Smiling Faces Sometimes

Bangkok is a fabulous city in a heart of a beautiful country. What I love about it is the fact that even though they have some of the biggest names and companies setting up offices in their city, the people are still so down-to-earth and simple, preferring to sell their wares from carts and tiny roadside stalls. And better yet, the locals still prefer to buy from these vendors instead of the richer, fancier merchants found in the shopping malls.

Okay, so enough from me. We arrived on the 10th, flying in from KL on AirAsia. It’s the first time I’ve flown with them and it’s one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had so far. I’ve flown budget airlines before, specifically Valuair to Perth, but this one is seriously (although expectedly) shabby. On Valuair, I was assigned a seat and you received service with a big, wide smile. On AirAsia, you have to rush to get seats (especially if you wanna sit together with your friend) and when the stewardess was doing the demo for the life jacket, she never smiled once. I didn’t think things like this bothered me, but looks like they do. It can’t hurt to grin a little, can it?

Tim and me at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, about to board our flight:


Tim falling asleep (again) while waiting for our flight to leave as it was delayed for an hour. That’s our plane in the background:

Unfortunately for the poor guy, Tim wasn’t feeling too well because he stayed up late last night to watch the last three episodes of Smallville while I went to take a 2-hour nap. His body couldn’t handle it and after we landed in Bangkok, he spewed quite a bit. Thank god for barf bags. And I surprisingly managed to keep my composure even though (as my family knows) I usually puke when someone around me does as well. But I won’t deny that I gagged a few times…

The poor lad waiting for our airport transfer and looking sad and pale after puking:


Our YHA Hostel:


Our room. I got the top bunk so that Tim could do gross things like smell his socks on the bottom bunk:


The nearby Chong Nonsi Bangkok Train System station:

And of course, what would a cheap hostel room be without the red-light district just down the road?

Patpong and the famous Beer Chang sign:


The Patpong night markets where all the strip joints and bj massage parlours are:


Tim drinking some 15baht or S$0.60 Thai Pepsi:



Day 2 and we venture out to walk down from the hostel to grab some lunch and explore the area. We are in one of the business areas with all the big banks and offices around us, so we end up in a food court eating a full lunch spread costing us a mere 100baht or S$4.00.

At least I managed to convince Tim to not eat McDonald’s for once:



I dragged the ever-indecisive Tim to the BTS station to travel to Siam. The Ocean World sign on Siam Paragon sparked our curiousity and we went in looking for it.

Just as we entered the shopping mall, we were greeted by this brand spanking new orange Lamborghini; a definite work of art:

We found Ocean World in the basement of the mall and soon realised that it was an aquarium. I had to see it since we were already there and of course, pulled Tim along as well.

Tim looking at rock lobster:


Tim trying to eat a jellyfish. The funny thing was this tank had two sides for viewing and when I took this picture, I had no idea that Tim was looking in from the other side. He knew, obviously, and took glee in partaking in my documentation of that cute little fella:

After Ocean World, we walked around a bit in the other shopping centres, and left for the night markets to have dinner.

Some movie posters we saw in the train stations on our way back; Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire:




Noel, starring Paul Walker, Penelope Cruz, Robin Williams and Susan Sarandon:

Soon after, it got dark and we called it an early night for the next day’s tour.


It was our 3rd day and we had booked ourselves on a tour of the Khlong Damnoen Saduak Floating Markets. There are one of the few floating markets still in operation and it was our chance to see it before it is forever lost to the modern world:


We had to take one of these sampans to the main “shopping area” of the markets:


Our ride:


As lunch wasn’t included in the deal, we had to find our own food and opted to eat pork fried rice cooked by this nice old lady on the river:



After the markets, we were given the choice to either ride through the jungle for half an hour on elephants or go watch the cobra show. Both adventures interested us, but the fact that we had to pay 500baht extra to ride the elephants quickly led us to the cobra show.

The very weird and rehearsed presenter and one of the snake dudes with a cobra:


A mongoose fighting a cobra:


The two penises of a cobra:


One of the crazy snake guys testing the patience of three mangrove snakes:


After catching two of them with his hands, he catches the last with his teeth:


Mad!

We were quickly ushered out after the show by our tour guide and were brought to the obligatory session at the wood-carving centre.

