Bangkok

Bangkok, my first thought was that this reminded me of my old favorite city in the world - before the hurricane came and ruined it even more, New Orleans.  That thought came as we were on the way in from the airport, and it has been that way ever since.  I love Bangkok, awesome, fast moving, mellow people, good food, great shopping, and people coming in just to be here, every single day... and I haven't even been to the other side of town yet.

Khao San Road has been our base area.  I will describe this as many peoples' base area.  If you are a backpacker type you will probably start out here.  The area is centered around so many Buddhist temples it isn't even funny.  Plus there are cheap accommodations, cheap food, cheap t-shirt, cheap fruit drinks and the list goes on.  The history of the area is that the Buddhists were in the area keeping it chill, with not that much money, but ultimate vibes.  Then the hippies came, and while they were in the business of morphing into yuppies, and whatnot, their children started coming and so on and so on.  Meanwhile, the area managed to maintain just enough of its charm, and plenty of hawkers and touters came along, selling anything from cheaply tailored suites to as certain movies would claim, snake's blood.  I haven't seen any snake's blood, but I do know where a snake park or museum is on the other side of town, and I have heard snake's blood is sold in Chinatown, but that is another blog post, because Chinatown in Bangkok really deserves its own blog post, plus I plan on walking over there tomorrow.  However, if you want a cheap, cheaply tailored suit, apparently, Khao San is the place, especially if you want the very special, soul brother discount.

Philosophical Question - Do White Americans get greeted as - OObama - with the look of a used car salesman and that magical pointing finger gesture thingy, or is that reserved for Black American visitors (the Black Americans that no one except touts believe exist).

Answer - Doesn't matter, just be thankful W. has left the building... wherein you might be getting spit at, given the finger or cursed, I mean literally cursed, not cursed at.  Anyways...

Khao San Road at night

Some of the walkable cool things to do close by the area we live in, known as Rattanakosin, are exploring temples, hopping on the boat to head down or up river, or of course grabbing a bite on Khao San Road, people watching on Khao San Road, visiting the Golden Mountain, which is free or just finding a park to chill out.  Rattanakosin is kind of the center of all the temples in town so if you just walk down the street in any direction a wat (or temple) will cross your path.  It is funny seeing the buddhist monks out and about, and if you go out in the morning they will be out seeking donations for their food for the day.

Last week we walked over to the Grand Palace and pondered going in.  Since we are on a pretty tight budget this month, I suggested we actually go in on the next trip.  I am sure it will be nicer on the inside than the outside, but at 400 baht a person that is some 2400 baht, or 80 dollars, that's a lot of Thai noodles, or at least that was my thought at the time.  So we took some pictures of the opulent outside and laughed as the intercom system reminded visitors not to believe anything touts said about the palace being closed, in a very sterile voice and to only listen to the completely disinterested guards' advice about where the entrance was.

Earlier in the week I had mentioned to Candice that there was this meditation center that offered free classes in one of the temples.  I thought it would be cool to at least peek inside.  So naturally, after thinking how cool it would be to do something for free, rather than pay 80 dollars, we run into a sign in front of Wat Mahathat, offering free mediation classes.  I figure because it is so early in the morning, we might not get our meditation on, but still, something tells me to go in.  I am a bit afraid to go all the way into the inner shrines to buddha and what not, but this lady sneaks up behind Candice and becomes our tour guide.  Immediately I start to wonder, but just the night before we had this conversation about letting someone sell their story, because sometimes touts aren't all bad, or something like that.  Or was it that all friendly people aren't touts, you get the gist.  Anyway, she has us take our shoes off and takes us in the back of temple and gets to work.


She starts off stating that she is a tourist too, "we same, same" and she is from Chang Mai, she has her game tight.  Then she blows it, because she knows every tourist sight and destination, not to mention her perfect English.  But it was a good thing she was there because she did two things for me.  The first, she took us into all the areas in the temple I wouldn't have gone, she apparently has some kind of buddhist mojo working good...  She bows to buddha and is trying to work her mojo on Candice, while sizing me up.  She mentions that she is a midwife which I think is so cool.  She also shows us the beautiful Black buddah, making note of it, as I did.  Then she did something else that was both good and bad.  She advises us how to take the boat around town and tells us where we can get discount tickets to do so, of course this is the tout.  But she arranges a tuck tuck to take us to her tourist agency and then back to our guest house for 50 baht.  I mean, I didn't want to hear the tout, but I had been avoiding tuck tucks, just because.  By her doing that, she helped me see them as a practical, although a scary as hell travel option.  I mean, everywhere isn't a cab travel location, for those, you have the tuck tuck.  Mostly I prefer the boat, an express boat trip on the river costs 15 baht per person, that is like 50 cent.  Who could beat that?  So a tout isn't always a bad thing, well at least not a bad bad, bad thing.  Of course, I didn't buy any tours, but I am just saying.  I mean, in the tuck tuck we were both laughing about her intimate knowledge of Bangkok, having only been here twice from Chang Mai, but on the other hand she told us of a really cool detination,   Anyway, after that day we started going more and more outside the Rattanakosin area and made it into Chinatown.