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Alas the kok
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We didn't exactly stay on Khao San road but we might as well have caus we must have walked up and down it about 20 or 30 times every day we were in bangkok! To be honest I don't know what to say about the spot, i.e. Khao San. It's not an area full of clubs western style but a missmatch of all sorts of bars and eateries. It's pretty difficult to get one that's not a 'go go bar'! The road itself is lined with stalls selling rip off designer gear of all sorts from shoes and socks to watches belts T's and shorts. I filled a box of bits and pieces and shipped it off home for myself. My Christmas present to myself for when I return. There's stalls with fake id artists, I got myself a fake USIT card, times are tough you know I might be needing cheap public transport when I get home. There are stalls which are mini bars which have few plastic chairs beside them where you can sit down and get loaded. There's an unending stream of pple annoying you to take tuk tuks to ping pong shows which believe me are piss poor and not worth the time. There's pple annoying you to get suits made, to buy hammocks to eat food to buy drink but the worst and most ignorant of all are the big fat obese hairy greasy sweaty smelly sneaky Arab shitheads that want to tell you your fortune and even when you decline their request 10 times in a row as politely as you possibly can without hurting their feelings or making them realise their idiots that they can't take no for an answer they still feel the need to shout obscenities at you when you are walking away. They are just plain and simple idiotic! . . . . Keep away or at least keep an eye on your spending in the Shamrock bar, there out to short change you every chance they get the thieving M Fers. All in all Khao San has it's own unique character about it, you just have to go with the flow and you get used to it fairly quickly and become immune to the constant prying, the Arabs there should be kicked off though, they are what give pple a bad name.
Checked out the presidential palace, it's really impressive with all it's Buddha temples of mosaque and gold.
Did a one day tour of the hotspots outside of the city where we got to see the floating market originally set up by the Chinese but now a tourist market, the snake/cobra show harsh but insanely daring the tiger temples run by the monks and the bridge over the river Kwai like the film. The floating market is basically a market like any other in these parts but there are no streets so you get around in a boat and along the way the pple sell their goods from floating stalls and boats as well as fixed stalls. The tiger temple is where the monks look after injured tigers and bread them before eventually releasing them into the wild again. The bridge is a bridge but actually not the real famous bridge that the Japs walked over in the war but a new one up stream from the real Mc Coy. The snake show is one to remember, the highlights were pretty grotesque and Steve Irwin would turn in his grave at the thought. At one point a highly venomous cobra is dropped into a glass container where we can all see it, then they get this small ferret like animal called a mongoose and drop it into the same container. You wouldn't believe the fight and struggle that went on. All one-sided as the cobra struggled not to get it's head bitten off. It actually got a piece taken out of it in the end before the dudes decided it had had enough, it was rough. The same snake if it bit you would kill you in a matter of hours. That said the Thai guy with the wispy beard as seen in the photos was able to mesmerise the cobra and kiss it on the back of the head without if launching itself and biting him, fantastic. He was also able to make it stand up almost totally vertical without it striking. The most amazing thing was when one of the lads released three shakes and toyed with them for 10 minutes or so. Then as the grand finale he caught one of the snakes by the head with lightening speed with each hand. He hunched over the third as it was coiling and readying to launch itself at him, he moved in slowly watching it very closely and then without anybody realizing what the hell he was about to do he did a flip in the air, legs up and head down towards the snake and actually caught the dam thing by the so called scruff of the neck in his mouth. You just can't believe it till you see it, outstanding stuff! Top Banana!
Got our visas for Vietnam and China in Bangkok too. We paid over the odds but the guy we got to do it was the only one who seemed to know what he was at and did all the booking and canceling of accommodation and flights needed to pass the red tape so as to get the visas. Better safe than sorry. Other highlights in Bangkok Got my first Thai massage on my last night in the country, it was outstanding. One full hour of contortionism for 4 euro and you feel right as rain after it. It's a pity I didn't discover for myself the delightfulness of it earlier. Andrew Murphy made a nymphomaniac cry by rejecting her, funny that.
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