how to make adrian bose blush
back again!
shehz and i are gonna be heading out to chiang mai today. hopefully we'll get some nice shots of us riding elephants, and doing all of that other jungle-trekking business. maybe we'll see some monkeys and stuff: we can only hope.
yesterday, shehz and i headed out to damnernsaduak for the floating market, and then kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the river kwae (kwai to us north americans). we first stopped at a sugar refinery. the sad part is, the thai people really don't seem to have a handle on what a tourist attraction should be. i found the brown sugar-making process to be very interesting! looks like great sugar, and you can taste a sample right there. great! in canada, you'd expect at this point that they'd have about 500 sugar products to offer, which i really would have liked to see here! sugar elephants, sugar cookies, sugar monkey-things. what do they sell you at the sugar refinery in thailand? louis vuitton handbags. watches. the same stuff they sell you everywhere else in the country, in short. they also had an orchid garden. i really think there's something to be said for coherence in a tourist attraction, which the thai population hasn't quite figured out yet. is it an orchid garden? is it a refinery? is it a market selling ripped-off merchandise? who knows, but it sure is cheap!
so that was that. then off we went to the floating market. not much to say about that, but it was pretty cool. the annoying part is that all of these markets are catered towards tourists. they'll have a few fruit vendors, but apart from that it's a bunch of people selling the same stuff over and over again. highlights were the ladyboy selling goods to people in our boat. check this bargaining story out. the guy in our boat wanted some buddha statue things. or his wife/girlfriend wanted them. either way, they start bargaining. initial price? 800 baht. that's... i dunno... 640 baht is 20 bucks canadian. you do the math. final selling price? 150 baht. that's less than 5 bucks canadian. how did he do it?! shehz and i were in awe. he just offered 150 and kept saying 150 until he broke the thai dude. we still have much to learn. i need to buy another backpack soon, so i'm gonna try a similar approach. i don't think it'll work...
we stopped at a rest place to go to the washroom, and it was a new low. this was a big porcelain bowl sitting on the ground. there was no toilet paper. there was no flushing mechanism. there was a bucket of water beside the bowl, with which i think you were supposed to wash the initial bowl when you were finished. i made sure not to find out.
shehz and i also checked out some thai boxing. what a cool show! there were two knockouts in the 8 or so fights we watched. we were both impressed at how ceremonial the whole ordeal was. each fighter does a big dance before they start to act as thanks to all of their teachers and parents, etc. we got to see a new thai champion take the throne as he whupped the current champions butt. then the "main event" featured a guy getting knocked out cold! yikes! we had these ringside seats, and so we had chairs, but everywhere else was standing. it was this open-air indoor amphitheatre kinda thing, with hundreds of thais betting and screaming from the rafters -- a very cool experience. we also had the pleasure of sitting right beside the musicians, who play live music during the dances and the entire fights. two drummers, a guy who plays something similar to a triangle, and the main "soloist" who plays a disgusting-sounding clarinet-like contraption. it grows on you though. it makes dirty noises. the weirdest part of the night were the fights after the main event. they do a few "cool down" fights, if you will. the weights of the people that were fighting? 100 pounds. their ages? 15, max. they pop all these kids in the ring who just go around nailing each other and kneeing each other's abdomens. one of those kids got KOed too, but he seemed to be ok. it's strange!
last night was our big night out. we had met these two girls advertising for a party on khao san road. the party was in the sukhumvit area, which we were headed to anyway. we talked to them for a long time and figured it'd be cool to check out the scene. the big draw was that it was a going-away party for bokeem woodbine (he was in ray, and some other movies). and you know how much shehz and i love bokeem, so we couldn't stay away. we started the evening off at a local bar, where we got two tall-boy chang beers and a plate of fries for 150 baht (< $5).
then it was off to pat pong. pat pong is very famous in thailand. it consists of a few venues at which you can see shows. this is what the title of the post refers to. since we're trying to keep this blog PG, i won't give many specifics. suffice it to say, shehz and i were in a permanent state of shock for a good 30 minutes. i don't think you'd see things like this anywhere else in the world! we also got to take our nice tuk-tuk ride (an open air taxi-cum-motorbike), which was pretty cheap and entertaining.
after that, it was off to our party at POF (place of fun -- what a great name). from the looks of it, we were the main american presence at the place. the good news was, they were playing great hip-hop tunes, to which we knew all the words, so we both looked like superstars. unfortunately, beers were 150 baht, which is about three times more than they are anywhere else. luckily, though, we had met those girls who were running the show. they started giving us free drink tickets before we had managed to spend all of our money, so that was nice. we danced the night away, but they started to close down the party at 1am after we'd been there only an hour! we complained very openly, and then the party ended up continuing for another 1.5 hrs. we closed the place down, and although we didn't directly introduce ourselves to bokeem, we met the majority of his entourage. there was a canadian model named tory from ottawa (akhil, bose, you can try your best), and a thai/german jazz singer named christina. cool people!
on the way back home, i was walking down khao san road and ran into this group of thai kids (and one adult -- weird) playing guitar on the street. they were slamming out tunes from bands with names like "pie" and "potato". basically thai emo music. they let me play guitar for about 10 minutes or so and i introduced them to the wonder that is john mayer. i think they appreciated it.
shehz and i are about to do some last-minute shopping before we head off to chiang mai. we'll let you know how everything goes. bye for now!
shehz and i are gonna be heading out to chiang mai today. hopefully we'll get some nice shots of us riding elephants, and doing all of that other jungle-trekking business. maybe we'll see some monkeys and stuff: we can only hope.
