Thailand - Bangkok and Ayutthaya

The southeast Asia trip has officially begun. Marcus and I are unemployed, homeless and living out of our backpacks. For me, this is an “again”. For Marcus, it’s more of a first. Our first stop is Thailand. We spent our first three days in Bangkok, sweating in the heat, swimming through the humidity, getting soaked by the monsoon rain, adapting to spicy food, dealing with cankles, and starting a solid thong tan.  

We arrived late Saturday night, took the train from the airport, then of course our connecting line was closed so cabbed the rest of the way. Cab drivers in Bangkok are not necessarily knowledgeable about the city’s geography so need quite the helping hand—something we found out more about later. But we made it to our hostel, Sunflower Place, located just of Silom road. Super convenient location, close to public transportation. Also close to the red light district with shady dudes touting ping pong shows (ugh) and multiple massage parlours where you can only wonder…   

But convenient location beats all. Plus, for something like $38 we got an ensuite double room with a TV, fridge, bathroom (yes, these are the things that count when we travel), a/c, and complimentary drinking water. Ooh, and the shower and toilet were actually in their own spaces rather than one on top of the other. Fancy or Thailand. J 

First thing Sunday morning we headed out to the Chatuchak weekend market, one of my favourite stops from my last trip to Thailand. Thousands of stalls selling all kinds of clothes, shoes, food, knick knacks, artwork, and although it said live animals and furniture, we didn’t have any luck in those areas. I picked up a few tank tops, which will be needed as I’m sweating through my shirts by 11am every day. Of course the random shirts in Thailand (purposeful?) are terribly enjoyable. My favourite was the tank top that has four popsicles and says “Shrubbery”. Yup. Marcus also picked up some sunglasses, since he’d just broken his other pair that morning. New sunnies for $3. That’ll do. 

For breakfast we grabbed some fresh pineapple, deep-fried bananas, and some crepes that we weren’t sure what the filling was. Turns out a hotdog. Weird. But tasty enough. We also found coconut ice cream. Success! I looked for coconut ice cream last time I was in Thailand, but was unsuccessful. This was delicious, and put into half a coconut shell and topped with peanuts and weird tapioca jellies. We’re in Asia, so there will be plenty of jellies in dessert. For lunch, strange enough, we had paella that was cooking in giant pans under the supervision of a large little Spaniard, hamming it up for the crowd, next to a DJ spinning tunes for the crowd. Good start to our trip.  

Next we hopped on a train and headed to the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre, nine stories of contemporary artwork from Thailand. On our way out, we decided to have a portrait done by one of the artists down on the fifth floor. Far better than any live portrait or caricatures I’ve seen before (and of course, I needn’t mention cheaper), we were pretty happy with the result. Random, but it’s interesting to see what you look like through someone else’s eyes.  

After getting soaked in the rain on the way back to our place, we decided to get our first Thai massage. Overall pretty good and thankfully we got our massages right next to each other, but they get…close. Definitely the, uh, closest massage I’ve had before. Not super comfortable, but it was nice to be stretched out.

 

After massages, we took a free tourist ferry out to some markets, had a foodcourt Thai dinner, then came back and Marcus got a knock-off watch at the designer markets close to our hostel. Can’t say we’re into the designer stuff, but I also got a Mulberry wallet. J  

The next day we went to Wat Pho and Wat Arun, two of the famous temples in the city. Lovely, and certainly very touristy.

 

The Royal Palace was closed (Queen’s Birthday), so we decided to check out Khao San Road, the backpackers’ ghetto. And it is just that—a ghetto. Travelers galore, somewhat loud drunks in the middle of the day and people kitted out in elephant pants, Thai beer shirts and a less than savory atmosphere. We were pretty happy to not be staying in the area. 

That night we went to Calypso, Thailand’s most renowned drag show. LOTS of performers, many of whom could actually pass as females until you see them move. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before, but they’re not particularly graceful. Except for one queen who lip synched to some Tina Turner, she had me wondering. There were many, many costumes. Probably the most costumes I’ve seen since I saw Priscilla, which is awfully appropriate. My favorites? Maybe the bunny costumes that accompanied “Mr Sandman”. Mr Sandman was a fully-costumed rabbit. Wow. There were also the banana skirts which were quite risqué, then the bananas began to glow. Wow! Completely cheesy, totally camp, extremely flamboyant, and completely enjoyable.  

