Day 5 10-16-07 We arrived at Bangkok in the evening, the airport was quite nice and pretty, and headed to our hostel. The hostel was very nice, cool furniture, lots of backpackers, pretty much nicer than our dorms. We were supposed to meet Sammie up, and her flight was supposed to get in before ours. We started to worry since she was traveling on her own. Luckily, she eventually made it and we all went and grabbed some street food nearby. It didn't compare to Malaysian food, but what could compare to that orgasmic food experience that took place in Malaysia? We were pretty exhausted by then so we went to bed.
Day 6 10-17-07 In the morning we headed to a restaurant (from Cindy's reliable guidebook) for breakfast. It was a nice restaurant, cool decors, a bit pricey but we got some Thai food. After that we headed to do some sightseeing, at the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, as well as some other buildings around there. It's a huge tourist spot, and you have to cover up, so I had to borrow a sweet long skirt. We took some ridiculous photos there (see Facebook for examples). The architecture is very unique to Thailand and very pretty, shiny shiny. After that we rode in a tuk-tuk, which is like a rickshaw except with a motorbike, it's fun/dangerous/you get ripped off if you are a tourist. The other temple we were gonna see seemed to be under construction or closed or something, so we headed to Chinatown. Our search for street food seemed rather fruitless. Cindy was useless for once because no one spoke Chinese. We headed back to the hostel and got directions to a blind massage place, which we'd heard about from a Swiss backpacker. We finally made it to the place. It was kind of difficult because there was both a language barrier and they couldn't see. But we figured it out. It was sort of awkward. But it was cool, Thai message is really different, it's like pressure points and bending your legs directions you didn't think they could bend. After our massages, we headed somewhere we named "Lan Kwai Fong," which was really just a cool looking bar/restaurant, for dinner. After we headed to the hostel to sleep. I slept through it, but Charles came to surprise Megha in the middle of the night, and he would join us for our trip until Friday.
Day 7 10-18-07 INFAMOUS PATTAYA
So Sammie, Cindy, and I decided to have a beach day. Since we didn't have time to really go to one of the really nice beaches, so we decided to a couple hours away to Pattaya, which we'd heard was a beach resort. The night before, we had booked a hostel on Hostelworld. It had some great reviews by some German guys, and sounded nice so we went for it. We set off in the morning and took a bus (like $3 american or something) off to Pattaya. It was a pretty nice ride, and it looked like a pretty cool beach town from the ride over. We grab a taxi to our hostel (here taxi= back of a pickup truck). We get to the hostel, and there are these two Thai women there, giving us a look that says, "What are you doing here?" There's also this creepy older white guy, who is pointing at the one of the girls and saying, "you and me, hahaha." It was pretty sketchy. The women said they had one room for the night, so we checked it out...it was actually really nice, as nice as a hotel. Our own large bathroom, huge bed, TV, fridge. It's heavily perfumed with this flowery smell. We were anxious to get to the beach so we headed out. Basically as soon as we got outside we discovered that every single person we see is an older White guy with a younger Thai girl on his arms. Not even exaggerating. We started to get pretty disgusted, but needed food so we ate at a restaurant. Lots of old Western guys sitting by themselves, or with their Thai girls and not talking. And barely touching. We had a fair meal and watched an old man lured to an "oil massage" on the second floor. We headed to the beach after. There wasn't much beach to it, the water was so close, and the sand was cluttered with beach chairs and umbrellas. The beach wasn't even that nice, Hong Kong beaches were nicer, the water was polluted. We considered leaving back for Bangkok right then and there, but Cindy wanted to check out the mall and we already paid for the room, so we decided to just go to the mall, eat dinner, and then be in our room before nightfall. We went to the mall, and people watched, more creepy old men and Thai hookers, even pedophiles. So gross. Then we had a pretty good dinner, finally had some Pad Thai, Thai iced tea, and had a sea view. Evil Pattaya looks kind of pretty from up high. The sun was starting to set though, so we stocked up on supplies for the night and headed back. It was only 6:30 and already as sketchy as anything out, men already leering at us and already creepering. So we decided to just cab back even though we knew it was close, we couldn't remember which street to turn down. We got in the back of the truck that was the taxi and tell him where to go, but he starts going the totally wrong direction. Soon we are in an even sketchier area, dark and scary shack sort of buildings. We told him to turn around and managed to get back, our street was sketch as anything. We walked quickly past the lobby, where several white old guys were talking to the Thai women. We heard them say "they're not with us" to the men as we headed up. Nasty. We locked ourselves up in our room, ate dessert, and watched Indian soap operas, which were amazingly entertaining. Half hour shows that ended on cliff-hangers, and then just went right into a totally different show. It was addicting. We slept in our giant bed with plans to head out first thing in the morning.
Day 8 10-19-07
We headed out early morning to catch the bus back to Bangkok. Still some people out from the night before. Then some creepy American guy tries to talk to us at the bus station. As if we didn't know what he was doing there. We were overjoyed to be back at our hostel in Bangkok. We collected Megha and Charles. We ate a food court for lunch that was pretty cheap and delicious. We walked around for a while, to some spiffy malls, and then went to Mango Tango, a cool fruit dessert place. Charles went back home and we had some naptime at the hostel before we went to dinner at a cafe type place nearby, and then to a transsexual show at a hotel, the Calypso Cabaret. We got dressed up, it was fun. The show was cool, they were so pretty! At one point to all of them were naked for like a second before the lights went dark, they looked pretty real. Afterwards we took pictures with them. We got some drinks at "LKF" after to finish out our night.
Day 9 10-20-07 Our last day in Bangkok we decided to go to the Weekend Market, a really huge famous market. We ate at a food market first and then walked around for a while. It really was huge, it could easily take you a full day to walk the whole thing. I bought some souvenirs, a CD of Thai emorock, we lost Megha for a while and found her again. It was a cool market, lots of variety. We left for the airport, and it turns out 2 other groups of HKUers were on our flight back to Macau. Of course, once we got to evil evil Macau all the ferries were sold out, and we had to wait around the ferry terminal for like 6 hours. We had ridiculous conversations and ate some random food from the duty free shops. Finally got home to wonderful Hong Kong and into my bed at around 5 am.
Overall, I liked Thailand although I preferred KL to Bangkok. Bangkok is just more touristy, less safe feeling than KL. Also KL has amazing food and a cool culture. If I ever go back to Thailand I think I will definitely headed straight for Phuket, islands, and beaches. I did miss Hong Kong though while I was away, it really feels like Home.
However, I still have some travels ahead of me. I am going to the Phillipines for a long weekend on Nov 8th, and I still need to go to China now that I finally got my visa.
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