In Chiang Mai now. Got here at 7am from my 13 hour overnight train arriving from Bangkok. Spent yesterday commuting everywhere in Bangkok. First to Wat Arun across the River on the eastern side, got confused several times because the boat doesn't go across, as I had to jump off the boat and hop onto another one that only goes across back and forth between the 2 sides. 32 bahts and 1 hour and half later, I finally got across the river to Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn). A trip which shoulda only taken me about 15 minutes. Very nice!
Got there and climbed up the ridiculously steep staircase. Good thing that I had my practice run up/down the stairs at Huang Shan in China. The view on top was nothing less than expected. Looking at the Chao Phraya River from the top was much better than right on the river bank, since water is muddy and very polluted.
The sleeper train ride was very enjoyable as well, especially costing about 850 THB (about 30 cdn). The upper sleeper was a bit narrower than the bottom, but still bigger than the middle sleeper bed on the Chinese trains. In addition, the service from the crew on board is much better. So is the cost. In China, a ride like that would have cost me about 60 cdn and it is a bit dirtier than the Thai trains. However, sad to say that, the toilet -squading style, is just as dirty as its counter part in China. (I heard the trains, and other things in general, are even more disgusting in India. I look forward to experiencing that myself end of October!).
9am: Off I go to the first temple - Wat Chiang Man inside the northeastern end of the city wall. I scooted around, on foot, the little soi's (backroads) until passing the front door of the temple at least twice before finally getting there for the 3rd time. Hahah, I was pretty shocked that I missed it completely both times. Usually my god-given great sense of direction prevails, assuming that the map is correctly drawn.
At lunch time, I had to try the Chiang Mai special, Khaow Soi. Flour noodles with some crunchy noodles as toppings all cooked in a thin coconut curry soup. Though it was cheap (25 baht), I had to get something else to fuel up. So I got my 2nd favourite thing in Thailand, Mango with Sticky Rice. The mango is sliced and put on top of a bed of sticky rice, then the whole thing is topped with coconut milk. Yummy! Who would have thought that this would be a great combination.
Off I go to the 2nd temple about 40 minute walk away from the first, within the city wall. On the way to Wat Chedi Luang, I encountered a local after he spotted me with a Cdn flag on my backpack. He claims that he's been to Vancouver and that his sister lives in Burnaby near metrotown. I thought he was for real since most scam artists don't know any other cities in the GVRD area other than Vancity. Boy was I wrong. He kept telling me that he brings rubies and other gems to Oz to sell and he wants me to buy a few at this market about 30 minutes away then I can bring to Oz and sell for double the price. Needless to say, I turned him down. Long before over, his "friend" joins in and proposed a tour with him around town for 100 baht. He even showed me a couple of recommendation notes written by 2 other cdns. Nicole from Toronto and some guy from Kingston. I said my many thanks to Mr. Singh and his entourage and left in a hurry to meet my imaginary friend from across town.
To the 3rd temple of the day (there are over 300 temples in Chiang Mai), Wat Phra Singh was by far my favorite out of the 3 mainly because there was a full size basketball court on the holy grounds with roosters and hens chilling. (Oh, did I tell you there are many stray dogs around Thailand? Funny thing is that they don't ever bark at all and are very calm, cool, and collected. They mind their own biznass and aren't aggressive at all. My only memories of stray dogs are from Taiwan; they are a bunch of aggressive SOB's, no pun intended). My least favourite breed of dog is gotta be chiwawas or however you spell it. I got bit by one when I was 5 or 6 in Kaohsiung when I tried to pull its tail for fun; I guess I deserved it.
Anyways, I shot around for 40 minutes with this Thai boy before he challenged me to a Canada VS Thailand one-on-one game. Off we went toe-to-toe, I was up by 6 - 0 when I started to feel bad that I was just destroying the guy on his home turf. I stepped back a bit and he made a run. The next thing I know, It was tied at 9-9. We went back and forth a bit longer. He was a pure shooter with no moves at all. I posted him up down low, but finally lost by 1 with a finally score of 13.-12, Thailand over Canada. (Andrew B, aren't you ashamed by my performance....or the lack of.)
We shook hands and we took a picture together underneath the basket. My excuse for loosing: 1) He's got homecourt advantage. 2) I got soft thinking that I was beating him too badly 3) I was hungry for some more mangos.
Off I went and walked around some more to this small temple on a side street which I wondered into by accident. I even brought a beer in, not intentionally. Talked to this local guy about the temple, as it's not shown on my free tourist map. It's called Wat Pah Hone aka The Flying Bird Temple. There were 7 smaller Buddhas outside the temple with a chedi (pagoda) behind them. The local explained to me that the 7 Buddhas are for each day of the week. Eg, if you were born on Wednesday, you would go to the 4th one from the left (with Sunday being the beginning of the week) and make a donation. I made a donation to the Tuesday one, not knowing which day of the week I was born on. He said it's best to be born on Wed or Sat. Not sure why.
