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Published: February 14th 2008
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We boarded our 8 hour flight from Tokyo to Bangkok. We had personal TVs again so it made the flight go by a little faster. I slept most of the way over. We exited our plane on to a jetway where we had to take a bus. At midnight the temperature was 85 degrees and muggy. From my little research I learned that Thailand enjoys 3 distinct seasons - cool, hot and rainy. What they mean to say is hot, hot as hell and rainy. We are visiting on the end of cool season and the beginning of the hot season. I knew I was in a for a treat. Patty’s mom met us at the airport with a large contingent of family and friends. Everyone exchanged hellos and then we headed to the condo. Patty’s parents have a condo in a resort like building with an enormous pool. The place is very nice and it was exciting to be able to spread out my clothes and suitcase for once. We went to bed around 2 am local time the first night.
We woke up the next morning and lounged around the condo for a while. Stu had a message
while Patty and I went and hung around the pool for a few hours. After a quick shower the 4 of us (Patty, Stu, Toi -Patty’s mom and me) went to the Grand Palace in Bangkok. We had to dress up since it is a working palace and the black dress pants and white collard shirt doesn’t work to well in the heat. We started out by having lunch at an outdoor noodle place down the street. The noodles were awesome and spicy and I knew that our food in Thailand beat anything we had in Japan. We took the water taxi from the condo to downtown which is about an hour boat ride down the main river that bisects Bangkok. The breeze was nice and I got to see a lot of the city in the boat. We got to the Palace at 3:30 and found out the Palace closes at 4:00 pm. The ticket booth was closed and we couldn’t even get in. Toi whipped out her cell phone and after a 5 minute conversation in what only I can describe as an animated cartoon character, we were let in the gates. It appears Toi knows all the
right people in Thailand. We toured the whole palace in 15 minutes, took a ton of pictures and headed back to the condo so we could get out of our hot and sticky dress clothes.
We showered and went back out to hit the city. We drove into town to this huge shopping mall known as MBK where we had a nice dinner - still loving the food! We shopped around for a little bit and then met a friend of Toi’s to get foot messages. I have never had a foot message and I don’t really like anyone touching my feet, but I must say it was an incredible experience. They can do stuff to the feet I never knew was possible! We headed back to the condo and it called it a night around 1:00 am.
I have lost track of the days but I believe it is now Saturday. We woke up and hit an area known as Chutuchack. This is an outdoor market that sells everything you can imagine. The place was massive and never ending. It was rather warm in some parts of the mall where there were a ton of people. We
walked around and tried every food imaginable including some meat on a stick, frozen popcicle thingys, drinks in bags, red water chessnuts, etc. We bought a few things and then went back to the large shopping mall known as MBK. We bought some more items -> stuff that you can’t get in the states. Stu and I decided to get a facial which we thought would be very relaxing. I relate getting a facial to going to the dentist. The facial started out very nice and relaxing but it turned south quickly. The girl, who spoke no English, decided to remove every blemish from my face with a needle and tweezers. At one point I was going to give up and tell her I will live with a dirty face. She must have thought I have never washed my face before. After the torture was over I decided that would be my last facial and we met Toi and Patty at the mall. We left there and went to place called Silom Village where we met Toi’s friend. The village was a big out door shopping village with authentic dancers and food. It reminded me of the Polynesian resort at
Disney World. I noticed that Toi and her friend knew everyone at the village. Patty informed me that Toi’s friend owned the place hence why everyone was coming up to us saying hello. The 5 of us got a 2 hour full body message which was heaven. After our message we had a reserved table waiting for us where we gorged on every food imaginable - lobster, crab, pad thai, fish, shrimp, mussels, coconut stuff, beer, etc. Needless to say one of my favorite days!
After dinner we took a cab to the red light district known as Pat Pong. It was like Bourbon street with more gentlemen clubs and shopping. We bought a few things from the vendors, had a few beers and decided to call it a night.
On Sunday we woke up early for a field trip outside of the city. We headed about an hour away with a private van and driver. I must say I can get used to having a personal driver. We started at a floating market where we boarded a small boat and our driver drove us around the canals. Vendors would sell there food and goods via boats to boats that passed by. It was an incredible site and mass chaos at some spots. We had a little lunch on the river. Our boat needed some work and our engine kept dying. Driver had to paddle a few times so we were slower than most. We left the floating market and went to a temple where we got blessed and the monks wished us good luck. Patty and Stu got blessed for their upcoming wedding in a small ‘ceremony’ that I had no idea what was going on. We sat on the floor without shoes, bowed a lot, and while everyone else was praying for peace and happiness - I was praying for air conditioning and a chair. After the ceremony we went up a mountain to feed the monkeys. As soon as we pulled up there was about 1000 monkeys that swarmed around the van. We had bags and bags of bananas, beans, nuts and corn which we fed the monkeys. The monkeys would actually come up to your hand to get the food. It was an amazing experience and you could actually pet a few of them. After the monkeys, we had lunch on a floating dock in which Toi ordered 6 different plates of duck, pig, fish, shrimp and fried rice. Sunday evening we had dinner at the restaurant at the condo and we called it a night after a few bottles of wine.
Monday we slept in and hung out at the pool a few hours. We had lunch at our noodle shop again and then we went into town to have our daily message (this time it was another foot message). After our messages we went to the main train station in Bangkok to pick up Patty’s uncle. We then proceeded to China town to have dinner with all of Patty’s family. It was quite an experience and consisted of a 7 course meal including a whole pig. Some things were awesome, some were OK and some were just not edible.
After dinner we headed back to the condo and I tried to get so sleep fairly quickly. I woke up at 3:00 am local time so I could head to the airport. After 26 hours of travel I made it safely back to Kansas City (via Tokyo and Minneapolis) where my sister picked me up at the airport with a diet coke! I had a wonderful time on my first trip to Asia and I certainly want to go back to Thailand.
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Is Triche feeding the monkey, or is the monkey feeding Triche...