Diary of Thailand--Part 1

7.24.11 (Day One--Bangkok)


 Our Thailand adventure got off to an unexpectedly insane start!  While out for dinner on our first night in Bangkok, it began pouring harder than I've ever seen it pour before.  I thought I'd seen it rain hard before, being from East Tennessee.  No.  I'd never seen it rain before.  While waiting for our pizza (which we opted to get after a long day of traveling, and Nicole got a green caterpillar in her Thai food the lady called "pyang") we turned around to head outside and WHOA!  It was raining SO hard.  Buckets, literally.  So, we decided to wait it out like many other passerby's were doing under the store awning.  But within about 10 minutes, the rain hadn't let up, and the road had become an actual river.  It was flooded high enough to reach the baseboard of the cars, which were still driving by.  People on motorcycles were having to pick them up and move them through the deep water.  A woman came out of the 7/11 to talk to us.

"Oh, this is Bangkok!  This is all the time Bangkok!"  Thais talk with a very nasal accent...they actually all talk just like Fran Drescher.  It's really funny to hear!  After 20 minutes we decided to eat our pizza while sitting on the waiting bench in the pizza place, and then we went next door to 7/11 and bought cheap ponchos to fit over our backpacks and everything.  I had brought a small umbrella but it would have done me absolutely no good in that rain!  The rain slowed to a regular hard downpour, and we decided to walk down the street to try and make it to our hotel, because we were quite exhausted.  The flight had been very long.  We waded ankle-deep down the street towards our hotel.  Manholes, earlier from which the distinct smell of raw sewage had been exuding, were now overflowing onto the streets with the enormous amount of rainwater!  Huge cockroaches were running up the sides of the buildings for dear life.  We walked on raised sidewalks whenever possible, which wasn't much.  Whenever a car would drive by, the wake it left would cause a wave of water to flow over the sidewalk!  Then the sidewalk would end and we'd be back in the river!  But, we made it safe and sound back to our hotel!

My pyang

The little worm from Nicole's pyang...was it supposed to be in there?  We have no idea!

River Road

7.25.11 (Day Two--Bangkok)


This morning we went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market early, before the heat and the crowds arrived.  It was really big!  I saw beads, jewelry, and millions of souvenirs there.  It was all outdoors but covered, and it felt like a maze!  Nicole and I are somewhat of shopping fanatics and were in Bangkok crazy-shopping-heaven.  We bought cheap necklaces, little presents for people, and saw tons and tons of different stuff for sale...everything from wooden elephants to live puppies kept in pretty horrendous conditions.  They say that if it's sold in Thailand--you can find it at this market.  For lunch, we went to a small stand that sold us delicious fried noodles, and had mango with sticky rice and coconut syrup for dessert!  I also found some fresh coconut juice to drink.  Once the crowds showed up, we saw tourists from all over the world.  And it was crazy--we took the subway there and back from our hotel and didn't get lost once!

First guy I saw at the Chatuchak Weekend Market

The market was open-air, but covered

This exact kind of bird (looked like a black cardinal) was in cages like this all over town

Tons of cheap jewelry, beads, and tourists!

So much fun stuff to look at!

Little wooden houses

Huge prawns for sale

Crazy bags!

The lady peeled our mango right in front of us...mmmm!

This tasted SO good.

After a short rest in our hotel, we went to Banglamphu neighborhood and got picked up by a tuk tuk (small 3 wheel open cab almost like a motorcycle) who took us to different temples and Buddhas.  He also took us to a custom-made suit/dress shop, which I had already read about they would do to try and scam you out of money.  So, we walked in, and walked right back out!  He also took us to a travel agency who tried to book us on a trip to Ayutthaya and a floating market for 5000 Baht each.  We told him we would go, but didn't have the money with us, which was true, since we had hidden all our credit cards and a lot of our cash in our hotel room.  The agent tried very hard to get at least a deposit from us, or to leave something of value with him so he knew we would show up the next morning for the trip.  I didn't trust him and we refused to leave him anything, which was good, because I later Googled the company and it was nothing but people blogging about how they had been ripped off by them!  I was glad I had read that the tuk tuk's were not much more than a tourist trap.  But it was amazing, because the tuk tuk driver drove us around for several hours, to different temples we would have never seen on our own, and it only cost us 20 Baht total, which is under $1!  Apparently it was super cheap that day because in celebration of the new female leader of Thailand, the government was paying his gas that day.  Whether or not that was true, I don't know!  I don't trust anyone trying to sell me something.  And when they are super nice, I trust them even less.  But the tuk tuk was super cheap! After seeing all the temples, he took us to a Thai restaurant per our request.  On the way, we saw a little girl begging for money in traffic at a red light.  Tears were streaming down her face.

