Day 67- So You Can Sing, Play An Instrument, Do The Splits AND Balance A Bottle On Your Head At The Same Time?! I Feel So Worthless Now.

My engagement story is officially over. Thank you to everyone for making those blog postings my most viewed of all-time!  For the next couple of months I will do my best to finish wrapping up the trip log-blog-story from Colleen and I's visit to Asia last year. Thanks again for reading everyone and just remember...when picking up hookers in Thailand, be sure to inspect their genital region for gender identification purposes.

Due to my previous misfortunes  shame inducing wipeouts from operating mopeds in Thailand, I was still too gun shy to drive anything and thus Colleen and I were forced to walk and cab everywhere.  With that in mind, I came up with the brilliant idea that the two of us should take a hike out to some rocks I had read about that were apparently shaped like genitals and were somewhat of a local landmark.  Yes, this is what passes for entertainment in my life.  Never ones to plan anything, Colleen and I set off and were quickly regretting our decision.  After nearly an hour of walking in what felt like the most suffocating heat in the history of mankind (with many pit stops along the way for various liquid breaks), we finally arrived at our destination.  Sadly, the rocks were extremely underwhelming and I was starting to wish that I had just stayed in our hotel room and watched Thai soap operas all day.  Seeing as how we had walked all this way though, we decided to explore a little path through the forest that we saw other people coming and going from.  Not really being sure of what to expect, I must say it was an odd surprise when after a few minutes we stumbled upon a couple of rickety houses shacks and a large group of both Thai and foreign potheads smoking up on some gigantic boulders overlooking the ocean.  Didn't see that coming.  Just a note to all non-black people: DREADSLOOK TERRIBLE AND DIRTY ON YOU. JUST SAYING.  Sadly, the genitalia rocks did not live up to the hype and I was thus forced to stop for beers on the way back to the hotel to drown my sorrows.  Oh, and then stop for pizza.  And this is why I was up over fifteen pounds since leaving Inuvik.



Our fake "hiking is fun" smiles.



My real "drinking beer is way more awesome than hiking" pose.



 

With our feet sore and our bodies worn out from a lot (at least to us!) of walking that day, Colleen again convinced me to go for a massage.  Unlike the previous day's visit, I made sure that I had underwear on this time.  While everything went peachy for me, Colleen unfortunately fell victim to a breakdown in communications.  Earlier in the afternoon she had twisted her ankle and she thought the massage would help.  Instead, the ladies with magic hands proceeded to destroy Colleen's ankle a little more and turn her into a full on gimp!

 

Just say no to crack kids.

You know what fixes up my busted ankle? Not getting it torqued and ripped around by a masseuse.

With Colleen's ankle in a severely gimpy state, the two of us decided to spend our evening once again touring the many street side "bars" in Lamai Beach.   Eventually, we headed to the more refined and slightly louder confines of the Sham Rock Bar.  Sham Rock's is probably the busiest bar on that part of the island, with an Irish-Island theme and a Thai cover band playing the greatest rock songs ever.  Not only was the band awesome, but they were also like magicians, balancing bottles on their head while playing instruments, doing the splits with said bottles on head, solving world hunger, etc.  I must say, I have seen some great cover bands in my time (shout out to The Practically Hip and Wanted Dead Or Alive), but these guys definitely ranked right up there.  In keeping with our tradition, Colleen insisted on hitting up the local Subway after the bar for the third night running and it is safe to say Jared ain't got shit on Colleen!

 

Note the heads....



Are you kidding me right now?! Bieber's got nothing on this!

~Brentski~

Day 50 (January 7, 2013)- "If Anyone Asks Colleen, That Was Your Explosive Diarrhea In The Women's Bathroom"

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.

Colleen looking super sexy in her temple get-up. Hubba hubba.

Super exciting temple stuff.

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.

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.  

The craziness of Khao San Road.

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.  

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~