Bangkok: Home of 8,000,000 people

Thankfully our flight with Qantas was a bit more enjoyable than with Virgin, with food and a movie.  We had a one night stopover in Sydney, with Sarah (our RA) as our savior, allowing us to crash with her, and the family I’ve been staying with was amazing enough to come out and pick up my luggage, since I’ll be staying with them again for my one night between Thailand and home.

The flight to Bangkok was another easy one with Qantas, though unfortunately we didn’t sit together, but it wasn’t a big deal since we both just watched movies anyway.

Oh, I don’t have my own laptop with me, so I won’t be able to put any pictures in my posts until I get back home.  Sorry about that.  I’ll have to go back and add them later.

Landing in Bangkok couldn’t have been more different from Alice Springs and Ayer’s Rock.  We went from the middle of nowhere to the middle of everywhere, from emptiness and stars to crowded streets and smog.  For anyone who thought Sydney was a crowded Sydney, they clearly haven’t been to Bangkok.

We stayed in Silom, at Saphai Pae, a very clean hostel in a perfect location.  Our roommates were very nice, one an American Japanese man around my father’s age, and the other a Chilean guy a bit older than us who is studying at Sydney Uni and came out to have dental work since it’s so much cheaper.

Wednesday we woke up pretty early and walked down to the river and hired a private long boat to take us around.  It was the king’s birthday (Dec 5), so the entire city was celebrating, and the floating markets, which are generally only open on weekends, were open for the holiday.  The king’s birthday is a HUGE deal.  I thought Melbourne cup was big, but here EVERYONE was wearing yellow (the king’s color. Don’t ask me why yellow, I never quite figured that out), and there’s no tax allowed and there are discounts on everything, since it’s a worker’s day (I don’t quite understand that either, but it sounds like the workers themselves get all the money they make?).  We read about the king a bit online, and it turns out it’s his 85^th birthday, and he’s the longest reigning monarch.  He also has made the place peaceful

Anyway, so it’s super hot and humid in the city, but on the long boat the weather was great with the nice breeze we got.  

Along the way we saw some really big lizard, which our driver assured us wasn’t a crocodile, though neither of us had thought it was.  

It was cool seeing all of the houses along the water, and some appeared to be only accessible by boat.  The temples we road by were massive and beautiful (like Wat Arun), though again extra crowded because of the king’s birthday.

Wat Arun

The floating market was interesting.  I think we went to a smaller one.  It sounds like the bigger ones are farther away.  It was neat though, although the only thing at this market was food, and neither of us was particularly hungry since we’d had a nice breakfast with our Chilean roommate, Alejandro, at the hostel.  Regardless, it was cool seeing people cooking the food and filling orders from their boats.  People were also feeding the fish, and the water was just as crowded with fish as the city was with people, with them falling over each other trying to get the food people threw in.  Everyone was incredibly friendly, despite our difficulty communicating.  Thank goodness counting on your fingers is universal, or we wouldn’t have figured out what most things cost.

Mystery fruit

Talk about inexpensive.  We got two tangerines for about 30 cents, and they threw in a third one, we’re still not sure why.  We also got a $1 Thai beer, Chang, which wasn’t great but we figured we’re in Thailand we should try their beer.  Ever since we’ve noticed that Chang is a huge thing, making water and other drinks also, and is advertised everywhere.

The boat then dropped us at the King’s Palace, but opening times were different for the king’s birthday, so we took a tuk-tuk instead around the city.  A tuk-tuk is sort of like a cab, but open with just a roof but no walls, and it only sits two really comfortably.  I think it’s one of the things that might be easier to show in a picture.  Let’s talk cheap again, it was 40 Baht, about $1.50, for about 4 hours of driving around.  Some guy at the palace ordered it for us and told the driver where to take us, saying we should come back to the palace around 1 to look around, though sadly we never made it.

We got to our first stop quickly, as tuk-tuk drivers are pretty crazy and aggressive.  Basically, the road rules here are that there are no rules, and if you can go you should.  Some people drive on the wrong side of the road, drive between cars even if there’s no lane, drive around cars on any side.  As long as you can fit you may as well go, and there is definitely no speed limit, though I didn’t feel unsafe at any point.

