Back in Bangkok

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Well, I left Chiang Mai on Tuesday. That day I did a self tour of the city on foot, checking out a few temples and generally roaming the old city. During my stay in Chiang Mai I had a portrait done by a street artist and I left the drawing in my room for the people at the guesthouse. They loved the gesture and pinned in on the wall behind the bar. When 6 pm rolled around that night and it was time to board the bus. I lucked out on my first overnight bus, being able to sleep on the back bench seat, but when I purchased my bus ticket this time, I was told that I was the last person to get a ticket, so I knew finding the right seat would be crucial. I sat next to this group of girls from Minisotta (sp?) who go to school in Chiang Mai. I chose an isle seat, which had its pro's and con's, and for the first few hours watched Cat Woman with no sound. I remember at one point saying to myself "wow, this is really going well, I wonder if there are other people on this bus who are feeling sick at all, I'm so glad I'm not feeling sick." Then, as if fate was trying to tell me something, it took about 3 minutes to open a mini bag of chips I had, using every strategy in my arsenal. Finally I was able to struggle them open and devour their delicious potatoey goodness. The goodness came to a halt a few minutes later when the bus, which felt like a rolling trampoline, began its 10 hour jostling session. In an attempt to sooth my stomach, and catch some sleep, I ate a couple of "graval" pills, which would help me sleep. They did. Kinda. They half knocked me out, and half glued my eyes shut. There were times when I'd wake up, feel so sick, but no matter how hard I tried, could not open my eyes. This continued on for almost the whole journey. Then, to make matters more interesting. I had told the whole back seating area a trick I learned for turning off the A/C by stuffing the vent with the doilies behind our headrests. They abused this trick, especially the lady next to me, who had a bad attitude, a skeleton figure, and a lack of personal body heat. So, like a zombie in a sauna I endured the bumpy busride all the way to Bangkok.

Ahhhhh Bangkok. My eyes opened at quarter to 7, I was in Bangkok. But not quite at Khao San. I'd never been on the streets at 7 in the morning, but the place is wall-to-wall traffic. Finally getting to Khao San the familiar sights and sounds of the area filled my senses.

"Where you go?"
"Where you from?'
"Tuk-Tuk"
"Ping-Pong show!" (dude, it's 7 am...)

Luckily, Khao San, like some lazy backpacker, doesn't really wake up until 9 or 10 am, so I was able to avoid most of the street vendors. I decided after getting such a great deal on my room in Chiang Mai, I wasn't going to settle for anything less than a set of certain standards I had created for myself. This resulted in over 2 hours of room searching, once almost deciding on a place, but choosing otherwise after the lady informed me they were knocking out concrete in the room next to me every morning. In the end I settled for the place I originally stayed at on Khao San. Nothing more than a bamboo shoe box with a clean bed (oh, and a door that can be locked with a combo lock.) Khao San isn't the same when you're not with friends. So, I busted out my address book and called up a few peeps. In particular, I wanted to hang out with Sarah, who had just arrived from Vancouver a few days before. She wasn't responding, and on her blog i read that she might be having lunch with some people she met the day before. It's sweltering hot in Bangkok, and I had become climatized to Chiang Mai, so to beat the discepancy I spent my morning in Air-Conditioned internet cafes looking at random websites. Finally I was able to get a hold of Sarah and we met up. She had an air conditioned room and we spent a while in there catching up. We decided to go do a bit of sightseeing nearby and check out "The Big Swing" that was on Sarah's Map. Instead we spent a good deal of time roaming the streets, but no big swing. Time rolled by quickly that day, and by the time we stopped for an internet session it was nearly 9. I went online and a thai friend of mine was on msn. She suggested Sarah and I come out to party with her and her friends at a local club in Bangkok. We agreed.

Sarah and I sat on the steps of Santika, a casual night club about 20 minutes away from Khao San road, waiting for my friend to arrive. Before we had left Khao San (as far as I remember, but Sarah claims otherwise) I had suggested maybe we change out of our shorts and sandals and into something more (as thai people say) "polite." However, I had logic'd out that if I just wore a nice dress shirt, and because Sarah was a good looking girl, that we wouldn't really have a problem at the door. Well, my friend Dear showed up, and we walked to the entrance. I don't know if I've ever seen so much front door chaos. First off, we definately were not getting in with shorts and sandals. Apparently Dear worked deal that got us in with shorts, but we were going to have to pay 3 dollars each to rent a pair of shoes. We made out way out to a nearby shack where a thai guy sat lazily on his stool (I don't think many people attempt to club wearing sandals in these parts). We looked absolutely ridiculous. Both of us wore brown dress shoes 2 sizes too big. I thought Sarah looked like Lara Croft, and moments later one of the Thai people we were with claimed she looked like an "adventurer." My friend Deer forgot her I.D., but was persistant that we go inside and have a good time with her friends and meet up with her later.

