As anyone who visits Asia knows, it almost feels as if it is
a requirement to visit an endless string of temples as you pound the pavement
on the tourist trail. It is no different
than church viewing in Italy or prostitution scouting in Amsterdam; it is
something that has to be done. With that in mind, Colleen and I set out for
the day and took the BTS Sky Train (monorail) over to the river. Now Bangkok is not a place that I think most
people from the outside view as being overly modern or first world, but I must
say their monorail system is really quite nice.
Adding to that point, I recently have also read that Bangkok is now the
number one tourist destination in the world, surpassing such places as New York
City, Paris, and London. I guess cheap
cross-gender prostitutes are a bigger seller than history and architecture
these days.
Upon arriving at the ferry terminal, we crowded into lineups
with all the other tourists and bought our day passes to ride the river ferry
system. We then headed upstream to visit
one of Thailand's most famous temples, Wat Phra Kaew, which was also home to
the Grand Palace. Like many holy places,
there was a dress code which was strictly enforced and that meant legs had to
be fully covered, sandals could not be worn, and the top parts of your arms had
to be covered as well. Next thing I knew
I was standing next to Colleen dressed in a long skirt and wearing Reeboks and
looking like a casting reject from "Breaking Amish". Pretending I didn't know the woman beside me
was probably the highlight of the visit to the holy place also known as the
Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Other than
that, the two of us mostly just walked around taking goofy pictures,
complaining about the heat, shoving popsicles down our pants and swearing that
we were going to be visiting a minimal number of temples on our vacation.
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| Colleen looking super sexy in her temple get-up. Hubba hubba. |
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| Super exciting temple stuff. |
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| The real fun of visiting such sites is taking stupid pictures. |
Thankfully, after we left the temple Colleen swore off her
Mennonite look and we took the ferry to the next stop along the river where we
were going to visit some medical museum.
Given our poor navigation skills, we ended up just wondering the streets
for a while before giving up on ever finding it and decided to just visit a
7/11 instead for some Thai Red Bull (shit's crazy!) and candy.
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| That's a fake smile. I felt like death shortly after downing the sugary-caffeine concoction. |
Wanting to make sure we maximized the value of our all-day,
unlimited rides on the ferry ticket, we again hopped aboard the vessel and made
our way to another stop. Here, we ended
up hanging out at some park/old fort and visited the Khao San area of the
city. Anyone who knows Bangkok will know
that Khao San is also commonly referred to as the "backpacker ghetto"
and is generally how I think most people picture Bangkok to be. There is a sea of humanity and you are
harassed constantly from all angles by people trying to sell you shit,
including fake IDs, knockoff suits and counterfeit prescription drugs (generic
Viagra anyone?). Factor in that the area
is full of young, and often times intoxicated travelers, and you have yourself
a recipe for a very lively atmosphere.
One of my personal favorite sights was a truck that had been converted
into a currency exchange/ATM. That was a
first for me, and definitely seemed a little suspect to say the least. One our
way back to catch the ferry, my worst fear was realized when all of a sudden my
stomach started turning and there wasn't a respectable bathroom to be seen
anywhere in sight. Colleen could see
that I wasn't doing well and we quickly started searching for the nearest
shitter. Luckily, we were passing by a
park that had some bathrooms, although I quickly discovered that the men's
bathrooms were unshittable in (see: too disgusting to describe). So....Colleen and I devised a plan where she
would stand guard outside the women's bathroom while I went inside and
proceeded to crap my brains out. In
between random women coming in to use the bathroom Colleen would come in to the
bathroom and whisper to me through the door that it was safe to come out. The only problem was the my butthole was now
exploding and there was no way I could leave the stall. This game of cat-and-mouse went on for about
half an hour before I was finally able to free myself and make a run for it
before some woman could come in and catch me soiling up the finer sex's
toilets. Lastly on this matter, I just
want to thank Colleen for always travelling with baby wipes and/or
tissues. You saved my life that day; or
at the very least a pair of my finest Joe Boxers.
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| The craziness of Khao San Road. |
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| Seems legit. |
Luckily, I survived my gastro-intestinal attack and lived to
see the evening. We were going to be
leaving Bangkok the next day, so we opted to do a little street shopping. The area around our hostel was full of street
vendors selling all sorts of things. I
was in the market for a pair of shorts, which was not too easy to find in Asia
given my size. This was made even harder
due to the fact that I had put on weight over the last couple of months of
being on vacation. In the end, I bought
some shorts that I thought would fit, but alas I discovered back at my room
that my girth had grown even larger than I had thought. The only thing that would take the pain away
of discovering that I grown a few pant sizes was to find a Thai bar with a
terrible cover band attempting to sing songs in English when in fact they
couldn't pronounce three words if their lives depended on it. Throw in jugs of beer and fishbowls for $5
and you have yourself the perfect pity party.
With a few beverages in our system we headed out into the night in
search of the golden arches of Mickey D's.
On our short walk through some back streets, we encountered giant sewer
rats, geckos, and the world's nastiest cockroaches. While Colleen was frightened, I thought it
was great as I now figured we could save some money on future zoo
admissions.
Back at the hostel, Colleen fell asleep in a McDonald's
induced coma, while I entertained myself with a viewing of "The Hangover2". Having now been to Thailand,
and more specifically Bangkok, I had a new appreciation for the film and found
it to be a lot funnier as I could relate to a lot of the things in the
movie.
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| Colleen's favorite part of the day: hitting the exit at Wat Phra Kaew. |
And with that, we would be moving on tomorrow to the sleazy
lovely seaside town of Hua Hin.
~Brentski~
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