Welcome to Bangkok... The Magical Mystery Tuktuk Tour..

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Day 2 dawned and we all lazily got up and decided we needed to get moving... by the time we made it out of the hotel it was after 12pm so we headed off for brunch... just down the road from our guesthouse is one of my favourite little restaurants, Roti Mataba so we headed there for a feast... Afterwards we decided to walk it off and try find the river pier which was close by. We jumped on the first ferry that came along and went down the river, getting off in the area of the Grand Palace & Wat Po. We werent sure if it was the right stop but Narelle batted her eyelids at a bunch of young soldiers who were more than obliging in showing us the correct stop!

Once off the ferry we decided to just wander with no particular destination... there used to be a man that sold the most amazing Coconut Icecream in the area so it was kind of my mission to find him... a mission I failed in the end! :-( We stopped at a few different street stalls to try the local street foods. The girls both had Thai Iced Coffees and we shared a bowl of an interesting looking dish. We are still not sure what it was but it appeared to be a ginger soup which he added brown sugar and a white glutinous product to (perhaps a coconut based jelly). It also had little deep fried balls of dough in it... it was very popular with the locals so we thought we would give it a go... not bad at all!

We then stumbled across a little coffee shop while I was desperately trying to find a toilet... GREAT find.. it was right on the river with views over to the Wat Arun temple... and they did fantastic icecreams/sorbets and coffees! We relaxed there for awhile then decided to head over to Hualamphong Train Station to get our train tickets for next week.

We hailed a tuktuk and the first offer we got was 150 baht... no way! We walked away and eventually found a guy who took us for 70 baht. I think it helped that we bartered with him in stilted thai! From Hualamphong we caught the MRT subway and jumped off randomly at Plonchit. We started walking and hailed a taxi, asking him to take us to a good massage place... after hour long massages in a completely unknown location, it was off again...

We started walking hailing taxis/tuktuks along the way but as soon as we said we wanted to go all the way to Khao San in peak hour, it wasnt going to happen.. unless we paid the price... Eventually a tuktuk pulled over and we convinced him to take us for 200 baht... we then negotiated that he stay with us for the rest of the night.. price negotiable along the way... he was heaps cool (and sometimes a little grumpy) but I dont blame him for the grumpiness... it was peak hour and it took us over 2 hours in heavy traffic to get back to KSR.

We had made arrangements to meet up with Ken and Ninah for the night but had not had a chance to check email to see what time we were meeting... Both were relying on email and didnt have a phone.. Ninah phoned Narelles phone while we were still in Plonchit on skype and said to meet about 7pm at Gullivers. By the time we got out of the tuktuk at the guesthouse it was almost 8pm... we ran upstairs, babywiped the underarms and other bits, changed the undies and away we went for our night out... TRUE backpackers!!

Ping Pongs and Tuk Tuk's

We grabbed some beers for the ride, gave our tuk tuk driver a beer and headed to Gullivers hoping Niner and Ken had waited for us... I ran inside and found Niner, but Ken was till at his guesthouse... so we all were back in the tuk tuk and off to get Ken.. we were a little concerned how to fit all 5 of us in the tuktuk but Mr Tuktuk was assuring us it would be okay!

Ken was out at dinner still when we arrived so we left him a message and headed to Suan Lum Night Bazaar... once there we went to a money exchange booth but were told they didnt accept travellers cheques (WTF) and Ninah's card wasnt working in the ATM... we went and found our tuk tuk driver and said we needed a bank... the next 90 minutes consisted of us going from bank to bank around Bangkok trying to find an ATM that worked or a money exchange that was open.... with no success...

Tip No 1: Always take out enough money to last you a few days!! A huge thanks to Narelle for coming to our rescue!

While trying to find a ATM/Money Exchange we came up along side a taxi and tuk tuk full of men staring at us... Before I knew what was happening Ninah gave them the bird and boy were we in trouble.. the taxi driver came up alongside us a couple of minutes later absolutely going nuts... I think even our tuktuk driver was scared... and the worst thing was we couldnt go anywhere... we were stuck in traffic! Very funny moment!!

Back to Suan Lum Bazaar at 10.00pm finally for dinner, I commented to Ninah that we would never find Ken if he was there, especially since we were now 1.5 hours late! But as fate would have it, there he was right between the drinks and my deep fried chicken wings!

After a massive feed of deep fried fish with garlic, deep fried chicken wings and papaya salad (Som Tam) we decided it was time for the infamous PING PONG show.... back into our own private tuktuk and we were off.... our tuktuk driver was so cool (when not being grumpy) and was the craziest driver.. we had some pretty hairy moments.. my mother would have been horrified! Haha!

The funniest moment of the night was when we left Suan Lum and finally squeezed all 5 of us in the tuktuk... and Ken was well over 6 foot so it was squashy as... anyway... Narelle sat behind the driver on the side... then on the back seat it was Jakki, me and Ken with Ninah in between Kens legs... Just as we were about to leave Jakki turns to me with a look of horror on her face and says to me "I cant do this" .. I was like "do what?!" and she tells me she is claustrophobic and wants out... I was like "you aint going anywhere" and the next thing I knew she is trying to swing her legs out of the tuktuk on the side to make the great escape!

