Bangkok Day 1 – 2: Shopping Spree

My Bangkok update will be a little slow – immediately after I reached home on Thursday afternoon, I am confronted with the fact that I’ve a Price Theory mid-sem test next Tuesday and I’ve done absolutely nothing about it. :) No panic buttons pressed yet though, as our lecturer has supposedly kindly divulged specific information about the test, and I’m ambling casually through the course guide and textbook.

In fact, I met up with my classmate Rebecca at McD’s SS15 on the day I came back itself at about 5.40pm so I could photostat and copy things I’ve missed out in classes, to which I’m extremely thankful to her.

And then on Friday morning, I went to college again to return a ‘red spot’ library book, and was fined RM1 (RM0.50 for every hour late, I was merely late by 3 minutes at 10.03am and I’m fined the extra hour -__-). Spotted my name at the notice board, among other students’ names, to go to the RMIT office to collect a letter, and it turned out to be a letter of commendation from the RMIT/Metropolitan Program Co-ordinator (from Australia) for getting a High D for my previous sem’s Business Statistics 1.

Quite an ego-booster – dunno if Curtin has this sort of thing as I was only with them for one semester. And for some weird inexplicable reason, because I think that my effort was actually treasured in the form of a simple letter, I’ve the drive I need to study and try and excel my upcoming tests wtf.

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Day 1 – Friday, 25th July 2008

Met up with Matt, Albert, and Albert’s godbrother at Summit who were running a little late for close to an hour at nearly 6pm. We ate at McD’s, then went straight to the LCCT.

There’s something about airports and airplanes that always struck me as interesting. At the airport after checking in, hundreds of flight passengers of various nationalities converge waiting for their respective flights. An elderly white guy with a Thai wife. An old Chinese man with his family. Tall, pretty angmoh girls with well-defined features. A 6-foot tall Chinese (as in from China) girl.

And all of these people, we were only able to examine them more closely when they were in the same plane. Especially a particularly angmoh girl who was travelling on her own that caught my eye. I admire and respect such travellers, because they’re wildly independent and are fearless of the loneliness that may assault them.

Albert and Matt in the queue waiting for our gate to open.

Flight moments that I thought were particularly critical have always been taking off and landing. I’m not particularly worried about anything bad happening because statistically, aircraft-related accidents have always been the lowest among all modes of transportation. But nonetheless I couldn’t shake the images of sudden accidents from exploding at the back of my mind – and again despite the fact I don’t want to die just yet, strangely I wasn’t afraid.

My only regret was the last words/actions I’d relegated to family and friends were: SMSing Shawn saying that I’ve passed the Japanese listening CDs to Ding; Ding coming to my house at noon to pass McD’s onion rings and chocolate sundae that I’ve forgotten to eat before departing and must’ve been eaten by my younger brother then; MSNing Heng updating him my life and everyone else’s here; MSNing Jon saying I’ve updated HS; MSNing an emo Alvin; messaged Li Ting in Facebook, the Singaporean girl I met in laos while in a cycling trip together and with whom we discovered we have a lil something in common in the recent span of messages; phoned Andy and talked to both Sarah and Andy muttering goodbyes; SMSed an iloveyou to S; saying goodbye to my mum on the phone.

That independent angmoh traveller sat at the same row as us, at the left side of the aisle. She chose the seat by the window, pen hooked to her ear, long black hair trailed down to her breasts, her hands filled with dozens of printed papers that surely must contain travel plans. Throughout the entire flight, her head was buried in papers and a Harry Potter book – and whilst we were taking off, when all lights were dimmed, leaving only reading lights on to those who were reading, only mine, hers, and a sporadic few were sprouting light.

Sitting in an aircraft is like riding in an extended rollercoaster ride – a rushing beginning and a heart-pumping ending; like a cassette tape with its tape being pulled out extensively to expand the ride into two distinctive parts, the beginning and the end, with a generally long-winded middle.

I relish the pressure against our bodies and inside our ears as we took of – I closed my eyes so I could perceive the pressure against my chest and ears with better clarity, just like how a blind man have an extremely perceptive sense of hearing due to the loss of sight.

This time around, as I always bring a book or 2 with me while travelling to while the time away, I brought Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart.

Apparently the Suvarnabhumi Airport is so huge that we had to use a commuting bus to reach the terminal. And right after getting off from the bus, I frigging thought I lost my passport, so I returned to said bus and searched the seemingly empty bus only to find it later in my pocket. -____- Sigh I can be so stupidly careless.

The first thing we did on arriving was purchasing a Thai SIM card. Or go to the toilet and drink from the water dispenser near it. I forgot which came first.

