Advertisement
Published: November 10th 2006
Edit Blog Post
After 24 hours of flying, and a few hours of shut eye in Singapore, I touched down in this wonderous city of Bangkok. The flight to Singapore was long, 19 hours, including a stopover in Souel. I was having a great time for the first half of the flight, keeping busy with in-flight games, movies and booze. The second half didn't run so smoothly. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't sleep. So, after only 4 hours of sleep in Vancouver before leaving and 24 hours of waiting and flying and not sleeping, I was absolutely delusional. When we touched down in Singapore, I zombied my way over to a spot, pretty much in the middle of the airport, and passed out on the floor (why bother looking for a chair or bench or anything). I woke up sporatically, every hour or so, and after about my third waking, I found myself staring up at a group of airport guards wielding machine guns. I took that as my cue to leave the foyair and found myself a comfy chair.
Slightly more refreshed I started my morning off with a bowl of noodles complemented by, as the waitress put it,
"Chinese lunch meat", which was saltier and chinese imports. I boarded the plane at around 7:30 am their time, and found myself sitting next to a fine austrailian girl. We got to talking and ended up catching a bus together from the Bangkok airport down to Khao San Road. Ahhh....Khao San Road. How intense it is. Stalls litter the streets selling, well, selling pretty much the same thing as each other. Every few feet a potential dialogue waits, consiting of:
"Where you from?"
"Uh, canada"
"How long you been in Thailand?"
(sigh, he's got me for at least 30 seconds)
"A couple days ago"
"how long you staying for?"
"A while"
"10 baht, I take you tuk-tuk round town 1 hour"
"uh, no" (blunt but effective)
These guys are everywhere, you really get hassled frequently. Aside from the hussle and hassles, there's so much amazing stuff going on down here. The Aussie girl I met was meeting a friend with whom she'd developed some pretty lax and unclear plans. She thought that her friend might have booked a room in Chinatown, so the two of us took a boat down the main river running through Bangkok to check
it out. China town was so amazing, tonnes of bizzare food items, including giant deep fried whale sperm (maybe not, but it sure looked like it), lots of meat on sticks, and some sort of Cola-Noodle drink. Her friend didn't book this hotel, so we hoofed it back to the ferry dock and drifted up to Khao San Road. On our way off the boat we spotted a cozy joint that had 600ml beers for $1.50 and well, stayed there all night chatting it up with a couple of from Indonesia and an Irish guy from England. It was all good fun, and after a while the Aussie girls friend showed up. Buncha piss tanks they were, drinking till the wee hours of the night. At some point they wanted to check out some Bars and we found ourself in one surrounded by Thais, actually,m we were the only white people in the bar. They had a live band, who was rocking out some sweet ass thai rock tunes, and we were lovin it. Then, after this first wicked Thai song, they switch over to a western cover song. The first on the list "Pretty Fly for a White Guy."
Waking up the next day, after drinking "Chang" beer all night, you might expect a wicked Changover, but, it wasn't the case and I found myself strolling the streets quite early in the morning. I met up with the two Australian girls again and we went out for a thai breakfast. The two of them were leaving Thailand that day, one to India, the other to Vietnam, so we said goodbye and I went back to Khao San Road. I wasn't feeling to swell midday, so I laid down for a bit, and did some mild trekking of the streets, feeling so haggard as the touts hassled. By the evening I was feeling quite a bit better and made my way over to the same bar I was at the night before. Here I met a Norwigien guy, Bjorn, wicked dude who'd arrived in Thailand after hearind about how cool it was when he was in Rome. Buddy had some good stories and some choice traveling philosophies. Him and I drunk and hung out with a couple who run a dive school on one of the islands in the south, and after the bar shut down we went to
Connie and Sandy
Choice picture. Better agree, but either way, Imabovet. some nearby mats and chilled out for a couple more hours. Here we had a couple more Big Changs, and I stepped up the boldness and munched back some deep fried locust. Tired, I made my way back to the hostel I was staying at and called it a night.
Here I am, the next morning, on Khao San Road again. I'm thinking about hopping over to a nearby province today, but who knows, there's still a lot of things I haven't seen or done in bangkok, and I truly do love the atmosphere where I am.
A couple points of interest:
- 1 classic saying: "Same, same, but different" (At first you think it's cliche, then you realize otherwise)
- Toilet paper is non-existant. Don't ask.
- 30 baht to a Candian dollar:
- 10 baht for any meat on a stick
- 20-30 baht for any full meal
- 150 baht the price of my guesthouse
- 15 baht, the price of travelling several kilos down the river
- Ladyboy count: 1
- # of Locusts eaten: 2
- # of days in Bangkok: 3
Kid loved the camera
Couldn't deny him a pic. - Hangovers: 0
I think that pretty much covers it. I'll add some pictures to this Blog soon, but this particular cafe won't let me upload any. Take care everyone, I'll upate you all soon.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.113s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 5; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0542s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Vandy
non-member comment
A winner is me!
I wanted to be the first person to comment on your blog ever and it's pretty clear that I've achieved my goal. I noticed you visited the "Gaylord Indian Restaurant". I've eaten at a place called the "Tendicks Bakery". True story. That's all I've got. Til next time, friend. Stay gay.