Our first stop was a temple with a giant Buddha (Wat Intrarawihan).

Jessica bought a little cage of three birds, and released them at the Buddha’s feet, apparently a symbol of freedom (of course) and good luck.  Honestly I’m glad she did it because those birds were pretty tightly packed into the big cage, so it was good to let them free.  Just before she released them, though, a cat came over, so we had to avoid the cat so it wouldn’t kill one of the just freed birds.  Cats over here seem to be like in Israel, dirty stray cats everywhere around the temples, and then dirty stray dogs everywhere around the city.  It’s a bit crazy, and the dogs just lay around the streets, looking like they’re about to be killed by the crazy drivers.

Then the madness began.  Our tuk-tuk driver brought us to so many shops, mostly tailors and jewelry.  We quickly caught on that they get commission for bringing stupid tourists like ourselves, and we were trying to be nice to the driver, but at some point enough is enough.  At one place we walked in and said we just wanted to look around and the salesman was so rude we just walked out, and then our driver made it sound like we owed him one for not looking around long enough.  I don’t think he realized that he was taking two broke students around to buy stuff that was nice but we couldn’t afford.

Even when we asked him to take us to a good place for lunch, he brought us somewhere more expensive than either of us would have liked (granted, by Australian and American standards it was still cheap, but neither of us want to spend that much on a meal again).  That’s also where I learned that for some reason fish dishes seem to be more expensive than seafood, chicken, or meat, so I’m going to stick to strict vegetarianism most likely (unless of course we go out for sushi).

At the last store we stopped at the salesman, Kevin, was incredibly nice, and they had beautiful dress designs, so we stayed and chatted a while and they gave us two free Chang beers, and then they helped us convince the driver to just take us back to the palace, though it was already well past 1.

It was crazy crowded and there were lots of people in different uniforms and it looked sort of like the end of a parade, and there were car escorts.  It’s a shame we missed the king himself and the actual parade, but it was still exciting just being around all the people, though a bit overwhelming as well. 

There are these beautiful butterflies here of all different kinds flying around.  Actually I was a bit surprised because they were in the city itself as well.  There are also pretty average looking birds, but some of them make really cool sounds, one even sounded like a monkey (granted I think about monkeys a lot, but even Jessica said it sounded like monkeys without me mentioning it).

From there we caught the 15 Baht (50 cent) public boat back to our dock, to go get ready for dinner.

Jessica’s family friend has a cousin in Bangkok, Pe Aw (pronounced Pay Aw, that’s her nickname, but her real name is long).  She came and drove us to a really cute place for dinner, which seemed much less touristy, and she ordered for us, ensuring that we got the best food.  She was very understanding about me being vegetarian.  We had an amazing tofu soup dish, an Asian omelet (very different from American eggs- they cook it in a wok full of oil and mix it around. We were huge fans), and a veggie dish.  Of course we had rice with them.  Pe Aw was very helpful telling us how Thai people eat.  First of all, they eat with a fork and spoon, using the fork really only to help cut and shovel things onto the spoon.  They also eat EVERYTHING with the rice, including soup, so you’d have a bite of soup then a bit of rice.  They don’t really use napkins, and definitely not in your lap.  Apparently there’s also a vegetable (it was in their shrimp soup so I didn’t have it) that they put in food, but you’re not really supposed to eat it.

Jessica also accidentally ate a chili that looked like a mushroom, so Pe Aw taught her to take a whole spoonful of sugar and hold it in her mouth until it felt better and then go spit it out.  Apparently it worked great.  (I’d heard of putting sugar on spicy food to make it easier to eat, but I’d never thought of this)

For dessert, apparently mango with sticky rice is very popular, so we tried to order it, but they were unfortunately out of the rice part.  The mango itself was delicious though, slightly warm. Apparently there are a bunch of different kinds of mango out here and this happened to be Pe Aw’s favorite one.