Yesterday, after a few failed ticket-buying attempts (and seeing dragons in Lumphini Park), we went back to the Royal Palace. Oops, not dressed appropriately. We borrowed some clothes (they have this problem with tourists rather frequently) and wandered through the white-walled compound. We saw the Emerald Buddha, the weapons museum, and many, many beautifully mosaicked buildings. It’s very much like seeing cathedrals in Europe, yet they command more respect. Remove your shoes before you go inside. Dress appropriately. Locals bringing lotus flowers and receiving blessings from monks. And the mosaics are absolutely stunning, not to mention the detailed paintings inside buildings, Buddha statues inside, outside and everywhere. So very beautiful and different to anything we have back in the US or in Australia.  

 

For dinner we went to a restaurant specializing in Som Tam Der, spicy sour green papaya salads. They were fresh and delicious—onions, mint, coriander, peppers, lime juice and other tastiness. For dessert we tried a bizarre concoction of water chestnuts covered in pink coconut jelly, in coconut milk with ice. So strange!

Then we went to a Muay Thai fight at Lumphini Stadium. And, somewhat surprisingly, it was really enjoyable. We managed to avoid ticket touts outside and wended our way up to the wooden bench third-class seats. The stadium was quite intimate, though, and we had a great view of the fights. There were nine fights, each consisting of five three-minute rounds. At the beginning of each fight, the fighters climb into the ring with shiny capes, flowers around their neck and a simple headdress. The warm-up commences with stretching, praying and, unexpectedly, dancing. A bit of a preening before pummelling the other fighter with punches, kicks and knees. The first round is a bit slow, the fighters feeling each other out. The fighting is accompanied by live music—a pipe that sounds like a snake charmer’s pipe, a drum and cymbals. The music starts slow and as the time and intensity of the round increases, so does the tempo of the music. As the rounds continue, the fighting gets more intense, the audience gets involved, making bets and cheering on their favoured fighter, yelling “Eep!” in unison when their fighter gets in a good hit. The audience excitement eventually drowns out the snake charmer’s music and all you can hear are shouts, cheers and heckles with a little bit of percussion in the background.

Most of the time you could tell who was winning, though there was at least one surprise win. Some sort of technicality. We also saw one knock-out, which was frightening. The fighters move so fast, and when one goes down, they can lose in an instant.

The gambling was another form of entertainment in and of itself. Some sort of specialized sign language roaming from one end of the stadium to another. Fingers indicating numbers, hands fluttering up and down, pointing, eyeballing. We tried to decipher, but I at least was not successful. The bookies roamed around collecting and rewarding big wads of cash. Gamblers smoking, snuffing and heaving their big bellies out of their shirts. Definitely a unique environment to any other I’ve been exposed to previously.

Of course the gender ratio is about 30 men for every woman, and that’s just in the tourist section. Though on the gender note, I must say that I was really happy this fighting lacked bikini girls. It was straight up sport with fighting and ritual.

Today we had every intention of taking a train to Konchanaburi, a WWII site of a former POW camp where prisoners built a railway and the infamous wooden bridge over the river Kwai. Unfortunately we had a bit of a mishap getting to the train station. We talked to more than 20 cab drivers this morning, none of whom knew how to get to the train station. Unbelievable. It took us so long to find someone who knew how to get there (and he took the longest route through the gridlocked city traffic) that we missed the train. It was pulling out just as we pulled into the station. Fail! The next train didn’t leave for another six hours, so we bailed and headed to the other train station to head to Ayutthaya instead. Ayutthaya is the old capital city with beautiful old temples scattered throughout the town. After the train ride, we found a hostel, checked out a few different rooms, decided to treat ourselves to more a/c, booked bus tickets to Chiang Mai for tomorrow night, and. Stopped. For the first time, we stopped moving and just allowed ourselves to sit for a few hours and relax. Thank goodness! Otherwise I wouldn’t have had time to write this. We went on a leisurely sunset cruise in a tiny boat that you’re afraid will flip as each new passenger gets on the boat (it only fits eight) and we drove around the connection of rivers and canals that act as a moat around the old capital. We stopped at a few temples, saw another giant golden Buddha, the old capital of Ayutthaya, and a beautiful ruined temple that was built in the 1600s. Thank you beautiful sunset lighting.

 

For dinner we wandered through the night market and got a few morsels—another freshy, spicy salad, strange spikey pink fruits, disgusting juices and strange little taco-looking finger food made of a sweet wafer and had a white cream on top. Turns out it was marshmallow cream with savory Thai spices on top. Again, so weird!

And now we’re taking a night in to relax, watching American TV shows and sitting back. Bicycle around the inside of the moat tomorrow, then night bus to Chiang Mai.