Bangkok: East Meets West, Part II - An Eastern City (sub-unit 1 of 2)

Well, it has certainly been a BUSY couple of days! Since the course here started on Monday, I have been running straight through from 7:30am (barring the one day I forgot you can't snooze a wakeup call, and showed up 15 minutes late :( )to midnight wishing there were more hours in the day to email, try uploading photos (still no luck), and write here. In any case, with no further ado, I present to you:

Bangkok: East Meets West, Part II - An Eastern City (sub-unit 1 of 2)

To refresh: after arriving at the airport, Jose (my boss) and I took a cab to our hotel. Jose went to sleep. I went to the gym. We met up in the lobby around 6 and headed out.

Our stroll down the road the hotel is on was my first taste at the Eastern-ness, and I skipped a quite a bit of this description in the previous post. The road is narrow (one lane that runs both ways) and very busy. There is a begger every 10 meters, a pushy cab or tuk-tuk (i'll get to this soon -
taxi? you want taxi? where you go? taxi? taxi?) driver every 5 meters, a food cart every 4 meters (STILL haven't tried the street fare), and counterfeit apparel, movies, and/or deadly and nonlethal weapons for sale every 1 meter (brass knuckles, knives, machetes, pellet guns, tazers - you name it). It is this way almost everywhere we walk in Bangkok.

During this first foray outside the hotel, I was most shocked, however, to find a huge elephant bumbling down the road toward us. As he and his handlers approached (don't think circus handler, think poor-looking, dirty, ragged clothes and shoeless handler - ok bad image, this could describe a circus handler too), Jose said to me in his Cuban - Spanish - American accent, "So you want to feed the elephant?" I thought he was joking, but sure enough, as pushy as any of the other vendors, taxi drivers, or peep show promoters, the elephant guy came up waving a plastic bag in my face, "you want to feed elephant, feed elephant, elephant ride, 100 baht." (baht is Thai currency. 1 USD = ~34 baht - cheap city! woohoo!) Jose, as the Director of Finance and Development (actually, promoted TODAY to Deputy Executive Director, congrats!) for The Union, was able to bargain the guy down to 50 baht, and I got 3 bags of sugar cane to feed the adorable (and intimidatingly large) elephant. I whipped out my Flip Mino (thanks jaffin/ungers!! can't wait to share the vids), hit record, and let Jose take it away as I fed the elephant! It was crazy, he would lift his trunk to my hand, I'd drop the cane into his nose, and he'd usher it into his mouth. I imagine eating this way would be quite inconvenient and uncomfortable - I don't want no sugar cane up my nasal passages.

The video is great - I'll upload it when I can :)

As we walked on, we passed a number of custom suit shops (I think I'll hit one tonight - get me a nice light suit for all these tropical climates). The turnaround is a matter of 2 or 3 days, including 2-3 refittings. I checked, and was quoted 4500 baht, ~150 USD for 100% linen. I've been told this is reasonable, but still advised to bargain.

This is the part when we walked to the huge malls (see Western City below), had dinner at the nytimes restau with Manju, after which we went to one of the night markets here.

The night market was, like the streets, crowded (although not to the extent I would have expected - maybe its the bad tourism, or the 'state of emergency'), full of shops (duh, its a market), and their pushy keepers. I needed to buy a pair of capris (because I like them, yes haters, but also cause that's what everyone wears here - and i didn't pack shorts cause i'm an idiot.) and found a nice pair at an air conditioned shop. I tried to haggle with the guy, but lacking Jose's finance experience, I wasn't able to get him down to the price I wanted to pay. Instead, I wound up with a pair for 180 baht, $6, and believe me, they're uhh worth just about that. Where's H&M when you need it? It was a minor victory for me though, as it represented my first bargaining victory - she wanted 250 baht! Thanks Manju for also sweet-talking the shopkeeper.

After meandering the tight aisles of 'Rays Bans' and 'Versaces' (not just Versace, but MANY Versaces) for a little while longer, we hunted down a taxi willing to take us on the meter (this is a real challenge!) and headed home. Jose went to sleep, and Manju and I went to Patpong as I have already explained in 'Western City.'

Patpong is another area, I guess known for its own market there and the 'night life.' By night life, what is actually meant is strip clubs. Literally on every sidewalk tile (or equivalent, I didn't notice if there are actually sidewalk tiles...) is a man with a card - a menu if you will, and you must - of different shows you can watch. Their favorite is ping pong show, "ping pong show, ping pong show, come on you see, ping pong show, ping pong show..." Now, I have no idea what a ping pong show is, but if this is their advertising strategy, I can only conclude that through their extensive marketing research, ping pong shows are the current market leaders. If I decide to go to one, I'll let you know what it is. I actually tried to buy the menu off one of the guys, but he said it was his only one. I told him to print up another and I'd return the next night. We'll see if I make it back.

You can see through most of the open doors about 10 or 15 'girls' dancing on the bars in matching bathing suits. It's sorta like Tuesday's vs Friday's if you will (for my non-American readership, Tuesday's and Friday's are low quality American chain restaurants where the wait staff dress in ridiculous outfits - usually red and white striped aprons or something...), but instead of aprons its matching bikinis. Anyway, I put 'girls' in 'quotation marks' because Manju warned me that some are trannies. I replied, "I guess you can get more than you paid for." Buh dum ching.

Eventually we took a cab back and went to bed. I stayed up til 4am and wrote "Western City" (my sleep-deprived-ness may be reflected in the interesting style and diction of that post - I reread it and was surprised at some of the things I wrote). Manju called me at 8 am, I had my "Egg McMuffin" (read about this in Western City), and then Manju and I took our private tour of the Royal Palace and Temples.

This could (and, well, probably should, but it's really the whole point of writing 'Eastern City'...) be a post in itself. I should also note that I'd rather wait for the pictures, but that'll be too long it seems :(

Ok. I've decided to make it its own post. I need to sleep and nobody has the attention span to make it through what I've got left to say (nor do I have that required to type it).

Here's a preview:

Anyway, our tourguide from the hotel went by P.C., and was very kind, smiley, and knowledegable (Thailand is the 'land of 1,000 smiles'). He drove us in our own mercedes (the make is circa 1980, but still cool!) to the sites, and then walked with us the whole day. If you intend to go (and I HIGHLY recommend it, as you'll see...) be sure to wear pants and closed-toed shoes, as you won't be allowed to enter the royal compound without this appropriate attire (they revere the monarchy...quite unlike the Prime Minister). First we saw the Temples, chapels, and several towers (I feel so uncultured, I don't remember the proper names of these, Manju, help!!). They were all breathtaking. Actually.


A bientot,