Saturday, August 30, 2008

Inner City Pressure


Disclaimer: this all actually took place on 8-28-08, but I'm posting this on 8-31-08 because it's the first day I've had internet. If you would like to see the pictures from the events described below, check them out at: my Picasa web-album. Also, to understand the title of this blog post, watch this video and know that Mike has taken to singing this song as we travel around Bangkok. Now, on with the blog post...


Today was quite eventful. After a rather relaxing morning which involved collecting breakfast from street vendors and 7-11, spending some time on the internet, and watching some Flight of the Conchords Mike, Stephanie, Ashley, Tatiana, and I headed out to see the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It all started with a taxi ride. After piling all five of us into the taxi (4 in the back seat), we headed out toward what we thought would be our destination, but shortly after pulling out onto the street the taxi driver stopped and ordered us all out. He had been talking on his cell phone and Mike thinks that he figured out that he would not have enough gas to get us to the grand palace (apparently he had to call someone to find out what this "grand palace" we were talking about was). So, while we were sorting out what had happened and what to do next Mike and Stephanie got the bright idea to take the BTS (sky train) to the river and take a river boat to the grand palace. So, we flagged another taxi down and headed for the BTS.



I was wearing my Lake Michigan College baseball camp shirt (the reason for this sentence will become clear in the next sentence). While we were standing there, waiting for the train at Siam, a short, plump Thai man asked me if I was from Michigan. It turned out that he went to high school in Traverse City and has family there. Mike, him, and I talked all the way to the river (well, mostly Mike and him). When he found out that we were going to the grand palace, he said he would show us the cheap way to get there (by boat). He helped us buy the tickets for the right boat and even waited with us for the boat (which was a great help because we didn't even know exactly what boat to take or where we wanted to get off).




When we got to our destination, we wandered through the market right by the dock and headed in what we thought was the direction of the Grand Palace. On our way in that direction, a Thai man stopped us and told us that the Grand Palace was closed. He also gave us a bunch of other information about some other Wats (temples) that were open for free that day and he introduced us to a tuk-tuk driver who he said would take us to all the places we wanted to go and drop us off at another boat-taxi that would take us home. He said the tuk-tuk would only cost 40 baht for all of us. Of course, we thought this sounded great, so all five of us squeezed into the back of what I thought looked like a space fit for two people and we were on our way.



After a short ride we reached our first destination - a pretty cool Wat with both a sitting and a lying down Buddha. It did not take us long to look around that place and we headed out for our next destination. Then started a sequence of events that was quite confusing for all of us. Our driver took us to a place that we did not want to go - it was a western fashion shop where they sold tailor-made suits, soap, and other things of that nature. So, we rather confusedly went in at the insistence of our driver and were pressured by a man inside to look at and smell luffa soap. When our driver was explaining why we needed to go into this store he had mentioned something about gasoline and a coupon so our best guess was that he got free gasoline or something for taking us to this shop. On our way to what we thought was another Wat he stopped again at a traveler information center which did not have any information at all unless we booked a trip or something. At this stop, Mike actually told the driver, "No, no, we don't need this." To which the driver responded, very pitifully, "But it's free to look around." Again, we all suspect it was because he got some kind of kick-back for taking us there. After that, we really thought we were going to get to see the other Wat since we had clearly showed him on the map where we wanted to go. Apparently he thought it was time for us to go home, though, because we ended up at the boat-taxi and made it rather clear that this was the end of the line.



So, after a walk down a street that consisted completely of shops that sold building supplies (lumber, doors, tools, you name it) in search of food we decided to get on the boat and head for home. The boat ride was quite a cool experience and when we got off that we went in another type of taxi/bus/truck type thing called a songthaew. On the return journey there was much joking about how we traveled all over the city just to see the smallest Wat in Bangkok. It was quite amusing when we thought of it that way, but I actually had a fun time traveling around the city - experiencing the different modes of transportation and seeing the different parts of the city. I really would like to see the Grand Palace someday though - the tops of the buildings that we could see over the walls looked pretty impressive anyway...

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Thailand

I'm in Bangkok!!!


The flight was good - it was non-stop from LAX to Bangkok - 16.5 hours. That may sound like a long time to sit in one seat, but it is a very long time to be sitting in one seat. Fortunately, the only real bad thing about being in a plane that long is that it is hard to get comfortable. Boredom was not an issue. I watched a couple of movies (The Bucket List and Son of Rambow) and did quite a bit of reading (from Code Complete (which I highly recommend (are nested parentheses allowed in English?))).


A word on Son of Rambow (the title is intentionally misspelled). That movie is amazing! I don't want to give too much away, but it's about these kids who make a "movie" after being inspired by First Blood. I didn't expect it to be that great, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It is incredibly funny and yet has a great plot as well, which seems to be getting harder to come by these days.
After watching said movies and reading said book and eating 3 delicious meals (one of which involved eating some stuff I suspected was some sort of meat but am now rather confident was just gluten) I arrived in Bangkok. It was very easy to tell I had entered an entirely different country as soon as I passed through customs. From every direction people were trying to get my attention so that I would take their taxis or stay in their hotel. Fortunately for me - I was very focused with only one mission - find my friend Mike.


I expected this mission to be quite easy when I saw that there was a designated "meeting/greeting area" right near where I had come through customs. Naturally, I went there and looked first, but the only thing I found there was another group of beckoning taxi-drivers. Next, I went in search of a pay-phone (I later found out there were two in that very area). In my quest for a payphone several airport personnel asked me what I was looking for. When I told the first person who asked me that I was looking for a payphone, he gestured toward a nearby group-tour station and said that one of the receptionists would help me if I gave them some money. Not wanting to be taken advantage of (since I don't know how much something like that would be worth - especially in Baht) I declined as politely as I could. The next person who asked me what I was looking for directed me to a nearby payphone, but before I even started to attempt to figure out how to use it (it looked quite different than what I'm used to) he offered to let me use his cell phone. I was a little skeptical at first, but he looked at the number I needed to call (confirmed that it would be free) and dialed it for me - then handed me the phone. He even helped me out when it didn't go through the first time and I was able to contact Mike (who happened to be in the greeting area where I went to first). So yeah, I am very greatful to that airport personnel guy for sure. All in all, the whole ordeal of trying to find Mike probably only took about ten minutes so I consider myself quite fortunate. So yeah - since then I've been hanging out at Mike's apartment and wandering the streets of Bangkok. I'm sure much more adventures are soon to come.