A day of play...

On Wednesday, Maly and I fully utilized our day to go and see the Jim Thompson House (an expat who revolutionized the Thai silk industry and then disappeared when he was 61) which was an almost traditional thai house here in Bangkok. The traditional Thai house is several individual houses joined together (and I say almost traditional b/c he added in a dining room table & decided that he needed an inside toilet beyond the chamber pot or going outside).

While the house was interesting to see and the foliage was absolutely gorgeous, the best part of the day was an exhibit by some Japanese artists in one of the buildings on-site. One of the exhibits was a game where 1 or 2 people put on these round bulls-eye looking over-clothes and chased images being projected on me around the room. Then, there was another exhibit where I drew a picture on a postcard and climbed to the top of a giant mound of pillows to place the picture in a mailbox. The pictures will go to another part of the world and are given out at the next exhibit. It was great sliding down the mound of pillows--Maly and I probably spent a good hour playing these games.

Aieeee....

Tonight we ventured to Lumpini Stadium, one of the 2 venues in Bangkok where Thai boxing occurs--supposedly the one w/better views regardless of ticket prices, to see Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing). The night starts at 6:30 and lasts almost 5hrs w/7 match-ups and each contest consisting of 5 3min rounds. Needless to say we arrived just in time for the main fight of the night, and bought the "cheap" tickets, which were standing room only in the upper level. We were the only non-Thai's in that section and all around us people were actively betting on different rounds vs different match-ups (not really sure but there was alot of point screaming and signalling numbers to people--one guy had at least 10 cell phones attached to his belt and each one had an earpiece which was cliped to the collar of his shirt), lots of money was being freely exchanged as we stood up there w/the degenerates. If I couldn't see the fight, then I could always tell when it was getting good, b/c suddenly everyone would be standing, yelling and signalling their bets--I was not able to discern the signals to take part.

The fighting was more skill than anything, it was much less brutal or bloody when compared to regular boxing; however we did witness one guy essentially punch-out a guy's knee and thus ended the fight early. But the fights would almost always start very slow for the first 2 rounds then starting in round 3 it would start getting good and usually by round 5 the winner was already determined and pointless. It was a fascinating night watching both the Thai population and seeing a huge part of Thai culture.

Ahhh...the flying rats

Pigeons, I've learned, are all around the world; only apparently in some countries they are not nearly as obese as those in New York. In fact, the pigeons in Thailand look kind of scrawny...and today I saw why. While I was eating my lunch on a bench in one of the outside courtyards of Siriraj hospital, I realized that Thai's don't eat alot of bread and then I saw a family of 3 feeding them tofu. I guess the tofu keeps the flying rats slightly thinner than the bread at home.

Bangkok touring...

Today marked the last full weekend I am spending in Bangkok and to honor this day I took the express ferry up to Dusit (part of Bangkok that resembles many European cities) and visited the Vimanmek Palace--a palace made entirely of golden teak in the Victorian style. The palace was originally built in another location in Thailand for the royal family and brought to Bangkok by King Rama V. The mansion is gorgeous and contained artifacts from all over the world--now a collection of the possesions of many different kings and queens. The area that the mansion resides is a green oasis among the concrete and smog of Bangkok.

Following the mansion, Chris and I made our way back down the Chao Phrya River on the express ferry to the start of the sky train and took the sky train to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar (where we will be revisiting on Tuesday for Mai Thai) and found the Traditional Thai Puppet Theater (otherwise known as the Joe Louis Theater) and saw a traditional Thai puppet show re-enacting the Birth of Ganesha done by professional Thai dancers. It was really impressive. There were 3 dancers to control each puppet and their movements and facial expressions reflected those of the puppet. The music and story telling (in Thai) was all performed live.

After the puppet show ended, we grabbed a cab and went to a really nice dinner where the food was good and restaurant had a great ambience. Then...the rains came right as we were leaving and hailing a cab. Rainy season has started...early nonetheless.

River Kwae

Today with Pluk and Aom we ventured to the Kanchanaburi Province and the River Kwae, where thousands of WWII POW's died while building both the Death Railway and the Bridge over the River Kwae. The most impressive and memorable part of today was seeing how the community continues to reverently honor those who died. Several cemetaries were donated by Thailand for the burial of the POW soldiers from the Netherlands, Austrailia, UK, America etc., and over 7,000 soldiers are buried in these immaculately kept cemetaries. The bridge still stands and was rebuilt after it was bombed during the war and a train continues to take tourists across the bridge (eventhough it is easily walked).

We had a great lunch, that included lots of seafood (Tom yam gung soup with giant river prawns and a large river fish), then hired a boat to take the four of us up the river to see the scenery along the River Kwae--this was by far my favorite part of the day.

On the way back, we stopped off at the Phra Pathom Chedi--which was closed but could walk around it-- and wandered through the local food stall market that sets up in front of the temple. As we wandered by the carts, Pluk and Aom would ask if we had ever tried something--be it fruit or some cooked thing--and when the answer was no (as it usually was) they decided we needed to try it & bought several. Everything we had while wondering--& I couldn't tell you the name of any of it--was wonderful. Then we went to one of the outdoor restaurants for the "official" dinner--for which they ordered the equivalent of shark fin soup apparently which was a syrup consistency soup containing different parts of the bamboo, coagulated pigs blood and fish stomach--needless to say I didn't really like the taste before I knew what was in it, but it really only made it worse when they were describing the contents while I was trying to eat it. We finished the evening of a great day with chocolate ice cream (thai toppings of note are corn soup, corn, pumpkin, and a few other things that I have no clue--very strange to eat them mixed w/ice cream...I think I like my sprinkles, berries and chocolate chips).

The perfect day...

Yesterday was the perfect day...I went to work for 2 hours, then ran into Jessica on the way out of the hospital and we wandered through the market beside the hospital to find lunch. Bought a lunch of bubble tea, pork & sticky rice eaten with my fingers like the Thai's. Grabbed Maly when she was done and sat with her during lunch. Then Maly and I went on an adventure to find the train station that was very close to the hospital...during which we spoke to no less than 3 military/policemen who all directed us in the general area by pointing b/c they didn't speak English, at one point we ended up on the other side of the tracks & had to turn around. We finally found it, and as a reward I went for a 2hr Thai Massage.

Then for dinner all of us ventured into the Middle Eastern section of Bangkok and had a fabulous feast of falafel, hummous, lamb, yogurt, tabouli...you get the picture. While we were there we were surrounded by signs written in arabic, not Thai, and the population within that area was entirely Middle Eastern...it was almost like we were in a different city. After dinner we walked a few blocks over to the club "BedSupperClub" and had a couple of drinks and watched many tourists/expats dance...there were 2 couples who deserve mention: one couple was attempting to two-step to techno/80's music, and the other was just dancing very poorly but the guy was wearing a patch-work button-up shirt and the girl was donning a hideous floral patch-work-looking shirt. I don't think I've done them justice in this blog, but you can use your imagination.

Night markets of Bangkok

Monday night, Chris, Jessica, Maly and I ventured to the PatPong night market full of knock-offs and apparently sex shows. As we walked down the crowded isles, we had a small, and sometimes large, laminated paper advertising "Pussy" and "show" listed as the price shoved into our faces. Our sexes did not matter these people were very aggressive, sometimes following us halfway down the isle. The best response of all was when Maly replied "no thank you, I have one" and kept walking. As far as the shopping goes, they had knock offs of all varieties and qualities with very high starting prices, intense bargaining skills were required & usually the vendor won--so we did not buy. I realized that if I ever wanted to start buying knock-offs, NYC Chinatown is as good a place as any.