourist industry, we thought not going would be the equivalent of going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower or going to Hamilton and not seeing Big Norm (www.worldsbigpig.com). Though we could've easily taken the subway, we, for some reason, decided to hail a cab. The cab took us farther away from Patpong than we had been before we got in and dropped us off in front of some club (from which he probably receives a commission for the people he takes there.) At the time, though, we had no idea where we were. Only after consulting the map did we figure out that we were very far away and began the 30-minute walk there.
     A little bit frazzled and tired from the walk, we decided to allow the first man who approached us to show us into his "club." (To give credit where credit is due, Nick suggested that we explore a little more, but the rest of us were too tired.) He promised us that it would only cost us 150 baht (about $4) each for entrance and a beer. Then he led us upstairs into the sketchiest place we have ever been - we will spare you all and not go into details. Suffice it to say that it involved a "ping-pong show" and what we're pretty sure was a tranny. Ugh. After about 15 minutes, we decided we had seen enough, but discovered that we were locked in. As we tried to exit, a bunch of girls blocked the door and a man came over to us with our "bill." The total: 5,600 baht, or about $170. Ha. They actually wrote out a bill with the following items: 4 beers (600 baht, which was correct), "FREE LOOK" (yes it really said "free" but still somehow totaled 4,500 baht), and girls drinks (500 baht, which was BS because we refused to buy the girls drinks the entire time). Obvi, you were more likely to find a snowball in hell than see us pay that bill. So, the boys all began to yell at the man about the ridiculousness of the bill, and he began to yell back. Then, he decided to be an escalater (know any of those?) and shoved Justin, who immediately got in his face and began yelling "Don't *#$&X touch me!" T, being a good peacemaker, started to drag Justin away. But, Justin broke free and came right back. Then Susan thought it would be a brilliant idea to get in the middle of them, thinking that the Thai dude would never touch a girl. Unfortch, she was wrong. As T dragged Justin away again and they broke through the girls barricading the door and proceeded to run down the stairs, the Thai dude shoved Susan! This, of course, set Nick off, and the Thai man then shoved him.
      Envisioning a future similar to Clare Danes in Brokedown Palace (as Nick was shouting repeatedly "Call the police, man, I dare you!" ad nauseum), Susan threw 1,000 baht down on the bar, grabbed Nick by the collar, and ran down the stairs. Justin and T greeted us with an "Awesome! Free beers, dude!" and then Susan had to tell them that she had actually paid 1,000 baht (about $30) for the whole horrible experience, a thought which reduced her to tears. Luckily, though, no one followed us down the stairs and no one got hurt. Then, to cheer Susan up, we went dancing for a little while. Things were all good for about 5 minutes, as there was a dude and band actually performing "Low" on stage - yes!, before Nick realized that about 500 baht (luckily only $15) had been stolen from him during our lovely time at the aforementioned "club." We suspect the tranny. So, we decided that it was time to call it a night and headed back home to good old Khao San Road for some street pad thai and lots of water. All in all, we think we got a good feel for Bangkok and are just happy that we didn't die. Or get sent away C. Danes style.

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