Bangkok, Thailand
If Los Angeles was in Thailand, it would be called Bankok. That is an overly simplistic view, but from this perspective, this is the best way to get my bearings on this vast metropolis. Beyond that, I'm not having much luck in getting a feel for its boundaries, its shapes, veins and overall being. I've never been in a city (besides Los Angeles) that is so hard to get my head around.
That said, there is a constant pulse here. I've been staying on Kaosan road which is the main backpacker place to stay. Lots of annoying twenty sometings shopping their hearts out and getting super drunk (and laid). Anyone who has traveled to a third world country and who has done the lonely planet/rough guide trips knows exactly what I am talking about. Kathmandu and Delhi have a similar scene for the young backpacker. For Bankok it is Kaosan road.
I've been here three days now and am waiting for my visas to go through. I'll be heading to Cambodia on Saturday and looking forward to it. The great things about Bankok are the Buddhism, food and Thai Massages.
Where else can you get a TWO HOUR Thai massage for 8 bucks? As a result, I have been getting one every day which is great. My therapist "Lin" is a super cool gal gives an intense yoga stretch and chiropractic adjustment while applying intense pressure that can push your pain threshold to the limit. The only thing about going to her parlor is the young travel jocks who go and talk through the entire session with comments like "you're so beautiful...do you have a boyfriend" being spoken every three minutes in Iraeli, American, Brittish and German accents. The beds are only separated by sheets, so you have to listen to the whole interplay that goes on between the women and their clients. It's a pretty interesting dance that is done. The women definately play the sexual innuendo role to make that extra baht, but beyond that, I don't think it goes anywhere...at least not in that parlor and not in that room.
I made a valiant attempt at going to a Thai Boxing match. Don't know why blood sport was appealing to me, but it sounded like an interesting cultural experience (much like a Bollywood flick in a theater in Tamil Nadu would be). None of the Taxis would take me to Rajdamoen Stadium (they get stuck in traffic I guess) so I reluctantly took a Tuk Tuk, a three wheeled motor car that zips through traffic quite deftly. I say relectuantly because all of the drivers (that speak English) are hard salesmen, insisting on taking you on a shopping tour of the city. The driver who picked me up had a face mask on (to protect from the intense pollution from car exhausts) and drove head on through oncoming traffic. I told him he was insane and he laughed and gave me a thumbs up. I arrived at the stadium and bought a ticket. I noticed a sign for the "FICA:Women's world football championship" and asked the woman at the ticket counter
"Is there no Thai Boxing tonight?"
She said, "yes..yes...Thai Boxing. Russ plays Kora... it just started"
"That must be the names of the fighters," I thought....
Great, so I bought a ticket for about 50 cents and went inside. There was rumbling in the stadium of chanting, and as I walked up the steps I got excited. It will be just like a Jean Claude Van Dam movie! As I made it to the inside, I looked onto the field and saw a bunch of gals playing soccer. It was Russia playing Korea. So I sat and watched the match for a couple of hours (Korea won). I decided to head back to Kaosan road and tried to get a Taxi...but no luck, no one would pick me up. So I went to the main road and flagged down (reluctantly) another Tuk Tuk driver. He wanted to charge me four times the amount the Tuk Tuk charged me when I came to the stadium. I haggled him down and got in. He then proceeded to drive me through the seediest and creepiest streets in Bankok. Dark narrow back alleys. I told him I wanted him to go to the main road, but he wouldn't listen. Knowing that women at night can be prey to tuk tuk drivers I started to get a bit nervous and started yelling "Take me to the road or I won't pay!" I said. He reluctantly took me to the main road and asked "why did you yell?" Yelling is not an acceptable form of behaviour in Asia (India is the same) but it has saved me on several occasions from creepy situations like that one. I told him he scared me and that being a man he doesn't get it. He nodded and stayed on the main street after that. He then began to make rude innuendos like "do you like two men?" so I ignored him. He dropped me off and said I owed him more (the amound he tried to extort from me in the first place) I gave him our agreed amount and walked off and waved, he smiled and waved back. I mention this incident not because it has been a highlight of the trip, but because I know these are the types of situations that will really test my true character. Perhaps I should have handled the situation differently. Perhaps he was just taking short cuts (in retroespect I believe that is what he was doing). In the end, I was just glad to get back to Kaosan without being mugged. As I walked along the strip of intense capitalism, I noticed a plastic life size Ronald Mcdonald in Thai prayer position, beckoning customers to come in for a Big Mac. Yep, this is globalization..this is capitalism, and I'm a rich westerner in a poor part of the world...What in the hell am I doing here? I may never get the answer to that question.
On a happier note, I went to the local Buddhist University at Wat Mahathat for a meditation. Thailand pracitces similar Buddhism to the Tibet and in that it is Mahayana, but that is where the similarity ends. It's an interesting mixture of Hindu, Confuscionism and Buddhism. A Buddhist nun gave us basic instructions on Vipassina walking and sitting meditation (walk for an hour and sit for an hour). She then took us (three Czechs and me) to the basement where two hippie guys (students of the University) sat along a wall in a white room. So for three hours, there we sat and walked ...and sat and walked...and sat and walked. It was super interesting and I learned a tremendous amount...about my myself. The Czechs have done the same kind of meditating for retreats that were 15 hours long so they didn't fidget and twitch after the second hour (like me). Three hours of sitting in a room, staring at a wall and contemplating yourself was about all I could handle. Maybe tomorrow I'll take the 9 hour retreat....(only if I was on some kind of intense hallucinogen).
