bangkok

yesterday we explored a bit of bangkok.  we took the air train further into town and wandered until we found the ferry station.  i had taken ferry rides, like taxis, through brisbane and sydney but bangkok's water transportation was a whole new world.  instead of the giant, new, high powered cats of australia these boats were long and wooden and rickety and jam smashed with people.  everywhere in the dirty brown water there were crazy old boats of every description flying in every direction.  some were long and pointy and some had roofs that made them look like houses.  there was definitely no speed limit and the wakes from all of the boats made the docks rise and fall and tilt.  when our boat arrived it barely slowed down, as it approached a man whistled and jumped off the back and threw a line over a metal pole, then the captain threw it in reverse and slammed into the tires on the dock.  we had about 10 seconds to jump onto the boat before the guy whistled again and we were off.  a woman pushed her way through the crowd jingling a box of money and somehow she found every new person in the crowd to get the fare.  this was definitely the chicken bus of the sea.

we got off at wat pho, which is thailand's oldest and largest temple, also the national headquarters for traditional thai medicine and massage.  and it holds the biggest collection of buddha images in the country.  the area was walled in and contained several temples and ornately decorated buildings, most of which had dozens of buddhas inside.  pictures, statues, more buddhas than can possibly be described.  some had altars and people praying, some were just rooms of dozens of statues lining the walls.  we had to remove our shoes to enter each of them.  in one i was required to wear a shawl because again, of course, i was not wearing a sufficient amount of clothing.  

the main attraction for most tourists at wat pho was the giant reclining buddha, measuring 46 meters long by 15 meters high.  it was enormous.  and it was enclosed in a room that barely contained it so people were jammed inside taking pictures.  its eyes and feet were covered in mother of pearl, and the bottoms of the feet held over 100 images of buddha in various stages.  i'm quite happy that shanti wanted to go see that because with the sky train and transfer and walk to the ferry i would never have found it by myself.

it was quite an intense morning with the chinese new year festivities so we went back to the hotel to recover.  i napped.  

pablo was the first of us to get a massage in bangkok.  i offered to buy him a 'happy ending' but he didn't want anything to do with that.  he limped back to the hotel an hour later and was in more pain than when he went in, these ladies are nuts.  my theory is that they are such tiny women and they see big people like pablo or me and they feel they have to work extra hard to make it an effective massage.  but when they use elbows and knees and jam them in your soft places they really don't need to add any extra effort.  pablo actually has bruises on his back today.  shanti and i heeded his warning and only got our heads, necks and feet worked.

today we had to check out of our hotel so we stored our luggage and headed to the outdoor markets.  bangkok has the largest outdoor market in southeast asia (that seems to be a theme in my travels, the largest this, the biggest that, the deepest whatever, kinda cool).  this market was definitely big.  we could see tents and stalls well before the tram stopped at the station.  it was very like the market at chichi in guatemala, just rows and rows of everything you could imagine.  street food and clothes and shoes and tools and jewelry and sunglasses and pirated cds and every once in a while a dirty looking man with a table of condoms and vibrators.  i bought a couple tshirts for about $3 each and since we have plans to go to the markets in chiang mai i didn't want to carry anything else for any longer than i had to.  i wanted to get some food but the smells from the street, sewers and dirty water and unwashed people, made me think that it might not be a great idea for the nite we sleep on a train.

we picked up our luggage and went to the train station for sol's first official train sighting.  we had ridden the subway and the sky rail but not the trains.  he was so excited.  every once in a while for days he'd just say 'all aboard choo choo' like in his thomas the train videos.  he was so stoked when he finally saw them on the tracks.  we were early so we got some dinner at the station, possibly the hottest curry i've yet eaten.  they don't make things gringo hot here, they're full on thai hot.

finally its time to get on our train.  we had booked our tickets so late that pablo and shanti got the last spot in first class and i got one of the last in second class.  they have a sleeper room and i have a seat that folds out into a bed in a whole car full of people.  we each have our own space and curtains but its very hostel-like in here, where i'm currently writing this.  my nearest neighbors are french guys and they're pretty nice but fairly uninteresting so i plan on writing and drinking vodka until i fall asleep.  our stop in chumphon is at 4am so i'd like to pass out in a couple hours.

the waiter just brought me my drink, i had intended on having a screwdriver (the only mixer they have is orange juice) but what he brought me is a bucket of ice, 2 large containers of orange juice and an entire bottle of vodka.  its a smaller bottle, but way more than i had planned on drinking.  this is so awesome.  screw first class, i'm slummin it with the rowdy crowd tonite.  french guys are gettin cuter with each sip.

i enjoyed the the small bit of bangkok that i saw.  i didn't explore as much as i would have liked but i'm so lost in big cities that i didn't want to do this one alone, and shanti and pablo were busy with sol.  i can't figure out how to get where i want to go by rail, nothing ever makes sense, and a taxi is useless here in bumper to bumper traffic.  so i behaved myself and stuck close to home.  it was a weird place in some respects, very reminiscent of panama, old fat white guys and their flashy dressed 20something girls who never smile so much as grimace with slightly upturned lips.  worse than that, though, are the old fat white guys that are walking around by themselves.  everyone knows what they're doing here, they just haven't found the child sized thai girl (or boy) of their dreams yet.  i found myself very grossed out by them and giving them dirty looks when they walked by.  i don't think i'd object if i would have seen a white guy with a girl who was within 25 years of his age, but that doesn't happen.  

we're 3 hours into our 8.5 hour train ride, and i've got a good hour's worth of vodka left.  that'll give me about 4 hours of sleep before i need to catch a bus at chumphon, then the ferry to ko tao.  i should be nestled into my new room by the beach about 13 hours from now to sleep this off and get ready to scuba dive.  

and now i've spilled vodka on my computer so i think its time to put it away.  the computer, that is.

go train go