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RG at the Grand Palace
No it's not superimposed..Well hello everybody this is Bangkok. It's now 0349 on Sat 07th May and we have had an interesting time here in BKK already. Between 0100-0500 it is only 10 baht an hour in this internet cafe beneath our hotel at Rambutri village, I think darrens backpacker economic philosophy is starting to rub off on me. Today we had a bit of a lie in despite an eraly night last night. We have really not had any early nights since I arrived in Thailand 10 days ago and I think last night things caught up with us both and we were asleep shortly after 10 I think. After breakfast at Lamplu house which is Darrens favourite breakfast establishment it was time to find a replacemnet for my Gulf Of Thailand damaged Canon IXUS. Well that took a little longer than planned after my enthusiasm got the better of me and I had semi completed the warranty card for a nice new shiny IXUS 105 before completely finalising purchase price arrangements. I know I know it was a foolish move but it was a jolly nice camera and the advertised price looked jolly reasonable. EVERYTHING is hagleable (is that a word?) in
Thailand and I just sort of forgot that at a critical moment. Anyway to cut a long story short the proprietor was not going to let me duck out of the purchase or even enter into any post warranty card completion haggling. In the UK you could simply walk out at this stage but not so here. As the police station was next door Dazza saught clarification and whilst they were very nice about it they unsurprisingly sided with the thai retailer so that was that. On the upside daz did seem to get on very well with one of the female officers so all was not in vein.
After a refreshing beverage we made our way to the Grand Palace. It's very very hot here at the moment so it was a very slow stroll from Soi Rambutri along the river and round to the Palace. Worth a visit though, I got some nice new shots with that camera. After a quick dip in the rooftop pool and a freshen up we headed out tonight for the evening session. We made our way away fromthe touristy Khoa san Road and found ourselves in some sot of random Thai
Silom Shooting
Press conference.. fairground. I believe it was part of the Kings birthdauy or aniversary celebration i'm not quite sure but it was all very elaborate with typical fairground games of chuck a tyre over a 2ltr bottle of coke and daz had a go at chucking darts at balloons, I think the concept was to avoid hitting the young children running between the darts and balloons, where is the health & safety executive here in Thailand? After that excitement we passed through a local Thai market where I treated myself to a replacment pair of sunglasses (sort of mislayed the lovely Boots ones) at the not unreasonable price of 45 baht. That represneted a substantial 5 baht saving over the published price costing about 90p. This was a market for Thais remember so any haggling success should be heartily applauded I think.
I have not yet indulged in any massages since arriving in Thailand so when we reached the massage area with the offer of a 1 hour Thai massage at only 100 baht (the price in the tourist arrea around Rambutri is twice that) we both thought we'd have a bit of that. Now this diminutive and friendly looking lady
Silom Red Shirt blockade
Darren getting too close. is actually very evil. I've never had a Thai massage before. Wow. She was bending, standing elbowing and generally abusing me in all manner of ways. Fabulous! The head masage toward the end was very nice and made all the more enjoyable as a Buddhist monk strolled on with the Grand Palace behind him, this was the real thing.
Well after that indulgence we thought we had better sample some more local culture. Tuk Tuk to Patpong please. The Red Shirts are camped out in an area of Bangkok known as Silom and PatPong is quite close to that so the hotel suggested we shouldnt go. Well, we thought we'd take a look anyway as Pat Pong is a very imporatnt cultural part of Bangkok (it's packed with girly bars and shows of an adult nature, that's pretty cultural). We got down there and it was all a bit surreal really. We had a beer first at an outdoor bar and met Wayne, a Californian who retired and emigrated to the Patpong area 15 years ago. As we chatted about 2 dozen military marched past with riot shields batons oh and m16's. Then a lady boy walked past and
PatPong
Beers in Patpong smiled at me scarily. This is all a bit weird. Wayne gave us some suggestions where to go to see a 'show'. I think we actually ignored him and ended up in 'Super Pussy's'. I had great expectations about these shows, ladies that could do miraculous things with various parts of their bodies. Well we were cautious as these places can take you for a ride (in more ways than one) so we selected I guess the Patpong equivalant of a sainsbury 'mealdeal'. Entrance to see the show, 1 drink and a choice of feature in the show all for 300 baht Within 1 minute of walking in I was surrounded by 3 or 4 nice ladies but more disturbingly a larger lady who I think on reflection was actually deaf. One of the girls started massaging my shoulders, fine but then this other girl without warning grabs my balls! Well, the Singha went up in the air and so so did my arse off the stall I can tell you. I politely asked said lady to refrain from doing that again and she proceeds to write out the words 'Massage tip 100 baht please'. Err I dont't think so! That wasn't a massage that was sexual assault!
She eventually moved away and we were able to watch the show, great! First up blow the birthday candles out with your pussy. This was succesflly completetd well done. Next up burst the balloons with darts from your pussy. Hmm, not so good maybe 2 or 3 out of 6. Blow the horn with your pussy, very good no problem their. Table tennis time, 1st 2 out fantastic the fellow with the table tennis bat fielded both balls succesfully and stroked a passing shot straight pass the delivering fanny and almost hit the target of the 2 girating ladies behind. Next 4 ping pong balls? What a dissapointment. Not sure what went wrong but she needs to do a bit more work their I think. And that was pretty much that. Oh sorry their was also a razor blade stunt as well which seemed to go ok without laceration. We decided to cut and run at that point.
Chatting to Wayne at the bar earlier we learnt that the Red Shirts are generally farmers from the North Of Thailand and interestingly a lot of Thailands military are also recruited from the North. Interesting, how will that work then if and when things deteriorate? Before jumping in a tuk tuk homeward to the Khao San area we both decided (foolishly I know) to take a closer look at the situation in the Silom area. We walked toward the Red Shirts barracade close to the Dusit Thani Hotel. The area is open to the public but there are swathes of barbed wire and blockades with hoardes of military all around. We stopped at a group of media. Around 90 minutes prior their had been a shooting. I don't know what happened or if anyone had been hurt but broken glass was all around and a press conference started just after we got there. We didnt hang around long, we took a quick look at the barricades of bamboo and tyres with red shirts just on the other side who were listening to some musical entertainment and then we got the hell out of there.
Off to bed now after an interesting day, thoughts are turning to Nepal now and really hoping we can get in there to start the business end of this trip.
Night night. x
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Helen
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Oh my word. It all just sounds so amazing - what an adventure!! Cant believe you over came your fear of heights - i remember you had trouble moving to the 4th floor!!! What is going on back in the uk - it's Sat morning, pouring with rain, cold and 2 x D13 shifts to face! Joy! Keep the blogs coming they are brill. Best of luck with the next part of your trip. Helen xx