Anyways, I had dinner at the Saturday night market outside the city wall. Ate a crap loads of food for cheap. I used my quicker-picker-upper thai I learned today to impress the locals, although some weren't as impressed because I looked Asian.
I learned that counting in thai is very very similar to counting in chinese. eg. 1 to 10 is very similar in pronunciation's in both languages. And the logic behind counting is exactly the same. eg. 15 is read as ONE TEN FIVE and 50 is read as FIVE TEN in both languages. Good to know that my knowledge in Chinese is almost like my insurance policy if English fails to communicate.
Last thing last, for some reason, all the locals think I am Japanese (is it cause my small eyes?). I guess it's because there are lots of Japanese backpackers around and Koreans too. Not soo many Chinese bpackers. I got mistaken as a local by another local today on the bball court. He complimented me for my nice stroke when shooting the ball. I asked him what he said then he replied, "oh I thought you were thai." hahahaha.............funny stuff. (wait a minute, do i suck that bad at bball?!)
Alright, I would write more, but the internet cafe is closing at 10pm. So peace out from Chiang Mai. Wait, I just noticed that the owner of the cafe is a German dude married to a thai lady. there are a large expat population in Chiang Mai. More so than in Bangkok.........mostly American GI's from WWII. Anyways, he's got his masters degree in physics and computer science posted on the wall here. U of Aarhus.
I just noticed there's a big billboard of advertisement for their jap/korean customers.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
"I Bangkok in Bangkok" - Ludacris
this just in: my picture with mr. fei in suzhou. he was our canal boat guide. the only time we tipped anybody was him. (can't post the pic on here for some reason.)http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.phpi=surah&b=34&f=1438762478&p=17
So finally i am in the land of thai where my blog is not blocked like it was in china. gotta love the commies.
day 4 done in bangkok. the quote above is from one of my fav rap songs "area codes" by ludacris aka christopher bridges.
oh i got news for y'all. my friend whom accompanied me for the trip in China has posted pics of us in beijing, shanghai and suzhou. u don't have to wait until november to see some of the china pics. whooray!
shanghai (59) http://www.wretch.cc/album/album.php?id=surah&book=33
anyways, about my time in bangkok (point form because i am sure u r all tired of reading my endless rant about nothing really).
day 1: arrived at midnight from china. shared a taxi with a chinese mom and her daughter (150 baht for me. 1 cdn to 33 thai baht now). checked into a below average hotel for 580 baht....single room with a/c and hot shower. u know how i know i am cheap (other than the fact that i am chinese; i ate instant noodles i had brought from china that night. haha)
day 2: checked into a even crummier place for 400 baht with only a/c, but shared bathroom. it's all good. not like i haven't used shared showers/bathrooms in china. i could really slum it some more getting a room with no a/c, but a fan for 290 baht, but that's a bit out of my liking. u need the a/c when it's 28 degree celcious at midnight with over 50% humidity. went to the palace an hour before it closed. didn't get a tour guide. perhaps i shoulda because i didn't think the palace was all that impressive. i think after seeing the stuff in china; nothing even comes close. (although, the chinese gardens got boring after a while)
doodled around and got scammed into buying some freakin' corn kernels for birdfeeding. some thai lady went right to my face and poured 3 handfuls of kernels and pointed at the pigeons on the ground outside of the palace and said "good luck" to me. i said no and tried to dump the kernels back to her. she ran away so i dumpped them on the ground for the birds to devour them. she came right up to me and asked for money. she asked for 25 baht, but i didn't want to pay because i didn't want to buy them in the first place. i told her i only had 5 baht on me. she took it.
did jack all that night. walked around on the famous backpacker street aka Khao San road and felt soo alone although there were soo many people around me. there were soo many white ppl, i thought i was in vancouver. but again, there were a lot of japanese backpackers along with a large amount of europeans. not soo many north americans, as i didn't hear many with the NA accent. seen a few cdns, but didn't notice any americans. i think they are pretending to be cdns.
speaking of cdns, i have a large cdn flag on my mt. equipment coop backpack. i got hasseled soo bad by the taxi and tuk tuk drivers so i, now, tuck that part inside my bag to hide the flag. it is amazing how doing so gets by them so easily. i guess they think i am a local thai because i am asian and i got even darker while touring in china. i am still pasty in the core section, but my limbs have been charcoaled.
to be spontaneous, i decided to pretend i was a deaf/mute when one of the hawkers approached me at this department store downtown bangkok(assuming that he wants to pull a scam on this little cdn chinese). he asked how i was and wanted to know where i am going. i started gesturing in sign language, which i didn't have a slightest idea on how to sign properly. he realized that i was a deaf/mute and started signaling left and right to ask me where i want to go.
i kept signaling back at him with some made up gestures while posing a puzzled look on my face. he gave up immediately, smiled, and left onto his merry way. ahhahahahahahha AHAHAHAHHAHA. mission accompolished.
i haven't pulled the same trick since because i wasn't sure if i was being insensitive to the deaf/mute community.
