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Published: April 26th 2008
Bargirls
Some are prettier than othersI arrived to Bangkok from Bali around 10pm. I went to my usual stomping grounds Khao San Road but something changed. It looked drastically different. The place is filthy, I've never seen so much garbage on the streets. It made India look spotless. It's a wilder type of atmosphere than normal and there are several people drinking and rowdily dancing on the streets to loud music. Just then I saw a group of young men with large guns in the back of a pick up truck, they pointed their weapons at me. Someone said something to them, they all laughed and sped away without shooting me. I quickly noticed the streets are full of people with large guns, child soldiers everywhere. Normally I'd be nervous, but this is Thailand! And those weapons are water guns! I've showed up during the Songkran Water Festival. Hundreds of thousands of people were on the streets dousing eachother with buckets of water, and squirting everyone with their large supersoaker water guns in the worlds largest water fight.
I knew that the festival was to be on this night, since I've been to Bangkok now 10 times I know of a little guesthouse on a
Bargirls
They had high hopes to convice us that her ox has died and they need $300 to survive. We just wanted to play Connect4! back street where I could escape to with minimal soaking. I had all my clothes and camera equiptment on me so I wasn't in the best position. I made it through safely except my feet were stained white from the street coating of glue that the rice flour and water formed. I went for a bit of a walk, got soaked and enjoyed the festive atmosphere before going to sleep. I woke up in the morning to find the streets cleaner than I've ever seen them before. It amazes me how fast they were able to clean the mountains of trash. Songkran is a 3 day water festival so the next day was pretty much the same thing. The main areas are Khao San Road and Silom, however anywhere on the streets anywhere in Bangkok and probably Thailand you're likely to get soaked. I first found out when taking the public bus with open windows, as it would stop the garden hoses would spray us and the buckets would pour in!. The people are gentle though, even if you don't want to be soaked they'll insist that they can pour just a bit of water over your hands so you
Krabi Food Stalls
Great Food and great Atmosphere can bring in the Thai New Year with them.
I spent 3 long days waiting for my roomate Sully to arrive from Canada. I hung out with Aim, during that time. We celebrated Songkran by her getting buckets of cold water poured over her. Soaking her from head to toe and me running like I never ran before to keep dry. I told her I'd protect her against dogs, against crazy tuk tuk drivers, maybe even traffic accidents but when it comes to water she's on her own!
Later we went to the zoo. Being one of the only Farang (foreigner) in the crowd I was told to come up on stage and perform with the elephants. I was told to keep my back turned to him as the giant beast stood up on it's two legs, let out a loud noise and dropped a hat on me. It made me nervous to say the least! It then started to bless me by kissing me on the cheeks, which felt like light soft fists to the head blowing hot air at me. Haha it was pretty cool. After that we said our goodbyes, one of many, and there's
Wow!
Luckily I didn't get squished still more to come. I hate saying Goodbye so I try to say just "See you later".
Sully has never been to Asia before. I was quite excited after spending 2+ months alone to meet up with someone for my remaining 2 months. I drive him a bit crazy, as I do with anyone else, but I'm sure we'll make a great team. I'm hoping I can bring him out for some Fish and Chips since he would never go with me in Vancouver. When I first came to Asia I had to learn the hard way past all the silly harmless scams and silly things like that. I can't baby him so I'm going to let him learn just like I had to learn. Of course being me it I put him to the test like telling a tuk tuk driver in Thai to bring him to a Lady Boy Brothel rather than a tourist site! hahhaha poor guy.
I picked Sully up at the airport around midnight and we headed straight for Khao San Road arriving a few hours later. The place was as usual full of drunk rowdy foreigners and drunken Thai's. At this point
Tribute to the King
Anywhere and everywhere in Thailand you will see huge tributes to The King. He is extremely loved her by the people he'd been up for 24 hours so instead of partying we went and got a tradtional massage. These old ladies were tough and bent us in positions that I didn't know were possible. Not bad at just 180 baht ($6.00) for 1 hour. We left the buidling towards our hotel and were all of a sudden surrounded by a group of ladyboys. They were dressed in high heels, tight shirts, and had big boobs. Some of them had shadows on their manly grotesque faces, and big manly hands. This was a weird situation because in all the months in Asia I've never seen or heard of this happening. And poor Sully has only been here a few hours. Talk about culture shock! They rushed at us and we ran like we never ran before saying no no no! I started laughing hysterically at the situation. They caught up to Sully and grabbed his ass. He ran faster and we just barely got away. Thailand can be a really strange place.
