Today was a peskily indecisive sort of a day - we went and hung out by the pool and had lunch, whilst trying to decide what to do with ourselves - neither of us were too bothered about where we went or what we did, so I decided it was best if we just went into town and stayed at Asha, as it would be marginally cheaper than staying at Marie's, and it's closer to everything. On our eventual arrival at Asha, we bumped into Ville and Cecilia, the Finnish couple I met here before, which was awesome. We headed into town to meet some of Marie's friends at a bar called Saxophone, which had an awesome live band playing blues and funk. They had an incredible cocktail menu, so we stayed for a while, and while being frugal and nipping out to 7-11 for a cheap beer, Ville and I encountered two cool things - firstly there were about 8 matching white Mercedes with sequential numberplates outside. When we asked a nearby policeman whose they were, he answered "Queen", which we took to mean that the Queen was somewhere in the vicinity. The second cool thing was that some sort of biker gang seemed to be in the bar, as there were 6 or so amazing custom bikes outside, covered in skulls and chains and with the fattest tires and lowest seats I've ever seen. We left the place about 1, and headed home via a noodle stand, although Ville and poor sober Cecilia ended up going to a Karaoke bar on the way home - we left them to it.
Day 110 (Saturday 2nd) - A Slow Start...
I think we're the worst Bangkok tourists ever. We overslept and consequently missed Ville and Cecilia, and then spent ages trying to figure out what to do today. We attempted to go to the Snake Farm (the one run by the Red Cross, not the dodgy one that we nearly went to on our river tour a month or so ago), but found that the 'milking' times were different on weekends so we had missed it. We headed to Central Pier and got the Express Boat just to see the river, then jumped off at Banglamphu as we had decided to go to the Golden Mount, a big temple on an artificial hill which supposedly gives awesome views of the city. After a sweaty climb we reached the top, to find this is indeed true - you can see for miles, all over this wierd unplanned mish-mash of a place. There are slums next to palaces, huge malls crushed together next to areas of wasteland, and various other confusing contradictions. I got some good pictures of pictures of The King as well - he seems to have been the main topic of conversation for some reason.
We headed to the Cinema at Siam Paragon as it was on our way home, on the offchance of catching something decent - this turned out to be Sweeney Todd, which was awesome. We were in an enormous cinema which can't have been more than 10% full, and we sat through loads of trailers before the main event - the national anthem, accompanied by various tableaux of Thai life and how it is improved in many ways by the existence of The King - musicians playing in front of a picture of him playing his trumpet, soldiers patrolling with a picture of him in full Naval uniform, monks meditating with the picture of him meditating as a monk, complete with awesome aviators - my second favourite, after the one of him with Elvis - before ending with the messages "We Love The King, Long Live The King, His Majesty Bhumipol Adulyadej, The Heart And Inspiration Of All Thais". Stirring Stuff. The film was an unexpected musical, with plenty of gore and ridiculous ideas, and well worth a watch.
We came home and watched another film, Baraka, which was absolutely awesome. I'm not too sure of the details of when it was made, or by whom, but it is a wordless documentary about, well, the whole world, featuring some of the coolest footage I have ever seen, of animals, people, landscapes, plants, stars, everything. Really beautiful.
Day 111 (Sunday 3rd) - Giant Squid and Massive Prawns
I seem to be falling ill - when I awoke today I was feeling totally drained and exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open over breakfast. My knee's changed appearance as well - most of the dead skin covering the scratches came off in the shower this morning, leaving it shiny and sort of weird looking. As a result I went for a nap after breakfast, and woke up feeling a bit better, and so we went to look for the fresh fruit and food market that's supposedly nearby, at the southern tip of Chatuchak Park. We took what I thought was a shortcut, and ended up wandering along the banks of the filthiest river I have ever seen, where we were quite possibly the first Farang to pass by. Eventually we made it to Chatuchak, past all the stalls outside the market proper which sell (at least) secondhand bits and bobs, many of which seem to have just been taken from bins. We went through the market to the park, picking up a few things on the way - Chatuchak is dangerous, it would be so easy to pick up truckloads of cool stuff to send back home, in fact I may do this in a few years when/if I have a place of my own to furnish. We found the food bit, and had some really good Phad Thai and Ramen, before hopping on the Skytrain to Siam, for two reasons - I wanted to pick up a present for someone, and Marie suggested we go to the Aquarium - this was an incredible idea, the Aquarium (allegedly the largest in southeast Asia) has a glass-bottomed boat you can ride around the shark tank, loads of cool fish (obviously), a Giant Squid (albeit frozen in a giant block of ice) and a 4D X-Venture Cinema, which is basically a 3D cinema with moving chairs, jets of air and water vapour, and little bits of plastic which swish against your legs when fish swim from behind you. All very cool indeed.
We met up with Marie's friends Andrea and Sudan Sarah on Sukhumvit Soi 3/1, also known as Little Arabia. Sarah, who used to live in the UAE, ordered various things for us, including Hummus & Samosas (familiar, yet delicious), arabic fish curry (really awesome, totally new flavours), barbecued prawns (must have been 5 inches long by 1" thick, really good), chicken kebabs and Tabuleh (both really delicate and delicious) and a few other things besides. It was really cool to have Arabic food, as it was so different to the predominantly Thai food I have been eating for the last month or so.
I enquired at reception about going to Koh Chang (Ranong), as this is the destination of Marie's field trip this week, it looks beautiful, and is also really close to the Myanmar border so I can get a new Visa, allowing me to stay until the full moon party on the 22nd - apparently it's a 13 hour bus ride from here, and I'd better book soon as it's nearly Chinese New Year, and travel will be difficult. Also Marie called to tell me that her lecturer says it's fine for me to come along/meet them there, the trip will be mostly snorkelling and I'm more than welcome to join them. Awesome.
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