We eventually went on a taxi for 400baht as we were too lazy to bargain, plus they kept convincing us by saying how we had to pay the toll for the espressway blablabla PLUS it was nearly 11pm when we left the airport by taxi. And apparently it was an hour ride to Khaosan Road, where we wanted to go (but it only took our taxi driver about 45 minutes) and it was raining very heavily at the time. :(

When we arrived at Soi Rambuttri, it was already midnight, and we were beginning to fear that we may have no place to bunk in that night as nearly every guesthouse we went turned us away, saying that they were fully booked for the night. One posh-looking guesthouse’s staff jokingly said we could sleep in their garden wtf, before giving us a map as we were looking for Marcopolo, which we booked earlier online (but couldn’t find it in the end).

We eventually took up a room that was meant only for one person.. but seeing that we were desperate, we took it anyway, paying about 650baht for the 3 of us.

Once we’ve dumped our heavy backpacks, we went down to the street in search of food – surprisingly, a number of stalls, restaurants, and pubs were still open at 1am. :)

Delicious seafood – Matt and Albert ordered two pieces of large prawns that cost about 50baht each damn mahal wtf (but they told me it was cheaper than in Malaysia). I had fried rice IIRC.

When we later walked around in search of other guesthouses to bunk, we found one Sawasdee Smile that had a room for 3 people for 700baht -___- if we had searched properly, we would’ve found this but then again, we were a little paranoid of having no places to sleep at midnight at that time.

Yes this is the pathetic state of our room that night. T____T 3 people squeezing into a SINGLE bed.. we eventually decided to sleep horizontally across it. (And the camera was hanging from a wall lamp wtf.)

We went to bed at nearly 2.30am.

Day 2 – Saturday, 26th July 2008

We woke up super early at 6am Thailand time as Matt and Albert forgot to change the time in their handphones LOL (Thailand is behind Malaysia by an hour) – we used their handphone alarms to wake us up, and Matt was using Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours as his alarm ringtone. We only discovered the mistake when we woke up.

Albert having a fag in the morning wtf. Incidentally, this is one of my favourite photos of the trip.

We switched guesthouses after getting ready, then took a taxi to Chatuchak Weekend Market for 180baht – silly, I know, we should’ve demanded for meter but we didn’t know better at the time. The taxi driver was also an eccentric guy who talks a lot in broken English – constantly pretending that he was an F1 driver, thus he sped around like mad. Dahla tak faham his English so we interjected with “Oohhh”s and “Aaaah”s at whatever he was saying.

When we reached Chatuchak, it was already beginning to drizzle. :( Not a very good beginning, and neither was it encouraging, ‘cause apparently Albert’s friend mentioned that during the duration that we would be in Bangkok, the weather forecast mentioned thunderstorms all the way WTF. Albert was also complaining of the fact that Chatuchak was a non-smoking zone (a good thing for me :P).

Selling a cendol-like dessert.

Also in case you don’t know what the infamous Chatuchak is, it’s a colossal weekend market that has possibly thousands of stalls gathering in its massive grounds – I cannot begin to describe how large it is. A colossal market means an insane variety and amount of things to browse through, that, you probably couldn’t use a single day to browse through every item that was on sale, I kid you not. And also, nearly every item is dirt cheap, and you probably need to bargain a bit.

Sunglasses stall. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the handsomest of them all wtf.

Some really delicious crunchy pork that we bought a packet for 100baht IIRC.

My two financial planners who jot down every single purchase to the dot – they usually pay first on my behalf, so I’ll just pay them at the end of the day.

The infamous Bangkok orange juice that are 100% natural! :D 10baht for the small bottle (some stalls elsewhere may hike it up to 15baht), and 25baht for the large one. They’re excellent thirst quenchers, and they’re actually small Mandarin oranges that are really sweet. There were also some.. guava juice which was odd to drink but didn’t taste too bad.

We also eventually met up with Matt and Albert’s friend, Wena, and her other girl-friends. We were supposed to walk together, but fed up with tagging with them shopping girl stuffs, we parted ways.

Rows and rows of earrings that go for only about RM1 per pair.

Wii boxers HAHAHA. I would’ve bought one, but didn’t think it was necessary.. ‘cause I was on a budget wtf. My other Bangkok partners, on the other hand, shopped clothes like they were freebies wtf. (Matt was telling me, “Please stop me from buying more clothes” and exactly 2 seconds later he turned and saw The Simpsons boxers or something and went “OMG MUST BUY!” wtf.)

Small refreshing coconuts that were also good thirst quenchers – only 10baht (~RM1) I think. Since we walked around a lot and were dehydrating as the day went on (and the sun rose up), we drank a whole lot of liquid as well.

Cute couple tees were on sale, although you can safely disregard the grammatically incorrect text on two of them.