A ridiculously amazing hand-carved wood panel:



That night, we went to meet a couple of my Dad’s friends to have dinner and again, went home early to rest.

The Chit Lom train station we met them at and the typical traffic situation during dinner time in Bangkok:



Our 4th day and we were eager to try out another tour, this time dedicating the whole day to it. We headed for the Kanchanaburi province this time to see the bridge over the River Kwai and the Death Railway, "relics" left over from World War II.

The rebuilt bridge over the River Kwai. Obviously, the original wooden bridge was destroyed during WWII:


The view from the bridge:

Next to the bridge is the War Musuem with basically lots of history and trivia about how the Japanese tortured the South-East Asians and the Allied POWs. I wondered how the Japanese tourists felt when they read about what their countrymen did 60 years ago.

A glass tomb:


An erotic painting. Weird, I know, especially for a war museum full of death and suffering:


Guns and ammunition from the War:

After walking on the bridge, we were supposed to make our way to the train station for our journey on the Death Railway. But we made a pit stop at a secluded area known to have monkeys running around, waiting for who else but tourists to come and feed them.

One of the monkeys catching a large chunk of corn in his mouth:


A monkey takes a peanut from me:

We were then transported to the train station to board the train onto the Death Railway.

A brief explanation of the significance of the railway station:


Our train:




The Death Railway:

So after the ride on the train, the tour bus took us to the War Cemetary. We spent about 20 minutes there, absorbing the gravity and dire results of the war.

One of the few tombstones with evidence of family actually coming to pay their respects. He was 34:


Tim reading about the brave men who fought for the country:


A plaque seen on the citadel in the cemetery:

It was more than enlightening to actually see the places that I used to read about during history class in secondary school. I also felt very blessed that there were these people that fought and worked so hard for our tiny Asian countries even though they did not have to.

We got back from the tour at about 7pm and that night, we took they time to watch the infamous “Tiger Shows” a.k.a. “Pussy Shows” in Patpong before we left.

The Pen & House, the joint we watched the shows in:

Generally, all these Pussy Shows are the same; they have the same couple of stunts performed at every strip joint along the Patpong stretch. The first stunt we saw had one of the girls blowing out candles on a birthday cake through a tube stuck into her vagina. Shocking!
Next came another girl who gaily stuck not one, but two cigarettes into her vagina and happily asked one of the male patrons to light them up for her. Next thing you know, she’s smoking those things with her you-know. That can’t be good for her.
I can’t quite remember what came next but another girl came along and cracked open a soda pop without the help of a bottle opener. Yes people, she used her vagina. That’s one hell of a party trick, I can tell ya that!
Following that, one of the bigger, fleshier girls easily slipped a whole egg into her pussy and proceeded to walk around with it. She slipped it out and stuck it in again a few times just to show us that it was still intact. Then, all of a sudden, she started to slam her body onto the stage with a lot of force. Next thing you know, she positions herself over a cup and pops the egg out, still intact, into the cup and cracks it open to show that it wasn’t hard boiled or anything. I was stupefied by that point.
Then came the antics, like one girl asking another male patron to pull a streamer from her vagina. That thing was neverending! It just kept going and going! Another one came along with those glow-in-the-dark balls that light up and she would chuck them in and try to pop them into a cup positioned below her. 3rd antic: the girl who smoked the cigarettes came along with one of those horns we toot at kid’s birthday parties, and literally stuck it in and tooted that horn with gusto. Made me chuckle quite a bit!
I think the last act was that same cigarette-smoker sticking a blowpipe into her vagina, handing Tim a balloon and then proceeding to pop the balloon by shooting darts at it. After she successfully did it on the second try, Tim picked up one of the darts and was more than convinced that she could have killed him or blinded him. That made me chuckle even more!
Tim obviously enjoyed the show (and by that I mean his jaw was on the floor most of the time), and I think he sort of felt bad for the girls because he was too broke to tip them! Poor guy!


This morning, we took another horrible but thankfully short flight to Phuket on AirAsia. The Thai stewardesses are slightly more pleasant than the Malaysian ones, so that was good.

Tim at Bangkok International Airport reading Cosmo & Vogue:


Flying over Bangkok:

Photos hosted by: www.flickr.com

Hello Phuket!