I was stunned and was grabbing at her saying "you aint going anywhere its all good"... she took on a dark look and I thought she was either going to jump out the tuktuk at 80km's per hour or punch me out! It took her 2 vodkas at the sex show to calm down.... very funny moment!

Not for the light hearted.... Skip if you are a prude!

Ping Pong show was always going to be on the agenda (NARELLES MUM ... this is where you stop reading!!!) .. For the first time in all my trips I finally was taken to a different ping pong show than the previous trips.. and it was sooo not as good! LOL.. if you can call it good!

We arrived in the middle of nowhere, and after refusing to pay more than 300 baht with the drink thrown in, we were again given the stern 'we thai mafia, you no tell anyone you pay so little speech' before being ushered inside... Once inside we entered a dark dungeon, a small stage in the middle with 3 rows of chairs all round the stage... on stage the oldest, crabbiest 'experienced' ping pong girls you have ever seen in your life... (not that I'm an expert!!) ... the usual razor blades, ribbons, ping pongs, coke bottle... the list goes on...

The three highlights were: the live sex show... despite the seediness and the bored look of the girl being subjected to 200 moves, the guy was hot and had some amazing moves.... seriously... at one stage the girl is standing up bent over touching her toesand the guy was kind of doing this handstand thing where his feet were on a pole (think pole dancing pole), his private parts were you know where and his hands on the ground in a handstand pose... AMAZING... and the 2nd highlight was where the girl who writes 'Welcome To Bangkok' with her you know what sold me her poster for 100 baht! Wait for THAT pictue...

Jakki's toilet experience No 3

The final highlight for our Thailand sex show was Jakki and I in a filthy toilet out the back with me teaching Jakki how to squat... I could NOT stop laughing when she explained that she had been standing on the floor and squatting and NOT on the foot pads... What followed was me giving Jakki a full demonstration of where to stand, how far to squat etc etc! She is officially an expert!

After the show we said our goodbyes to Ken and Ninah and headed home... well kind of... somewhere along the way, we made an executive decision that going out for 'one more drink ' would be a good idea... Knowing we had to get up at 4am didnt phase us at 1am! And dancing to a techno version of "ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK" in a thai nightclub made it all feel soooo right!

At 3am we stumbled.. and I mean stumbled home and the next hour was a hazy experience of shoving everything into our backpacks, calling a taxi and making our way to Morchit Bus Station! Once at Morchit we grabbed some food from the convenience store, made our way to the bus ticket booth and were told the bus was JUST about to leave... All I remember from here is arguing with the girls that I was getting hot food regardless of whether the bus was leaving NOW or not... I stumbled off to the food court and left the girls in my wake yelling at me "no Reet we have to go!" I got my chicken over rice and headed to the bus.. only to find the girls were nowhere to be found and the bus was leaving!!

I told them to 'hold the bus' and ran back into the station to find the girls... I saw them standing in the middle of the station looking slightly confused and drunk! I yelled out to them "Are you coming?!" in my best drunken cranky voice and headed back to the bus...

Once on the bus I remember popping a valium (somehow we thought this was a good idea) before passing out ... and I mean passing out! Fortunately for Jakki and I, Narelle had the foresight to try stay awake and protect our valuables as apparently we both passed out with our bags spread out on the seats next to us...

I woke up about 4.5 hours later boiling hot and feeling SO sick... I was sitting right near the toilet entrance and before I went in, Narelle prewarned me about how bad.... well let me just say.... it was in my top 3 bad toilet experiences in South East Asia! It was the size of telephone booth with a toilet, a urinal AND a massive bucket of water... so pretty much you had to squat over the toilet with one leg resting on the bucket of water and one rubbing up against the urinal.... and you can imagine the smell. .... OMG... sucked in Jakki....

After going to the toilet I spent the next half hour trying not to vomit before we hit the border... At the border we must have all had 'dont f*ck with me' looks on our face as we hardly got hassled getting through the border at all....

Once at the visa office, I had the Immigration Police tell me I had to pay them the $20USD plus 100 baht... obviously the 100 baht is for his pocket... I scowled at him and said 'no I dont have any baht' which was actually true as somehow I had lost all my thai baht in our drunken rampage the night before... he then said to me 'ok ok you give me $25, tourist visa $25' to which I pointed at the sign above his head which said 'tourist visa $20' and said 'No, its $20 and that is all you are getting'... He then just said 'ok you go wait there' and pointed at a spot away from Jakki and Narelle... clearly thinking he could work them! I ignored him and waited with them, muttering under my breath "DONT YOU DARE give him more than $20"

All good, he didnt even try with them... we then got a private taxi for $35 to Battambang... a couple of hours later we hit Battambang... which is a completely different blog....

Until the next blog... love to you all
Reet, Jak & Naz xxx

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Comments

[I.]

did you save the address of the show? ...I bet that poster would make a great souvenir! :)

[Ed]

Very interesting time. Ed xx