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Published: August 21st 2011
Welcome to another addition. It's been a little quiet lately but since I'm a little bored tonight and I feel like posting something I decided to complete an entry on my day today, which was fairly interesting (I hope).
I started off with breakfast, and then while I was sitting around doing pretty much nothing a friend texted and asked if I wanted to work out with him in Lumphini Park. If you've read my previous blog you have an idea of what the park is all about, but the two gyms in there are pretty wild. A written description doesn't really do it justice so I attached a few photos, but they're basically Bangkok's version of muscle beach. One of them is quite small but the gym we used is the bigger of the two, and it's something I've never seen before in my life. When I walked up this is what I saw - a bunch of Thai guys, absolutely ripped, working out on some of the oldest gym equipment I've ever seen in my life. My friend goes there every day so as soon as we walked up all the guys there yelled his name, shook
his hand and started joking around with him. He introduced me and we walked to the back to pay our drop in fee and get our water. 25 baht later (about 90 cents) and we were good to go.
As I walked around I really couldn't believe what I was seeing. When I say outdoor gym, I mean outdoor. NO roof, no tarp, no walls, no doors - and definitely no floor. The only cover we had from the elements were some trees above us and we walked through the gym on a dirt floor. They had pretty much everything you needed as far as weights and machines go, they were just 50 years old - at least. There were a couple foreigners there but 90% of the guys working out were Thai - and 100% of them had their shirts off. Mine stayed on (for obvious reasons - I'm not close to being shredded) and we started to warm up. The first thing I noticed was that this wasn't just a gym to these guys, it was a real social event. Everyone was very friendly, spoke surprisingly good English by Thai standards, and were constantly joking around with
each other. The first guy that was doing the most talking was probably in his late 20's, ripped, and constantly talking about how much he liked farang (foreign) girls. There were tourists constantly walking by because the gym is right in the middle of the park and he always had something to say to the girls. The other guy that my friend knew quite well (sorry I don't remember their names) was 50, but had the body of a 20 year old - I've never seen a guy that age in that good of shape. He used to be a muay thai kickboxer but now he works as a doorman at a club and as a stuntman. Before we could even start our workout he started telling my friend a story about how some drunk Indonesia guy attacked him at a bar with a stick, and he ended up putting the guy in the hospital. The story ended with the guy dying and so we both started laughing because he was obviously joking. He didn't laugh back so my friend says, "You're joking right?" He says, "No, no joke - attack me with wood, I hit, he die." Ok then.
I can't emphasize what kind of shape this guy was in, especially for being 50. He went over to this tree and started doing these flips where he would run towards it, grab it and then do a cartwheel by grabbing the side of the tree. It's hard to describe and I wish I got video but it was pretty impressive.
The equipment was ancient, as you can see from the pictures, but very functional. We got a pretty good workout in and called it a day. The most interesting piece of equipment was the bench press that had two tractor tires instead of weights This is a big hit with the tourists and people always come in and take photos with it pretending to be working out.
After that I headed back to the hotel for a quick shower and then I headed to the big mall here in Bangkok, MBK. There are TONS of malls but this is one of the bigger ones and has EVERYTHING you could possibly need. I just needed a phone charger and some other small things but I decided to have a quick walk through. The mall is setup differently from
back home and in my opinion it's WAY better. Every level has a theme so it makes it easy to find what you want. There is a huge department store (cant' remember the name) and after taking the train there you walk through and into the mall. On one level it is all electronics, cell phones and cell phone accessories. As you walk through all you see are little booths setup and they have everything from Ipads, to Iphones, blackberries, phone cases, chargers and covers. In Thailand all the phones and sims are unlocked so you can buy a phone, throw in a sim and and you're good to go. You can purchase phones brand new and factory unlocked or you can purchase used phones and just put a sim in yourself. Now when I say there are booths set up, I should say there are HUNDREDS of booths set up so the competition is fierce. There are also places here where you can buy pretty much any movie, tv show, or piece of software for about $3 a piece. Obviously these aren't from the factory but it's very common here as in other parts of Asia, and this is
right out in the open in one of the biggest malls in Bangkok.
The next level up has more electronics but on the far end is where most of the clothing stalls are. This place is an absolute maze and you can get everything like t-shirts, jeans, luggage, handbags and watches. Again, when it says it's a True Religion pair of jeans - probably not actually True Religion. Again, out in the open. I saw tons of signs saying no pictures and then I realized why, probably because they get the odd copyright or trademark investigator in there. I did manage to sneak one in of one of my favourite t-shirt slogans. Who would actually wear that in public?!
The next level up is all electronics but it's the more higher end stores and everything you buy there is brand name. They also have their version of Futureshop which has lots of brand name electronics, all at pretty reasonable prices.
I'll do a quick blurb on the soi (street) animals because they're quite unique. As in most countries other than in the West there are a fair amount of stray animals, mostly dogs and cats. Here it's
unique because even though they're strays they're fairly well looked after. Because the Buddhist culture is all about respect and compassion everyone seems to chip in and feed and look after the strays. I haven't seen a skinny dog or cat yet and all around the city you'll see little bowls of food and water that the locals put out for them. I took a couple photos of cats I saw tonight because they looked really neat - almost like a Siamese.
I bought what I needed and headed back home for a little rest before I headed out for some food. I decided to treat myself to something a little higher end so I went to this Italian placed called La Terrazza. Back home this would be a 5 star restaurant with crazy prices, but most of the entrees were pretty reasonable. I had a great salad to start, a glass of red wine and a seafood risotto that was very tasty. All in it cost me about 1300 baht including tip (about $40).
My last stop was a little market to stock up on a few things and one of the products there is worth reporting
on. In Thailand, like a lot of cultures, they associate a lighter skin tone with a higher class or status. That's because if you have darker skin then the assumption is you either work outside in the fields picking some type of food or as some type of labourer. In the slave days in the US the ones that were favourites of their masters would be allowed to work in the house rather than pick cotton, so they had lighter skin and therefore a higher status. In Thailand this is very prevalent and you see it mostly with the women. Most Thai women wear lots of makeup to lighten their skin, especially cover up and foundation and all of the beauty products have some type of skin whitening version. I took a picture of one that I saw on the shelf but every product has it - toothpaste, lotion, sun tan lotion - everything. I don't know what they're putting in their to bleach skin but it's pretty safe to say it can't be healthy. It's amazing that as westerners we to everything we can to get darker but here they want to be lighter - bizarre.
Anyways that's
La Terrazza
Starter salad.it for me, nothing too exciting but it gives you a little taste of a few more aspects of the culture. Until next time...
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