BANGKOK: Buddhas, Rice and the French - OH MY!

SO, Bangkok!! Well I arrive late Wednesday after a loooong day of flights from Japan to Malaysia (delayed plane) to Bangkok.  Mark met me downstairs and has one big room.  He had to go to work at the IOM so I slept in a bit then hopped in one of the brightly colored taxis (and when I say brightly colored, I mean brightly colored: fuchsia, fire red, daisy yellow, violet) to a temple called Wat Pho, with one of the largest statues of Buddhas eveeerrr.   I found a smaller statue with more solitude and meditated for a bit.  I cried a smige, out of gratitude – God is Great.  After taking too many pictures (which there are sooo many tourists here!!)

I walked around, avoiding other ‘ghosts’ (white people).  I found this outdoor food stand where this little cook caught me eyeing some food so she just slapped some fish and rice onto a plate and handed it to me.  It was suuuper spicy but good.  And it cost about 70 cents.

Then I took a Pepto pill.

So I wander around to a smaller non-touristy temple and some old man convinced me to buy a pendant with the portrait of man that I don't know.  These three college Thai girls approach me and ask if they can interview me for a class, asking me about my opinions on Thailand. they speak a little English and were so cute.  We wound out walking around (dude, my Thai is terrible, I can't remember their names for the life of me) and they helped me pick out a dress for the evening!  They told me if I was staying in Thailand, they would take me to Chang-Mai.  I love making friends.

So I head back and get to Mark's apt.  We grab some Pineapple rice then head to the red light district where there are shows of Thai women popping ping pong balls out of their pussy. No. Lie. There are menus of this shit: pussy writes a letter, pussy blows out a match... intrigued as I was, I declined.

Next day I bum around his neighborhood for a bit, still catching up on jet lag and lugging around that damn luggage.  I sat with this old woman watching the King on TV.  Later we ride on the back of two motorcycles through the traffic to dinner.  Then to one of Mark’s coworkers place to drink until we had out.  Gorgeous building, though security was lacking because they let us hooligans in.  One girl is from Toronto but lived in France so we were meeting some French people (there are lot of them here) at this club called 'Bed and Supper.'  We get there and I buy shoes on the street because my Tevas don’t go with my purple and black cocktail dress.  Arriving at the door to the club, the guy who we are supposed to see sing, already performed and we weren’t on the list anymore -- it was 800 bhat to enter. Toronto chick works her magic and we get in for free. The club is full of couches where we lounge with the French.  The brother of one of the Frenchman gets up and sings again, in Spanish, Italian and English.  Another coworker, a sweet Asian guy from Toronto buys me a drink and we hit the dance floor like maniacs, it was beautiful.   The Frenchmen start dancing with me, and do as the French casually do...  

Mark heads home so I stay out with the Canadians and French.  We cram 8 in a taxi and move onto another club, where I sort of accidently kissed this Thai girl after dancing on the stripper pole with Toronto chick.  Then about 3:30am, this Indian (or was he Turkish?) man told me he wanted to marry a girl with short hair then asked to smell it.

I left.

Mark we go to the Grand Palace and I got myself lost in the gold and gems and copious amount of Buddhas.  I wrote a bit, hidden in this little enclave surrounded by paintings from the Mahabarata.  Your eyes could get lost in a place like this, there is so much to look at.  I sat in this one temple where a 14cm Emerald Buddha lives symbolizing a long history of Thailand – it was stolen like 5 times.

At night, we have reservations with Mark's friends to eat at this rooftop bar above this super fancy hotel.  It was an interesting ending to Bangkok: sitting with two pretentious trust fund babies who are studying finance and did not ask me one question about myself, on this overpriced menu of roasted duck in a sundried cherry sauce surrounded by rich people and the lights of metropolis.  Dhaka will not be like this, at all – my last hurrah.  We ended up at Cow San (sp?) and I drank my whiskey in twenty seconds because I wasn’t allowed to bring it upstairs to watch this rapper.

We headed back to Mark’s in time for me to pack, catch up on emails and head to the airport at 3:15am.

Short, sweet, but – sweet. I liked Thailand: it’s a friendly, obliging city and I love the availability of Buddhism. Maybe I’ll teach English on the border…

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