Mid-Semester Break: Bangkok's Day 1

I think this may have to be a three-part entry at the least because there is a lot to talk about. Last friday, that's Septemeber 16, I left Singapore in the afternoon on AirAsia to head for Bangkok. AirAsia turned out to be a lot like Southwest except that instead of a boarding pass you get a receipt. I was a little weirded out by the fact that a receipt was good enough to get on a plane, but we made it to Bangkok in one piece. The aerial view of Thailand was one of the most distinct skylines I've ever seen in my life. Everywhere I've gone, it seems like the skyline always looks the same from the plane and that you can only tell the difference once you touch down, but Thailand proved me wrong. Once there, we were taken by bus to the terminal because AirAsia is that cheap and doesn't have any gates in Thailand. At the airport, we booked ourselves two rooms in Khao San, which is the "backpacker's" area. I was with one guy and three girls by the way: Ruben, Becca, Bry, and Melissa. All are EAPers except for Melissa, who is one of Bry's friends from when she lived in Singapore. On my way into the city, I gained an understanding of the fact that I was somewhere completely different than Singapore or Malaysia. The city was one gigantic urban sprawl. There were cars and scooters everywhere with no one central highway to direct traffic into and out of the city. We stayed at the Trang Hotel, which cost Ruben and I 1500 baht (38 usd) to stay in, which was actually pretty expensive for Thailand, but the hotel was really nice, the room came with a shower, air-conditioning, a tv, and two separate beds. There was also a pool, which was definitely a relief to come back to to cool off the next day. After unloading our stuff into our rooms, we headed back out onto the streets in hopes of finding some food. It was funny how people would try to get our attention because they could tell that we didn't speak a lick of Thai, so they would just clap at us to try get our attention. In the end, we found a small restaurant in an alley and had some pad thai, which is a thai noodle dish with seafood. It was quite good and the best part was the price. The noodles and the drink was only 60 baht (1.50 usd). After that, we headed out in search of a night bazaar we had heard about from a local. We had also heard that there was some Muay Thai boxing there, a local specialty. We tried to hire a tuk-tuk, which is essentially a motorized tricycle with a cart on the back. The first guy we talked to offered us a ride to the night bazaar for 10 baht, which was only 25 cents, which seemed a bit sketchy. We soon found the catch in that he insisted that he take us to go "shopping." In the guide books, you read about these scams where the tuk-tuk drivers or taxi drivers will take you to see usually gems because the shopowner gives them a commission. So we left him and hopped into a metered cab and headed to the night bazaar. We got there and walked around a bit. This part didn't look a whole lot different than any of the other night markets I had seen before. It reminded me of the night market in Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur. There are small stalls everywhere you turn trying to sell you shirts or various Thailand souvenirs. We looked around a bit and then tried to find the Muay Thai boxing. We did our best to ask around, but not too many people knew enough English to be able to help us. Finally, we made it to the stadium where we were able to walk in without paying despite some woman's efforts to convince us that it was going to cost us 500 baht each. Inside, there were men jeering from concrete stands with each hit that the boxers put on each other. All the men were making signals that I interpreted to be betting. It looked like the floor of the stock market with people putting their hands in the air and contorting them in various ways. Once I made it through the jeering crowd of men, I turned to see the boxers, who couldn't have been more than 14 years old. These were kids! We saw the last 3 rounds of the headlining fight, which was enough to get the gist of Muay Thai. The fighters would throw a few punches from a distance, maybe a kick or two, and then they would grab each other by the head like American boxers do when they're tired. Except that the referee doesn't break this up, because in muay thai, you're allowed to kick the other boxer at this point. So, most of the fight is spent with both fighters locked with arms wrapped around each other as they try to lay a good knee into the other's chest or stomach. The boy in red seemed to be the crowd favorite and was laying into the other kid pretty hard, but somehow the judges determined that the boy in blue was the winner at the end. After that, we left the stadium and walked around the night bazaar a little longer. Eventually we decided to cab it back to the hotel and get some much needed rest because we had a tour of the Grand Palace at 9 am the next morning. More on that in the next entry.