this was our "free day" to go explore Bangkok however we wanted to. some people chose to sleep in or explore Bangkok by foot. there are endless options for shopping around the city. everywhere you go there are street vendors selling random things from shirts and knockoff CK underwear to electric plug adapters and fake purses. there are also various malls in the same area of the city. one in particular, MBK, is where the locals sell their goods. i'm told that the roof top has more street vendor type things and the basement is where you can get the really good stuff like wood carvings for cheap. we didn't end up ever finding our way to MBK, however we roamed around a different mall. the one we ended up at is called Center World. although huge, it was a lot like a western mall. in fact it had a lot of western named stores there so it wasn't actually that fun to walk around because it was like being in the US. something interesting i did notice was that they had a female DJ spinning in the middle of the mall and at the far end they were setting up a runway. here we also found a McDonalds where the statue of RonnieD has his hands clasped for a former "sawadee" (hello).
my eyes look all crazy and anime like. sawadee ka Ronald!
i digress, this day wasn't the day we actually went to the mall. that was actually day 3. but i have my days all jumbled up so i decided to throw that in somewhere.
soooo...our free day. instead of roaming about, we decided to pack it full of activities. the tour we were on offers excursions or activities that we can choose to do for additional costs. we chose to go to the famous floating market, take a bike tour through Bangkok, and then watch a muy thai fight.
after breakfast that morning we got on a bus and packed in to a bus with some fellow tour folks on an hour and a half ride to the Damnoen Saduak floating market. on the way there we stopped at a coconut farm where they were turning coconuts in to sugar. they had souvenirs to sell, including coconut lotion sold in a dried coconut for 20 US dollars. are you friggin kidding me? no thanks. we did however buy a coconut to drink/eat. where better than right from the farm? it was less than a dollar and it was the most refreshing thing i've ever tasted. i actually don't like coconut water in the form of VitaCoCo or O.N.E., but fresh from a cold coconut, yes please!!!
when we got off the bus we were immediately shuffled to a long speed boat that took us through the canals of that area. you think we'd already gone through some of Bangkok's canals but that trip was a bit different. this one had us speeding by more homes and different restaurants located along the canals.
alas! we made it to the floating market, one of the main things i wanted to see in Thailand. you always see beautiful colorful pictures of the floating market and i wanted some of my own. i'm no photographer, so i got what i got, but they're good enough for me. there were boats with people rowing by selling hats, knick knacks, fruit, food, masks, etc. there is also an area where you can just walk around along the canal to shop and that's where we stayed. i picked up a pair of what i like to call "Aladdin pants." they're made of something light like linen and are stretchy and baggy. they almost look like a skirt but it's not. everybody at these markets gets in your face and tries to sell you things you don't want. a little girl even approached Stefan and said something along the lines of "you buy. you buy from baby. c'mon. you want." they teach their kids at an early age how to sell. it's pretty sad to see, but at the same time, that's how the kid's parents probably grew up as well. they don't know any different. all they know is that you're not from there and you probably have more money than they do. you can, of course, bargain with these people because they absolutely mark up their things like crazy. but Stefan and i aren't very good at that. for my Aladdin pants i think i went from 400B (=$13) to 350B (=$11.5), which is not a great bargain. but i didn't care too much considering these people could probably use the money more than i could....plus i love the pants.
at the floating market we also found mangosteen, a fruit that we'd been seeking since the beginning of the trip. march is the end of it's season so the prices were high. we bought one and loved it! the external looks like a round purple eggplant but you peel that off and get a luscious juicy white fruit that looks like a garlic bulb. yum!
mangosteen
on our way back to Bangkok we stopped by a wood carving spot. everything there is hand carved or chiseled and takes a lot of skill. we saw things in their half finished state and it was pretty cool to see. their craftsmanship allows them to produce wood carvings with lots of intricacies.
after a long half day, we were ready to embark on our next adventure. we were running late for our bike ride around Bangkok so we got off the bus and rode a tuktuk to the hotel where the bike tour group was going to meet. never trust a tuktuk!!! the thing with tuktuks is that they'll take you in their "car" or whatever you want to call it and keep driving, adding to your expense. what you have to do to effectively get from point A to point B without paying a ridiculous amount of baht is give them the address to where you're going written in THAI (not English letters, in Thai characters. or else they'll have no idea how to read it) and make a deal with the driver for a set amount. if you don't do this, they'll charge you a different amount and take you to who knows where. so we got off of the tuktuk and paid the driver when he told us that we were at the hotel only to find out that we were not at the hotel. we then hopped on a different tuktuk and eventually found our way to the hotel. thank goodness! we had no time to spare. our bike group left at 2pm and we got there at exactly 2pm.