"Oh no!  That's so sad!" exclaimed Nicole.

"She's faking it," I said.  I've been jaded after numerous trips to Mexican border towns since childhood, where I learned people use their children to beg, because they gain more sympathy, and therefore,  collect more money.  But that doesn't make it any less sad.

That night, we figured out how to take a train the next morning to Ayutthaya, a town with many ruins from the 14th century, for only 245 Baht each.  We were happy the travel agent scammers had given us the idea!

An old monk at a temple walking with a cane

One of the random temples the tuk tuk took us to

People praying to Buddha

Our tuk tuk driver!

Nicole and I on the tuk tuk

Monks chanting prayers

Another part of a temple

Rainbow Buddha lanterns

A HUGE Buddha!

More temples...

Huge Buddha on the left, temple on the right

A monk praying to Buddha

We saw fat Buddhas...

And skinny Buddhas!

I was mesmerized by the ornate temples!

Bells at a temple

Shrines were everywhere!

Beautiful gardens

So pretty!

7.26.11 (Day Three--Ayutthaya)


This morning we took the subway to the train station and hopped on a train to Ayutthaya, the former capital of Siam.  I love taking trains because the view is always so scenic.  We saw what poor looks like, riding on the train through Bangkok and more rural areas.  If you think you're poor--you're not.  You're on a computer right now reading a blog.  Nope, you don't know what poor is, and neither do I.  But hop on a train in a developing country, and you'll get a tiny glimpse.  People live in shacks made with sticks and scrap metal.  They don't really have walls either, because it's so hot they need the air flow.  I saw shacks in marshes, standing on precarious stilts made of thin trees that looked like they'd fall down if you sneezed real hard.  It's amazing to see!  I bet they come outside when it's pouring rain to take a shower.  As our train chugged along the tracks, we saw neighborhoods of small shanties, emaciated cattle that were solid dark gray with horns, more impressive-looking temples, and sidewalks built entirely out of sticks over the water by the small houses.  Men on the train were standing outside in between the cars smoking cigarettes, the wind blowing their hair hard.  It was an amazing ride!

We took a tuk tuk from the train station in Ayutthaya who drove us to all the important sites for 200 Baht an hour.  Good thing we did, too, because we would have never seen all of it otherwise!  It was a bigger town than we had envisioned!  We saw tons of old ruins from the 1300's.  It reminded me of touring Italy, except we were looking at Buddhas instead of Virgin Mary's.  I think I've seen more Buddhas in Thailand already so far than Virgin Mary's in all of Rome and the Vatican combined!  It rained on us for part of the day, cooling the air at least 10 degrees, which was good since I was drenched from the high heat and humidity.  Then we ate a late lunch at a floating restaurant on the river near the train station.  When we found out the next train didn't leave for Bangkok for 2 and a half more hours, which was different than the lady had originally told us the night before when I called the train station, we walked down the street to do more sightseeing.  Cabs were offering to take us back to Bangkok for 600 Baht each, but we didn't want to spend that much.  Down the road we saw stray dogs covered in wounds and fleas and ticks, tropical fruit being sold by the road, and a skinny green snake in a tree with an extremely pointy head, like a small leaf.  Then we saw a modern, quite ornate temple and more Buddhas!  We got back to the station with still more than an hour and a half to wait.  The man before had told us the next train would leave at 6:48, and we couldn't buy the tickets until 6.  But, we saw other people walking around with tickets, and decided to ask again.  So, another person sold us tickets to Bangkok for 5:45!  It seemed fishy...maybe they work in tandem with the cab drivers, and try to scam foreigners into feeling the need to take a cab.