We woke up early that morning and headed to the magestic Grande Palace. I've been there before but it's definatly worth a 2nd and even third look. It's such
an awe inspiring place. I could go on and talk about it but I think that pictures are worth a thousand words. The rest of the hot muggy day was uneventful. We basically sweated to death waiting for 6:30pm to come so we could catch our train to Southern Thailand. Thailand has 3 seasons, dry, rainy and HOT. We're well into hot season right now with temperatures hitting 38 degrees C (100 F). The train on our cabin reached over 40. I've never sweated like that before and the sheets I had around me were soaked. It was uncomfortable and a long 12 hours. Somehow I managed to catch some sleep though and we woke up in Surat Thani ready to get ripped off by the boat people bringing us to Koh Pha Ngan. The home of the Full Moon Party.
Kho Pha Ngan as usual was also a disaster. It's got a stunning beach, and an amazing party scene. The day consists of swimming and drinking beers on the beach listening to some music. The night consists of drinking buckets of liquor on the beach and listening to music. Of course mixing 10 000 people with 20 000
buckets of liquor is a disaster and it's humorous (and a bit scarey) to see how wild this place gets. It's a great vibe until about 3am then everyone starts throwing up and it gets really sloppy and gross. We had all kinds of fun. But it's also a place that, for me anyway that I want to experience and get the heck away from. It's just too much! And the locals are different from the rest of Thailand. Less friendly, and out to milk you out of every dime you have. Mainly because they're putting up with so many crazy drunken foreigners. We met lots of fun people though. Our favorite are the 3 older Canadian guys, all with mustaches.
"Canada!" One of them said as he reched out to shake our hands. "Where are you from?" We also said Canada which raised some excitement from them and we engaged in a lengthy conversation. They're mainly just 3 older guys in Thailand having the time of their lives. The spoke about elaphant rides and bamboo raft rides up north in Chiang Mai. And they spoke about their crazy adventures about the massive sex tourism city of Pattaya. The
funniest line that came out of them is "Not only do you get the girls all night for just $20 but they make excellent tour guides the next day!"
We made an exit to beautiful Koh Samui the next day. Rented a bungalo on the tropical beach and enjoyed the quietness. Lamai Beach is the calmer, and much cheaper version of it's neighbor Chaweng Beach. The thing that sticks out is the dozens of girlie bars that line the main street. Each one pumping out there own music, flashing lights and dancing girls on poles it can be a bit overwhelming to say the least. It's far from offensive though and to add to the strangeness, you can see tourist families eating and drinking at these bars along side old men picking up the young girls for 500 bhat ($15) and not too far from the dancing ladyboys.
I think the most fun Sully and I had so far is spending time at these open air bars. We're not there to pick up the girls but rather kill time by drinking beer and playing Connect 4 and Jenga with them. Their job is to keep us there playing
@ Koh Pha Ngan
Home of the Full Moon Party these games and drinking. Game after game we'd play. Once in a while they'd ask us to buy them a drink, in which we pretend we can't understand their accent. They get free drinks anyway, they just want the comission. Once in a while you could tell they'd be frusterated with us that we're only there to play Connect 4, but they never ask us to go further, such as taking them home. I guess that's supposed to be up to us to ask.
I saw a book in one of the girls purses and I asked to have a read. It was a handbook for Bargirls and guys that pick up bargirls with Thai/English translations they could use on eachother. It was quite humorous with sayings such as "I want to go home with you" How Much?" What is your name?" "You are very beautiful" Then there was "I love you" "I want to marry someone like you" "You are different from the other guys"
And then there was my personal favorites "My ox died, and I need 10 000 bhat ($300)" and "if you don't give me 10 000 baht my parents will die!" These girls know
every line in the book. Although I think they knew to save the sappy lines for the creepy old men because we were there to play Jenga!
We spent 2 nights doing this on Lamai and the last night at the classier and much bigger Chaweng beach. We met someriends Josh and his girlfriend Por. Smoked Shisha and drank beer on the pretty white sand beach. It's just how I remembered it when I was here just 1 year ago. Completely random. People walking by with Iguana's, Monkeys, & even eagles. Fireworks going off in the sky. angs of children out way past their bed time wishin to gamble with you over games such as the infamous Connect 4. And 1000's of people just having a great time enjoying paradise. Our new friends who live on the island showed us around a bit eventually ending up at some nightclubs. This area had even more girlie bars than Lamai, but unfortunatly no Connect 4 so we headed to the regular bar to dance the night away drinking buckets of liquor. This place is too much fun!
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Aim
non-member comment
Davieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
You are wrong. Thailand actually has 4 seasons which are hot hotter hottest and raining that's it!!! Your first photo did scare me!!! and about the book, i'm pretty surprised about it. As a Thai, i've never read that before hahahahahaha. How lucky you are!!! But well, i don't think i would love to read it though lol. Take care and have fun in the South. Lookin' forward to seeing u here again =)