Flying to Thailand, or if you want more
specifics, Bangkok. A country and a city that I have very little
knowledge or have given much acknowledge to its existence, not
because I've never been overly interested in the place (even though
that's true) just always seemed a bit 'nothingy' to me, but
regardless, I have some great friends going and if you've friends
that are somewhere you should be there also, also a chance to
recreate Hangover II should never be turned down.
The flight from Perth to Bangkok was to
be expected on a budget airline, 12 hours of as much as fun you can
have within a hard cramped space, though the 4 hour layover in
Singapore on what was quite possibly the most comfortable tiled floor
that has ever existed, was the highlight of the trip so far.
Arriving into Bangkok Airport at 'It's
still light' o'clock, us 6 rendezvous together in the arrivals hall 2
from Vietnam, 2 from England and 2 from Australia, all looking bleary
eyed and in a bit of a fly-daze from backpacking, hangovers and
red-eye flights (in that order), re-enacting the ending of Love Actually, but I didn't care for all that emotional nonsense, I was just happy to be within 1000 miles of a Starbucks.
Cramming into a cab that's way too
small for us and barely legal to do in sensible countries, you know
instantly we've arrived in outlaw country, this would be one of many
reminders today. Bangkok is as you'd expect from an Asian city, dirty
urban sprawl of highrises and pollution, neither much to look at or
nothing to look at, it is just is what it just is, functional.
We arrive to our hotel via some seedy
looking alley/road, with a tired looking 7Eleven and countless stalls
of street cooking stalls, dubbed “Streetbeef” the hotel was
surprisingly luxurious considering its surroundings with people in
matching outfits and lots of marble, wasn't until we explored Bangkok
a bit more you realise that this was as good as it was going to get.
Daylight still shining through cloudy
polluted skies, we head out to see what Bangkok had in-store for us,
grabbing a few beers and Red Bulls in medicine bottles we flag down a
couple of tuk-tuks, and proceed to aim for Chinatown for whatever
reason.
Riding in a tuk-tuk is quite possibly
the most fun you can have on a three-wheels, racing each other
through the streets of Bangkok in an over-exposed machine that has
been cobbled together with scraps, noisily weaving in and out of
traffic with a beer in hand, the wind in your hair and feeling bugs
hitting your teeth as you smile. At that point, I was ready to leave
Thailand, as far as I was concerned it would all be downhill from
here.
We got dropped off and not knowing what
to expect, this is not what we expected from Chinatown, although, I'm
not even sure if we were heading into Chinatown, in fact, I have no
idea what was going on, a theme that would be a common factor with
this trip, it was fine, after leaving Perth it was refreshing to see
people outside using these things like side-walks and green spaces.
Wandering around for bit to give each
other reassurance like this was exactly where we wanted to be, we all
faulted and the others asked a nice man in a hat for directions as I
snuck out from the conversation to join in with the adjacent temple's
ritual of lighting incense and looking at a gold buddha.
It was decided we'd get in another
tuk-tuk and go, somewhere. More streets and back alleys later, we
were confronted with a man with a small bar and a boat, putting the
pieces together I came to the conclusion that Chinatown wasn't going
to happen and we were instead going to go on a boat trip.
After some bargaining we hop on a boat
with some beers and surged down the river looking at other boats
enviously with their V8 engines carving their hulls to the river bed
with their speed as we were on the equivalent of a snail drawn
aqua-rickshaw, as our boat chugged along with all the gusto of a
corpse.
This gave us plenty of time to take in
all the sights as we drifted down the main river and into the canals
looking into these tatty waterfront properties that were slowly
subsiding, with people milling about on their balconies in-amongst
their freshly washed sheets, trying to make it a home with some
plants, children jumping off bridges without a care in the world
about where they are all they had to do is avoid boats and floating
litter.
Passing this temple we make a pit-stop
as we were ushered into buying some bread to feed the fish for good
luck, paying the costly sum of 20p for a loaf of bread, my
expectations of this event was going to be like feeding ducks at the
lake, all very calming and rewarding like a childhood memory should
be, but this in Bangkok.
Ripping off the first chunk of bread
and flinging it in without too much care, a torrent started in the
water as hundreds of carp rose from the depths and went absolutely
ape-shit at the surface, jumping over each other, splashing around
getting us all wet and generally causing an enormous rawkus as this
delicious bread entered their domain.
