Advertisement
Published: April 18th 2012
Bangkok
Green curry with beefI am officially in Bangkok and feeling the heat. It is extremely humid and hot and I start feeling gross as soon as I step foot out of my hotel. The flight here was a bit weird. I had a connecting flight in Moscow, where the airport was hot and smoking was allowed (which I couldn't stand!). Then my 9 hour flight from Moscow to Bangkok was uncomfortable. I was surrounded by old, Russian men. Nevermind, I had an empty seat separating the two of us. Little did I know, that would soon end: one of the old men moved over, sat next to me, gave me an awkward smile and I then sat next to this old guy for the next 8.5 hours. =( I asked him kindly to move back to his seat, but he didn't want to. UGH! I was so uncomfortable my whole flight that I couldn't sleep! Dirty, old men who reak creep me out!
As soon as my flight landed, I dashed out, grabbed my backpack, and made my way for the exit. I was greeted by my airport transfer and was well on my way to Manohra Hotel, where I would be spending
the next 3 nights. The hotel is a bit old but has a decent pool and restaurant. I decided to venture out after a relatively short nap and realized it wasn't as nice as walking in Amsterstam. Everything was old and run down and very different than good ol' Los Angeles. People throw themselves at you trying to have you take one of their taxis or 'tuk tuks'. I get lots of stares and maybe I stand out like a damn tourist! After awhile of walking in the damn heat, I wanted to grab a quick bite. My first meal in Thailand: Green curry with beef and rice...for 270 Thai Baht or relatively $9 when you do the conversion. Not bad, considering it actually only cost $6 but they charged me a a $3 service charge and especially since it was one of the best Thai curries I ever had! I don't know if its just the atmosphere or I wanted to believe it had to be good since I was now in Thailand, but I finished it like a pro!
I decided to take another nap and head out to The Night Market. The Night Market was...well...an experience.
Its the place where you can shop and bargain for your price as well as find the strip bars. I took my first tuk tuk to the night market, which I was proud of cause the guy offered me 120 baht and I bargained it down to 60 baht. There, I bought a few knick knacks and tried one of the chicken skewers that someone was cooking on the street. I was also compelled to check out the 'ping pongs' and thai women. So, I was approached by a guy telling me to go into one of the bars with no cover charge and leave freely if I didn't like it. And so I did. I walked in and saw the thai girls dancing on bars. They approached me with one of their drinks, but I asked for Sprite instead cause I had no idea what was in it. Anyway, one girl somehow managed to twist off the cap of a glass bottle with her endowment and somehow managed to shoot out ping pongs as well. It was gross as she kept aiming it at me. I was there for about 10-15 minutes and was well ready to leave. I
went happily on my way to pay for my drink until the "head lady" told me the price. She charged for just about anything she could think of and next thing I know, she said I owed 2700 baht. What?! For 15 minutes of just sitting and doing nothing. I wasn't even all that interested in the whole thing! But the worse part of it was....I DIDN'T HAVE THAT MUCH CASH ON ME! So I started to panic a bit and told her I didn't have that much. She wanted to take everything I had, but there was no way I was giving her everything when I needed cash to somehow get home. So she basically took all my big bills and I managed to hide about 60 baht and came out alive. Sigh. Never again! When I left, I realized I had $20 on me, so managed to exchange that for baht and get some pad thai for dinner. That definitely was an experience I won't forget...in a bad way 😞 After this whole incident and dinner, I just wanted to get home. I bargained my way again for a tuk tuk from 200 baht to 60 baht. Now,
Im sitting in my hotel room, safe and sound. I guess that's what I get for traveling alone and checking out places I shouldn't be checking out alone.
Oh, one more thing. Majority of the Thai people I've come across have been Thai Chinese, specifically Thai Chiu Chow! Yay to my peeps! I got to bust out with some Chinese today, which was quite nice! Until tomorrow...when I will check out the Grand Palace and plan on getting a thai massage.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.039s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0196s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