so...on to the bike ride. i have to prep myself for writing this part of the day out. can i just say first that this was a very stressful bike ride? and i ride bikes. i've done two metric centuries (62.2 miles) and one century (100miles) bike rides, so i think i'm qualified to say that i know how to ride a bike. the description of our bike ride was "a scenic ride through Bangkok's beaten path. think jungle and back ways." sounds great right? i saw "jungle" and thought i might potentially see some random animals that weren't those mangy dogs. i thought we'd see some scenic stuff like a lake of some sort surrounded by shrubbery. they said 95% of the ride would be traffic free, and if you've seen the traffic in Thailand you'd be scared for that 5%. pedestrians practically don't exist to a driver's eyes in Bangkok.
so we choose our bikes. i chose a cruiser because i normally ride a road bike and thought it'd be cool just to cruise. this is a third world country, so i'm not surpised that i have to press really hard in order to brake, or that my seat is rusty and won't go down low enough to accomodate my short legs. oh well, i'll go with it. so the first thing we do is leave the hotel on to the street where we are expected to cross over six lanes of cars with people going something like 40mph. riiiiiight. luckily the guide was able to stop the cars. i made sure to stay up front for most of the bike tour so that i wouldn't a) be a straggler and get hit by cars and b) be a straggler and get lost in Bangkok with a bike that doesn't brake well. we went through a few more streets and alley ways and i about nearly had a heart attack! with tuktuks coming right at you and motorbikes making sharp turns in your direction, it was a lot to handle. we were also supposed to stay in single file which i thought was a many-person-collision waiting to happen considering the amount of prior biking experience people had had and the conditions of Bangkok.
this is where i burned my leg. see, it's touching the motorbike!
we continued to ride through alley ways that were literally five feet wide with kids playing, dogs and cats roaming, and people selling things while we rode through. i imagined it must be really irriating for the locals to halt their paths in order to let a group of 20 tourists cycle through their alley ways braking at abrupt moments to avoid running over their children. but the tour guide told us that the locals love having tourists around. and actually as we rode through Bangkok kids waved to us with huge smiles, eager to be noticed. the locals really didn't seem to mind us too much so long as we said "hello" here and there. and i made the stupid mistake of wearing a shorts romper that showed a lot of leg. men hollered from every direction. Stefan even heard "oh Vietnam look very nice," which he's certain was towards me, though i'm Chinese. i imagine the fact that my legs are uber pale is especially appealing as well. in lots of cultures the lighter skin is the better because it probably means your family didn't/doesn't spend their day outside working in farms/fields/streets. and the fact that my legs are uber plump probably is appealing because the more meat you got, the more money for food you must have, right? oh god, i really wanted the hollering to stop. it makes me really uncomfortable. anywhooo, back to the narrow alley ways. there was one alley way that was seriously like 3 feet wide and in that alley way was a sacred tree that they refused to cut down. so we had to make our way through about a foot and a half of alley way around some holy tree. at that point the stress and craziness of the bike ride just became comical. seriously? just squeeze my giant cruiser bike through??
it's hard to see but that's the sacred tree in the alley way
the last portion of our bike ride entailed us riding our bikes through their wholesale market. i'm not talking like an outdoor spread out kind of deal. imagine a bunch of people riding their bikes through your local Safeway or something. yeah, it was like that, except third world country style so it was just piles of fruits and fish and stuff in a big lot. at the end of our ride we took a ferry back to a spot close to the hotel and finally i was at ease. my tensions were high for those few hours on that bike. i can't remember how many times i suddenly stopped in order to avoid hitting a kid or to make a 90 degree turn in an alley way. oh, and somewhere along that ride, at one of the resting points i backed up in to a motorbike and burned my calf. i'm fairly certain i'll be left with Bangkok biking adventure battle wounds. hey, and where was that "jungle" i was so eager to see? at the end of it all, i took it all with a grain of salt and just chalked it up to being an adventure. sometimes the most stressful and trying things you go through are the memories you remember most.
after heading back to the hotel to take a quick shower and get out of that damn romper, we met up with another group of people and headed to the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium to watch muy thai. this is one of the things on our list of must dos. we got there and outside there were tons of people with energies high. we were lead inside to our seats, which were ringside. awesome, no? of course everybody who was sitting at the floor level were tourists because we are the only ones willing to pay higher prices for tickets. all of the locals were behind us. but i didn't mind paying more because it got us up and close to the action which alotted me the option to take decent pictures.
forreal? why not, damnit!!
the first couple of guys fighting looked like they were no older than 14, which was a little disturbing. but the last set of boys fighting looked like they couldn't have been past 9 years old, which just seemed wrong. i asked our Ekachai about it the next day and he said that they have to be at least 15 to fight in the ring, but i kinda doubt that.
it was interesting to see their pre-fight rituals and dance. it was also cool to see how restrained they were and how disciplined they are. it truly is a sport. there isn't any kind of stupid fake animosity towards each other to make the matches more exciting. it's all about technique and winning, but not about hating each other or getting angry at all. when one guy knew he was going to lose, the other guy let up on him. the point isn't to hurt someone, the point is just to win. at the end of the night we got a picture with the champ of the night.
so that's day 4 in a nutshell. a very long, very productive day.
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