We also grilled her for a few Thai words that we thought might come in handy.  Here’s what we learned:

Hello: Sawasdee Ka

Thank you: Kob Khun Ka

Bathroom: Hong Nam

The Ka means that the person speaking is a female.

After dinner Pe Aw took us to a market that is open also at night, called Asiatiques.  It was a bit overwhelming, a bit like a much fancier Paddy’s Market in Sydney, or a shuk in Israel.  It was fun looking around, though we were both pretty exhausted, but we enjoyed walking around and seeing the river, and browsing through cute clothes.  I’ve been trying to find a watch necklace, because there had been a ton in Sydney and I’d thought I could get it for cheaper here, but so far I haven’t even found one here, so I’m still on the hunt.

We saw one of those fish foot massage things, where they eat the dead skin off your feet, and we figured we should give it a try.  Oh. My. Goodness. We could not stop laughing.  It tickled so much, and I cannot imagine how people do it for a full 15 minutes, like we were supposed to.  I don’t think we lasted even two.  I also at some points felt a bit uncomfortable, able to feel the fish bite instead of when it just felt like a tickle.  Maybe sometime in my life I’ll try again, and maybe if I compete to see who can stay longer I’ll actually make it the full time since I hate losing.  It was really nice for Pe Aw to bring us around like that.

Thursday morning we woke up bright and early, didn’t even eat breakfast, and got on a tour bus (a pretty sketchy one).  That’s when I really noticed how awful the smog was, since it was supposedly sunny outside, not cloudy, but it looked like the city was in a low cloud.

We ended up actually being with an Australian family, which was nice, though they were a group of complainers so at points it was annoying.  It was also funny that they commented how few rubbish bins there were, considering that that’s how I feel about Australia as well.

The driver was absolutely crazy and made me feel less safe than I had in the tuk-tuk.  He drove quickly, which I didn’t really mind, but he also swerved a lot and stopped short once, almost hitting the car in front of us.  He also tailgated like nobody’s business, about an inch from the cars or trucks in front of us at points.  Anyway, we survived and that’s what matters, though at some point people yelled at him and he finally slowed down.

We stopped at a World War II Cemetery and Museum, along with the Bridge over the River Kwai.  To be honest, we hadn’t signed up for the tours because of these, and they were pretty boring, so aside from crossing the bridge, we mostly just looked in little shops.  Then, because two girls in our van were too late, we ended up not being able to take a cool train ride we were supposed to have.

Bridge over the river Kwai (Warning: remember to be sure not to get run over by the train)

Instead, we skipped it and went right to lunch on a floating restaurant.  After lunch we got on rafts, got pulled up the river by a long boat, and then were ditched and floated back.  It was really relaxing and despite already being the afternoon, finally felt like the day had begun.  The water was a great temperature to stick our feet in, and we saw cute houses by the river, and a beautiful bird.

From there, we did what we’d really come for: we went to ride elephants.  Jessica and I of course were on the same one, a pretty big (I know all elephants are big but I mean bigger) male, named something close to Pataya.  We were mostly on a seat on his back, but when the rider got off to take our pictures, we took turns riding right on his neck.  It was cool how he responded right to the rider’s calls and followed him where we were supposed to go.  I’d definitely do that again sometime. 

Sadly, there was also a baby elephant who was chained up, and was playing with Jessica and putting mud on her, but then suddenly seemed to get frustrated.  People came up and gave him food though, so maybe that’s what he’d wanted.

After everyone was done, we headed on to a waterfall, which we weren’t quite dressed to play in, but we climbed up the part that seemed like you could slide.  It was more beautiful than I’d imagined it would be, and I’m glad we stopped there.

Jessica conquered the waterfall!

Too cute not to capture

Our next stop was the second we’d booked for: the Tiger Temple.  We went through one by one and got to take pictures petting tigers.  It was very much a quick operation, but I still am glad I pet tigers. 

At one point they told me to get up on a rock, which had a tiger sitting on it, and another jumped up as I sat there, so I got a bit nervous for a second but otherwise it was cool.