yesterday, shehz and i headed out to damnernsaduak for the floating market, and then kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the river kwae (kwai to us north americans). we first stopped at a sugar refinery. the sad part is, the thai people really don't seem to have a handle on what a tourist attraction should be. i found the brown sugar-making process to be very interesting! looks like great sugar, and you can taste a sample right there. great! in canada, you'd expect at this point that they'd have about 500 sugar products to offer, which i really would have liked to see here! sugar elephants, sugar cookies, sugar monkey-things. what do they sell you at the sugar refinery in thailand? louis vuitton handbags. watches. the same stuff they sell you everywhere else in the country, in short. they also had an orchid garden. i really think there's something to be said for coherence in a tourist attraction, which the thai population hasn't quite figured out yet. is it an orchid garden? is it a refinery? is it a market selling ripped-off merchandise? who knows, but it sure is cheap!
so that was that. then off we went to the floating market. not much to say about that, but it was pretty cool. the annoying part is that all of these markets are catered towards tourists. they'll have a few fruit vendors, but apart from that it's a bunch of people selling the same stuff over and over again. highlights were the ladyboy selling goods to people in our boat. check this bargaining story out. the guy in our boat wanted some buddha statue things. or his wife/girlfriend wanted them. either way, they start bargaining. initial price? 800 baht. that's... i dunno... 640 baht is 20 bucks canadian. you do the math. final selling price? 150 baht. that's less than 5 bucks canadian. how did he do it?! shehz and i were in awe. he just offered 150 and kept saying 150 until he broke the thai dude. we still have much to learn. i need to buy another backpack soon, so i'm gonna try a similar approach. i don't think it'll work...
we stopped at a rest place to go to the washroom, and it was a new low. this was a big porcelain bowl sitting on the ground. there was no toilet paper. there was no flushing mechanism. there was a bucket of water beside the bowl, with which i think you were supposed to wash the initial bowl when you were finished. i made sure not to find out.
shehz and i also checked out some thai boxing. what a cool show! there were two knockouts in the 8 or so fights we watched. we were both impressed at how ceremonial the whole ordeal was. each fighter does a big dance before they start to act as thanks to all of their teachers and parents, etc. we got to see a new thai champion take the throne as he whupped the current champions butt. then the "main event" featured a guy getting knocked out cold! yikes! we had these ringside seats, and so we had chairs, but everywhere else was standing. it was this open-air indoor amphitheatre kinda thing, with hundreds of thais betting and screaming from the rafters -- a very cool experience. we also had the pleasure of sitting right beside the musicians, who play live music during the dances and the entire fights. two drummers, a guy who plays something similar to a triangle, and the main "soloist" who plays a disgusting-sounding clarinet-like contraption. it grows on you though. it makes dirty noises. the weirdest part of the night were the fights after the main event. they do a few "cool down" fights, if you will. the weights of the people that were fighting? 100 pounds. their ages? 15, max. they pop all these kids in the ring who just go around nailing each other and kneeing each other's abdomens. one of those kids got KOed too, but he seemed to be ok. it's strange!
last night was our big night out. we had met these two girls advertising for a party on khao san road. the party was in the sukhumvit area, which we were headed to anyway. we talked to them for a long time and figured it'd be cool to check out the scene. the big draw was that it was a going-away party for bokeem woodbine (he was in ray, and some other movies). and you know how much shehz and i love bokeem, so we couldn't stay away. we started the evening off at a local bar, where we got two tall-boy chang beers and a plate of fries for 150 baht (< $5).
then it was off to pat pong. pat pong is very famous in thailand. it consists of a few venues at which you can see shows. this is what the title of the post refers to. since we're trying to keep this blog PG, i won't give many specifics. suffice it to say, shehz and i were in a permanent state of shock for a good 30 minutes. i don't think you'd see things like this anywhere else in the world! we also got to take our nice tuk-tuk ride (an open air taxi-cum-motorbike), which was pretty cheap and entertaining.
after that, it was off to our party at POF (place of fun -- what a great name). from the looks of it, we were the main american presence at the place. the good news was, they were playing great hip-hop tunes, to which we knew all the words, so we both looked like superstars. unfortunately, beers were 150 baht, which is about three times more than they are anywhere else. luckily, though, we had met those girls who were running the show. they started giving us free drink tickets before we had managed to spend all of our money, so that was nice. we danced the night away, but they started to close down the party at 1am after we'd been there only an hour! we complained very openly, and then the party ended up continuing for another 1.5 hrs. we closed the place down, and although we didn't directly introduce ourselves to bokeem, we met the majority of his entourage. there was a canadian model named tory from ottawa (akhil, bose, you can try your best), and a thai/german jazz singer named christina. cool people!
on the way back home, i was walking down khao san road and ran into this group of thai kids (and one adult -- weird) playing guitar on the street. they were slamming out tunes from bands with names like "pie" and "potato". basically thai emo music. they let me play guitar for about 10 minutes or so and i introduced them to the wonder that is john mayer. i think they appreciated it.
shehz and i are about to do some last-minute shopping before we head off to chiang mai. we'll let you know how everything goes. bye for now!
posted by ian at 3:38 AM
1 Comments:
haha, yeah the floor toilets are pretty gross! It was like that in Korea too in the older tourist sites. Although there, there wasn't a bucket beside the bowl.
Sounds like you're having an amazing time!
Post a Comment
<< Home