The club. Eminem, Chilli-peppers, and other western style classics were being covered by this white dude and his Thai band. They were actually quite good. In Thailand instead of buying drinks, you usually buy a bottle of liquor, mixers, and ice, and do all of your bartending at your table. The crew we were with already had two bottles (one of the girls knew someone inside and we were getting free whiskey all night), and they were mixing drinks as well. Also, there doesn't tend to be dance floors, instead people just dance around their table. There wasn't a whole lot of dancing going on in general, but our crew was totally into it. Sarah and I did some over the top dancing to get into it, making good use of our new footwear. One observation I made was that when the western music was on, a few thais would dance, but when the Thai band came on, there was this one white dude vigorously jumping up and down right in front of the stage. Poser. haha, no, I don't know, but it was a funny sight. We shut the bar down and with some potential athletes foot creeping up, exhanced our shoes, and as a crew went out for some noodle soup (definately the thing to do after the club.) We went back to Khao San road to meet Dear and her friend Goah, and the two of them, Sarah, Myself, and one of the girls from the club, Toey, sat drinking Thai Whiskey until the sun rose. Then sleep.

Sleep was good. That afternoon I went to see the new James Bond movie. First we stood for the 2 minute song that plays before the movie in respect for the kind, then settled into a fully reclinable seat. What a great film, best bond movie in years. Afterwards I snagged some icecream in an attempt to beat the heat and came back to Khao San. I went to bed early as I planned to meet Dear early in the morning.

Deer works for a newpaper in Thailand and has 2 days off a month, that day (which is yesterday of me writing this) was one of them. We decided that we'd meet up with two of her friends and go to Dream World, a "fun park" just outside of Bangkok. On my way to meet her it rained. First rain I had seen since arriving in Thailand. It was almost refreshing, and very short lived. Probably only rained for 5 minutes. Her and her friends spoke english very well, which made the whole day quite easy. Before going to the fun park we went out for lunch on a boat on a nearby river. Quite delicious. haha, in thailand, there are many little alters all over there place where thais make offerings to gods or to spirits. One of the most popular offerings is Fanta. Haha, I don't know why, I guess the gods just like cream soda or soemthing. Well, just as we were about to leave...I look across the table at one of Deers friends, "Oi." She's got a splatter of red on her forehead. The bottle of Fanta had been knocked over by the fan overhead and was dripping onto her. Then we took to the fun park. I had total intentions of having no fun in this so-called fun park, but I just wan't able to. We took hundreds of photos, went on a tonne of rides, spent most of the day there, and generally had a great time. Afterwards, exhausted, we hung out at an air conditioned McDonalds while one of the girls went to a chinese class. Aftewards we went out for the most amazing meal of my trip so far. For 3 dollars there was an all you can eat meat buffet. You'd go up, take any and all the meat you wanted onto a plate (veggies and noddles too), come back to your seat, and in the middle of the table there would be a dome'd bbq with water around the sides (I have a picture somewhere.) You'd just throw your meat onto the BBQ, some meat and veggies into the water on the sides, and everyone would use chop sticks to attend to the cooking. Sooooo good. However, after about an hour of being at this place, I was getting a bit full. Not these girls though, haha, I've never seen girls eat so much, it was awesome. Although I was completely tired (maybe I didn't say anything though) these girls wanted to show me a good time and take me to a club. We went to an area called RCA and went inside one of the clubs. I've never been in a club like this. Everyone was stunning and wearing the most expensive and well planned outfits I had seen. The club was packed wall to wall with people, and the hip-hop dj'ing was excellent, if not a little loud. Stinky and still wearing the clothes I had been wearing all day at the park, I wasn't really in the mood for clubbing and we left shortly afterward. The 4 of us came back to Khao San road and said our goodbyes as I have a bus ticket booked for this evening to go downsouth.

I should really update more often. There are a lot of halarities that happen that I often forget after a few days. One minor thing I remember is that Dear was telling me that down south I'd better be cafeful because on the islands its "Dance a lot." Haha, was she jealous? No, she was trying to tell me she thought the island was "Dangerous." Definately a joke that was carried on for a while. This morning I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, I came back up to my room and decided I'd have a bit of morning desert and eat some chocolate pockey I'd had in my room. The pockey within inches of my mouth I stopped, looked down, shuddered, and realize that the pockey was absolutely covered in red ants. I just shuddered thinking about it.

Nice, it's already 2 o'clock. I booked my bus ticket yesterday down to Surat Thani province, it leaves tonight at 6 pm. Another 12 hour bus ride I'm not really looking forward to. I'll probably spend the next few hours restocking on supplies, sun block, mozzie spray, antibiotics and non comatose prodicing graval. Who knows, maybe I'll pick up a couple more ariticles of clothing since Khao San is relatively cheap and the prices down south may be quite high. I'm thinking most the prices will be up there, as I'm going to one of the biggest full moon parties of the year, apprently you need to get there a few days early, which is what I'm doing. So yeah, Koh Phang nan here I come! I'll be meeting Sarah down there at some point, and I'll probably stay down south for a while.

Sorry I hadn't blogged for a while. I've been using this as a journal as well, but I'll probably start doing a hardcopy so that I can put in some extra details that I might forget about between blogs. Depending on how the internet service is down south, I may not post for a few days. I have quite a few pictures to post, and I'll get around to that at some point as well. Take Care.

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