As we got braver with the bread, so did
the fish with taking it, their mouths popping out as far as their
bodies would let them, just snatching it from our hands as we neared
the surface with it, it was exhilaratingly frightening, that
something as tame as a fish could become vicious doughnivores.
With that fun experience we were riding
on a high and we get to our next stop where one of our friends wanted
to go, The Snake Farm, sounded interesting and judging by his
enthusiasm for the place as a 'thing we had to do', we had to do it.
Paying an entrance fee we walk into
this filthy, disgusting, god awful zoo, small concrete pens with
giant crocodiles, bears, birds etc. all looking like they could quite
happily be given a shotgun or a couple of cyanide pills. I found the
whole thing way too distressing and made me very angry that places
like this exist and I paid and fucking entrance fee, I wanted nothing
more than to get out of that stupid fucking hell hole, as soon as
possible but we had a show to go to.
The 6 of us sat in this circular arena
as we were presented some nonsensical thing about snakes, 3 snakes
were taken out their cages and their handlers would annoy the snakes
in turn into attacking them, then they'd draw the poison from the
cobra, did something to another snake and made us wear the python.
The only highlight from this zoo was our friend who is completely and
utterly scared of snakes and freaking out over them, even though
there were quite some distance away, behind a fence and have no wings
in order to fly over and attack him.
We hopped on the boat and navigated out
of the canals passing some big water lizard munching on a freshly
caught fish along the way and we reach our final stop at the Temple
of Dawn or Wat Arun as it's known locally, we walked/climbed up these
precariously steep and shallow steps to the top of the central prang
and were be greeted with a late afternoon sun soaked view over
Bangkok, was a great way to end what had been a horrific experience
prior at the zoo.
Yada yada yada and some stuff happened
in between the Temple of Dawn and such as food, walking through a
green space with lots of kites and more incredibly dangerous driving
and getting over a minor incident involving shoes, we arrive to the
State Tower Rooftop cocktail bar/restaurant.
This was chosen by the guys of the
group as this was one of the locations used in the film Hangover II,
and it was pretty obvious to tell the guests, the ones with money
dining at the restaurant enjoying the entertainment and quoting
Shakespeare, from the tourists, squashed onto a small corner of the
roof with the bar enjoying the view quoting Alan from Hangover I.
Only having one drink there we headed
to the complete polar-opposite of Bangkok's social scene, I don't
know it's proper name, but it this entertainment goes by the name of
'Ping-pong show'.
Entering the street where this happens
you're harassed by guys with menus and prices of what particular
thing you want to see; Pussy opens bottles, pussy plays flute, pussy
read book, pussy paints picture, pussy renders bricks, pussy pets
cat, pussy fucks dick and other such things.
God knows how anyone would bother with
this, but they would and we did. We walked around looking for the
perfect place to have this act burnt onto our retinas, we latch on to
some Americans that look like they know what they're doing and join
them into their second show.
Walking up into this seedy room that
looks and smells like a horrible dark social club where the great
unwashed come to make themselves feel better cause they're not as bad
as these guys, we sit down on a long bench with a lit podium and in
front of us watch these girls dance with as much passion, as the
caged animals we saw earlier, wanted to live.
Then from amongst the shadows this
girl/woman/female person that could only be best described as
'AIDs-ridden-ropey-roadkill' started to open bottles with her special
talent (her parents must be proud) and everyone was disgusted as that
was the point our drinks turned up.
AIDs-ridden-ropey-roadkill, came up to
us all asking for tips and everyone refused and as me and my friend
were at the end of the line of these people, and also refused we got
the most grief for not tipping. So, another mange-ridden girl took to
the stage and did something 'elegant' with ribbon, again the same tip
scenario happened.
AIDsy took to the stage again and this
time had blow darts and started to pop balloons, fairly impressive
and again came up for tips and everyone said no, this was when she
lost her temper.
She collected up her darts and sat down
on the floor next to me and my mate and uttered something in Thai and
fired a dart into the wall to the right of us and it had so much
force it stuck in, she then menacingly turned around 90 degrees
towards me and my friends and fired off a couple of rounds at up,
like some sort of perverted action film.
None of this was fun, but was fine
having AIDs darts showing down on us, it only became really a problem
and a time to leave when one dart pounded the gap between me and my
friend and stuck into the seat, that was when we both said together,
'Time to leave'.
That would be the big grand finale for
our first day in Bangkok, as we got a taxi back to our hotel to pass
out, recover, recoup and get tested for any STDs.