Next stop Siem Reap, Cambodia.
That said, there is a constant pulse here. I've been staying on Kaosan road which is the main backpacker place to stay. Lots of annoying twenty sometings shopping their hearts out and getting super drunk (and laid). Anyone who has traveled to a third world country and who has done the lonely planet/rough guide trips knows exactly what I am talking about. Kathmandu and Delhi have a similar scene for the young backpacker. For Bankok it is Kaosan road.
I've been here three days now and am waiting for my visas to go through. I'll be heading to Cambodia on Saturday and looking forward to it. The great things about Bankok are the Buddhism, food and Thai Massages.
Where else can you get a TWO HOUR Thai massage for 8 bucks? As a result, I have been getting one every day which is great. My therapist "Lin" is a super cool gal gives an intense yoga stretch and chiropractic adjustment while applying intense pressure that can push your pain threshold to the limit. The only thing about going to her parlor is the young travel jocks who go and talk through the entire session with comments like "you're so beautiful...do you have a boyfriend" being spoken every three minutes in Iraeli, American, Brittish and German accents. The beds are only separated by sheets, so you have to listen to the whole interplay that goes on between the women and their clients. It's a pretty interesting dance that is done. The women definately play the sexual innuendo role to make that extra baht, but beyond that, I don't think it goes anywhere...at least not in that parlor and not in that room.
I made a valiant attempt at going to a Thai Boxing match. Don't know why blood sport was appealing to me, but it sounded like an interesting cultural experience (much like a Bollywood flick in a theater in Tamil Nadu would be). None of the Taxis would take me to Rajdamoen Stadium (they get stuck in traffic I guess) so I reluctantly took a Tuk Tuk, a three wheeled motor car that zips through traffic quite deftly. I say relectuantly because all of the drivers (that speak English) are hard salesmen, insisting on taking you on a shopping tour of the city. The driver who picked me up had a face mask on (to protect from the intense pollution from car exhausts) and drove head on through oncoming traffic. I told him he was insane and he laughed and gave me a thumbs up. I arrived at the stadium and bought a ticket. I noticed a sign for the "FICA:Women's world football championship" and asked the woman at the ticket counter
"Is there no Thai Boxing tonight?"
She said, "yes..yes...Thai Boxing. Russ plays Kora... it just started"
"That must be the names of the fighters," I thought....
Great, so I bought a ticket for about 50 cents and went inside. There was rumbling in the stadium of chanting, and as I walked up the steps I got excited. It will be just like a Jean Claude Van Dam movie! As I made it to the inside, I looked onto the field and saw a bunch of gals playing soccer. It was Russia playing Korea. So I sat and watched the match for a couple of hours (Korea won). I decided to head back to Kaosan road and tried to get a Taxi...but no luck, no one would pick me up. So I went to the main road and flagged down (reluctantly) another Tuk Tuk driver. He wanted to charge me four times the amount the Tuk Tuk charged me when I came to the stadium. I haggled him down and got in. He then proceeded to drive me through the seediest and creepiest streets in Bankok. Dark narrow back alleys. I told him I wanted him to go to the main road, but he wouldn't listen. Knowing that women at night can be prey to tuk tuk drivers I started to get a bit nervous and started yelling "Take me to the road or I won't pay!" I said. He reluctantly took me to the main road and asked "why did you yell?" Yelling is not an acceptable form of behaviour in Asia (India is the same) but it has saved me on several occasions from creepy situations like that one. I told him he scared me and that being a man he doesn't get it. He nodded and stayed on the main street after that. He then began to make rude innuendos like "do you like two men?" so I ignored him. He dropped me off and said I owed him more (the amound he tried to extort from me in the first place) I gave him our agreed amount and walked off and waved, he smiled and waved back. I mention this incident not because it has been a highlight of the trip, but because I know these are the types of situations that will really test my true character. Perhaps I should have handled the situation differently. Perhaps he was just taking short cuts (in retroespect I believe that is what he was doing). In the end, I was just glad to get back to Kaosan without being mugged. As I walked along the strip of intense capitalism, I noticed a plastic life size Ronald Mcdonald in Thai prayer position, beckoning customers to come in for a Big Mac. Yep, this is globalization..this is capitalism, and I'm a rich westerner in a poor part of the world...What in the hell am I doing here? I may never get the answer to that question.
On a happier note, I went to the local Buddhist University at Wat Mahathat for a meditation. Thailand pracitces similar Buddhism to the Tibet and in that it is Mahayana, but that is where the similarity ends. It's an interesting mixture of Hindu, Confuscionism and Buddhism. A Buddhist nun gave us basic instructions on Vipassina walking and sitting meditation (walk for an hour and sit for an hour). She then took us (three Czechs and me) to the basement where two hippie guys (students of the University) sat along a wall in a white room. So for three hours, there we sat and walked ...and sat and walked...and sat and walked. It was super interesting and I learned a tremendous amount...about my myself. The Czechs have done the same kind of meditating for retreats that were 15 hours long so they didn't fidget and twitch after the second hour (like me). Three hours of sitting in a room, staring at a wall and contemplating yourself was about all I could handle. Maybe tomorrow I'll take the 9 hour retreat....(only if I was on some kind of intense hallucinogen).
Next stop Siem Reap, Cambodia.
posted by Mr. Sophie at 4:22 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home