day 3: went to Wat Po (huge reclining buddha) and the bangkok national museum (neither were impressive. in fact, the most impressive thing i did was taking boat to go downstream to another place. equivalent of the seabus to lonsdale quey from waterfront station).
after a long day, i went back to khao san road where i got a thai massage for 1 hour with a "whopping" bill of 180 baht ($5 cdn). thinking of trying the oil massage or the foot massage next time after i come back from my 12 hour train ride to Chiang Mai (thailand's 2nd biggest city). i bet my feet would demand a massage after the 3 day trekking i am about to embark on. the thai massage was nice, but i don't think she stepped on me with her feet like u see in the movies. she definitly bent me in extreme ways. knowing that i am not very flexible, it was nervewrecking, but also an relaxing experience afterall.
day 4 thursday (today 9/27): woke up again to the rooster calls. who wakes up to rooster calls nowaday? lol, i have had the luxury to have my "own" roosters waking me up since arriving in bangkok. however, the roosters outside on the streets can never really complete the whole call, as they struggled with the later part of the call. the incomplete calls often sounded like the roosters got a bad case of a sore throat. how nice! (by the way, i am staying on Soi Rambuttri. a small street next to Khao San road next to the river)
booked my one way overnight train ticket (sleeper with a/c) to chiang mai (900 baht) for friday night and my 1 night hotel stay in chiang mai (420 thb) and the 3 day trek tour (1300). also got my ticket to watch the ladyboys show tonight (450). all that added up to be 3000 thai baht or about 100 cdn.
prior to the show, i spent the afternoon exploring Chinatown in bangkok. i thought i'd find some chinese ppl there, but not really. nobody i spoke to at various stores knew mandarin. some spoke cantonese, but that's it. after 2 hours of wondering aimlessly in chinatown, it was time for me to jet to the busy department store (MBK) again since the ladyboys show was around there as well.
took the bus there and explored all 7 floors of the department store (can you tell i was bored out of my mind?). finally, it was still only 3:30pm and the show doesn't start for another 6 hours. i decided to check out a movie. i had many choices, including resident evil 3, but i picked a thai movie instead. (was never a resident evil fan. no zombie movies should be allowed after "28 days later". now that was glorious) it was called the "bangkok love story".........no, not a chick flick. it was about 2 straight guys whom fell in love under all the wrong circumstances. it was more of a sad story than a love story and the plot was corny / lacked character development.
however, the highlight of the film is its cinematography. it was nicely shot. sorta interesting to see the backdrop of the places i have been to in bangkok. for example, the palace, wat arun, the swing, river, and of course the sky train (yes, they have sky trains here, too). so many parts of the film were shot like a commercial. not sure how to describe it, but it was quite interesting visually.
ok, after the movie, time to eat up bangkok. i immediately descended to the 6th floor from the theater. there were soo much food there.......and clean food!!! spent 150 baht (all of $5 cdn) eating up 2 main dishes and 2 desserts. hahaa. i never spent that much even in china on a meal alone. what i had:
1) tom yom fried rice (sour & spicy)
2) combination beef soup (beef strips, tendons, tripes aka cow stomach, ground meatballs, and briskets)
3) sweet sticky rice with durian and coconut milk
4) chestnuts inside rice flour jello mixed with coconut milk and crushed ice
* i was tempted to order the "special beef soup" but only to find out that it was composed of chopped pieces of cow penis. i actually knew it was cow penis since it said "cow dick" in chinese next to the thai prints, but not in english. hahaha, thank god i can read chinese, though i was still tempted. only if it wasn't 90 baht a bowl....sigh! i also figured that it sorta sounds bad when i tell ppl that the first time i've ever tasted penis was in thailand. YIKES.
as i made my way towards the ladyboys show, i descended further and the funny thing is that each descending floor, there presence of english became progressively less, so were the farangs aka foreigners (refering to white ppl most of the time by the locals). *ps. all the locals think i am japanese for some reason. well, even a few japanese tourists came up to me speaking japanese to me. i replied in simple japanese i learned in highschool "why? I am very handsome. thank you" then i told them i wasn't japanese.
so back to the floor thing, by the time i got down to the 3rd floor, there were only signs in thai. no english nor chinese. chinese signs were only on the 6th floor since they had a lot of chinese products on that floor such as the famous Sparrow Nest, the birds' nest collected and cooked with honey and hot water to be eaten as a dessert. it is said to be good for your health. most people don't know this, but sparrow's nest is actually made with twigs and the birds' own spit. the part the chinese eat is the spit part, as the tree twigs had been removed. ummmm........yummy! i shall try it another time.
fastforward to the ladyboys show, not as raunchy as i thought it'd be. i guess i went to the "watered-down" version. there were soo many asian ppl in the audience.......perhaps 90% asian including japanese, koreans, chinese with the rest being white. the show itself was pretty entertaining, but i could not help to constantly figure out how these "she-males" maintain their figures while hiding other "parts" they don't want us to see.
alright, it's been an interesting day: gay movie, attempt to eat cow penis soup, then off to the ladyboys show. how do u top that?
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