People praying and offering incense to a large reclining Buddha

Me and Buddha!  You can see bits of gold that people stick on him as offering

Another temple, and people praying

Buddha Buddha Buddha Buddha Buddha...

A dog sitting on the ruins

Ruins of Ayutthaya

Buddha ruins

A little girl waiting on her parents to finish looking at the ruins

More ruins

This place must have been amazing back in the day!

More temple ruins

Cool snake!

On the train ride home, I reminisced about train rides past.  One time I was alone on a train, on my way to Amsterdam from Munich to meet up with a friend.  It was a long trip.  At some point, an announcement came on.  I spoke German fairly well and thought it was saying that the train was going to split, and if you wanted to go to one place, you should be in one section, and if you wanted to go to another place, you should go to another section.  But I wasn't sure.  Back then I used to buy the cheaper ticket which didn't guarantee you a seat.  You would sit in an empty seat until someone came to claim it, then you'd move to the next empty seat.  If all the seats were full, you'd be sitting in the entryways and stuff.  Anyways, I had never heard of a train splitting so I decided just to stay put.  Well, sure enough, the train split--and I was on the wrong half.  I ended up in Frankfurt and knew I had made a big mistake.  In Frankfurt I found out that the next train to Amsterdam would leave in a couple of hours, and it was a 6 or 8 hour overnight trip (it was already like 10pm).  I bought the ticket, then walked around downtown Frankfurt for a while, stepping over homeless people sleeping in the streets.  On the train, I found it was almost completely packed.  I found an empty compartment in 1st class but almost immediately got kicked out when the guy came by to check my tickets.  Exhausted, I was desperate for a place to sit--even better, 3 seats together which I could lie down on.  I walked down the entire length of the train, peeking into one full compartment after another.  Each compartment contained 6 seats--3 on one side facing the other 3.  I finally entered the last train car, and I saw them, standing near the very end:  3 drunken German men, beer bellies and all, drinking beers and cutting up with each other in the narrow aisle.  I knew I was in for it.  There was no way to pass them by without having to squeeze through.  They saw me too, and started to chuckle suggestively.  They couldn't wait for me to approach them.  Compartment after compartment, the train was still packed.  They were standing right before the very last room.  As I squeezed by, the loudest and fattest one grabbed one of my breasts full-on, and I elbowed him in the gut as hard as I could.  He laughed and made a comment about me being a "feisty girl" or something along those lines.  I looked him in the eye with a burning hatred that said, "I am NOT in the mood to be messed with."  I peeked into the last compartment and there was only one man inside, passed out drunk on one side.  The other side was empty.  It was exactly what I was looking for, but somehow, I didn't feel so lucky, because the drunk men who had already groped me and outnumbered me 3 to 1 were still laughing and drinking directly outside the compartment.  At the end of the train, I felt like I was miles away from the conductor, or anyone who worked aboard.  With literally no other options, I opened the clear sliding door and took the other 3 seats, lying across in the same direction as the man.  I figured he belonged to the drunk crowd, which I could hear right outside the door.  Would they come into the compartment after me?  Were they just your regular, run-of-the-mill stupid drunks, or had they just raped and murdered a girl in the Czech Republic, and were on their way to Amsterdam to celebrate with hookers and cocaine?  Would the people in the compartment next door be able to hear me scream?  There was no way I could sleep in such a situation, even though I had not planned on an overnight journey.  So, I closed one eye and kept the other on the man across from me, who I knew would be way too excited at what he saw, should he ever wake up.  At one point, he opened his eyes, smiled like the Joker, and reached out a hand and placed it on my boob.  I grabbed it and threw it off, shouting "NEIN!" in my sternest voice.  He passed right back out.  Luckily, the drunk crowd outside left me alone the whole night, and I met up with my friend the next morning at the hostel he was staying at.  Neither of us had cell phones back then.