Conveniently he got a photo of the moment

It was sad that they were chained though, but I’m sure we wouldn’t have been allowed otherwise.  We also got to walk the tiger for a bit, and take a picture with a monk feeding the tiger from a bottle. 

That part actually made me really sad, because the tiger didn’t seem to want any more and the monk tried to force him so that more people could have pictures.  I was glad when they let him stop.  I’m also pretty sure I saw a monk smoking, which I did not expect.

Talking with people working there was interesting, apparently you can just volunteer for at least a month, though most seemed to be there for longer, and they provide room and board and the worker gets a small sum of spending money.  After going though, I can’t decide if it’s actually refuge for the tigers or mean, so I don’t think I could work there.

There were also some other animals around:

After returning to the hostel, our roommate told us that the power was out in Koh Samui, where we were supposed to fly yesterday morning so we ended up spending the night trying to figure out what to do, didn’t manage to succeed (I’m not sure if I’ve said but we don’t have phones out here, so we had trouble contacting people, and have been using pay phones.  The only other time we had to use one was to call Pe Aw to see when and where we should meet her.  Thank goodness that the world hasn’t given up on payphones because of cell phones, because if they had we would’ve gotten into trouble).  Anyway so we tried and failed to use the payphone to call the airline and when the front desk finally let us just call from there the office was closed anyway.

Instead, we got to get up at 3 am to go to the airport and see if we could figure it all out there.  Unfortunately we still had to take our flight from Bangkok to Koh Samui, but we were able to change our flight from Koh Samui to Phuket that was supposed to be three days later, and instead booked a flight from Koh Samui to Krabi on that same day (aka yesterday).  Bangkok Airways is the absolute greatest.  I cannot explain how helpful they were.  Even on the hour long flight, they gave us a pretty good meal, and by the time we were up in the air we were already landing again.

Now, I know we didn’t really go to Koh Samui, but I will say this, the Koh Samui airport is great!  Personally, I don’t mind flying in general, but I tend to hate the time I spend in an airport.  Here was so different.  We debated leaving to see the island a bit since we had 5 hours, but when we saw the airport and since we were so exhausted we changed our minds.  The airport is basically like an outdoor strip mall. 

The airport

Also surprising, we got the cheapest Pad Thai we’ve found, and it was delicious (with glass noodles. Yum)!  How the cheapest food was in the airport, I can’t tell you.

When we finally checked in (we were still outside once we went through the gate), they had all these comfy chairs and cute little tables right at the gate, and a small area with complimentary food and drinks! There were mini sandwiches and cookies and little cake things and some weird Thai dessert that I tried and learned I didn’t like and lemonade and iced chocolate drink and so much more.  If only we’d known there’d be free snacks even before the flight we wouldn’t have bought lunch (though since it was so delicious I didn’t regret it).

Our flight again was incredibly short yet incredibly nice with a meal despite only being in the air for 40 minutes.  I’m telling you, if you can ever fly Bangkok Airways ANYWHERE, as Nike would say, Just Do It.

Anyhow, our trip to Bangkok overall was very fun, though I’m glad to now be out of such a dirty, crowded city, but I’m still glad I experienced it.  Plus, Jessica and I got to check things off our bucket lists that we never even had time to write on them.  Who knows if that’s possible but we’ve done it!

Cultural facts:
Thai people eat with a spoon, with the fork helping just to get the food onto the spoon and maybe cut some things.
Some bathrooms don't have toilet paper in the stalls, but instead it's where you'd expect to find paper towels, so you have to take some and bring it in with you.
The king's birthday and father's day are the same because the king is the nation's father.
They celebrate Chinese New Year in February and Thai New Year in April.
There's a water festival in April, when people are supposed to pour water into elders' hands, but end up also just spraying water at everyone in the streets.
There are two seasons, hot and hottest (as Pe Aw said). Thankfully we're just in hot.

Modes of transportation taken:
1. Train
2. Longboat
3. Private Tuk tuk
4. Public boat
5. Car
6. Public Tuk tuk