Chatuchak (and Bangkok, and Thailand in general) has hilarious tees. HAHAHHA LOOK AT THE BOTTOM-RIGHT TWO TEES. It’s HELLO TITTY AHAHHAHAHHA LAUGH DIE ME. (Again I nearly wanted to buy one but haih jimat duit sin.)

The dude who sells the leaping frog toys – you wind the frogs up, and they’ll leap backwards, quite amazing pieces considering that they go for only 20baht (~RM2).

Rare pic of the official photographer looking at boxers wtf.

Tiger prawns? on sale – they BBQ for you those things on the spot. It was 100baht for a small amount, and 150baht for a large amount. Dang even as I type, I still can smell the faint burnt crisp smell that I’ve come to associate with BBQed seafood.

Fair and cute Taiwanese girl with her boyfriend. I was eavesdropping on their conversation all the way wtf ‘cause the circumstances of how the African lady talked to the Taiwanese girl were soo interesting: African lady stopped the passing Taiwanese girl and asked if she can converse in English, and when the Taiwanese girl answered in the affirmative, the African lady asked if she could differentiate the colours between the huge bundles of.. stuff near her (if I’m not mistaken, she was trying to purchase bundles of dried flowers from a local old woman). Then they made small talk, and Taiwanese couple said they’d love to visit African lady’s country some day (I forgot which it was already), and so on and so on – I love how people from completely different cultures can converse so pleasantly with one another. :) Sigh yes I’m being a little unrealistic in wishing for zero racism.

Matt and cute poodle.

A fucking adorable husky with blue eyes!!! zomg I’ve never seen a dog with blue eyes in my life.

Another look at said husky. (No, we didn’t ask how much it was – yes it was on sale – but pets are generally way cheaper in Bangkok.)

Matt and Albert with a Thai Jack Sparrow. Right after snapping the photo, he insisted that we buy his erm, semi-worthless products (unattractive bracelets etc), and later when we didn’t, berated us and complained that the next time people want to snap a photo with him, they have to buy something from him first lol.

I liked this pic but too bad it turned out to be a little blur – rows of bags and handbags were on sale.

And flowers. And other home deco items.

And chicks/ducklings dumped inhumanely together into a single bucket. :(

Us tired as fuck sitting down next to the clocktower after walking for hours non-stop.

Me pretending to be a bored shopkeeper (there was no one manning the stall wtf) with a random kid that appeared out of nowhere.

We finished walking at about 3pm, then walked all the way to the nearby BTS (also known as the Skytrain) station, Mo Chit, then took it to the National Stadium (had to ask an auntie and a helpful young guy how to reach there, as we had to switch trains), then went into the MBK mall!

Long story short, after surveying the few camera shops from 3rd floor to 5th floor (there was the excellent Fotofile on the 5th floor that has tons of lenses and cameras in glass displays, and tons of ergonomic chairs and tables to sink our tired bottoms into), we ended up at Foto Thailand that could give me the cheapest price for my Canon 10-22mm – the Tokina 11-16mm that was my first choice wasn’t sold anywhere for some reason. :/

Test shot of my new lens wide open at 10mm. :D Dude on the right was the one attending to me.

I eventually bought the 10-22 for 21,000baht, a Hova UV filter for around 1,300baht (forgot exact price), and a Gorillapod SLR-Zoom for 1,300baht – all were VAT (value-added tax) inclusive, which means as a tourist, I can be refunded the 7% VAT at the customs at the airport when I leave. :) The prices were already cheap to begin with, compared to those sold in Malaysia.

Then went down to McD’s to eat the, what else, Samurai Pork Burger. :D Which was sososo very good as usual.

We went back to our Khaosan Road during rush hour for only 90+baht with a meter-using taxi. :/ Memang kena con the first time around lol.

Matt proudly showing off his purchases for the day wtf.

Obligatory group photo! Assisted by the newly purchased Gorillapod that was hanging off a chair.

We then went for a massage after we took our shower – we really needed it as my shoulders, back, and legs were aching from walking the entire day, and I was lugging around a 5kg+ camera bag everywhere. =.=” It was also only 180baht (~RM18) for one hour for the Thai massage near our guesthouse.

We had to wash our feet before entering the massage room – and one of the staffs cleaned our feet for us wtf such a good service.

My masseur.. unfortunately, wasn’t a nubile girl but a fairly plump auntie. The entire massage was a weird experience – a lot of unflattering positions that would seem like the karmasutra to the uninitiated (Matt and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when we were in, um, the weird positions). It was also quite painful, especially when I had to turn on my stomach for the masseur to massage me, but I felt really really relaxed when it was all over.

The massage room was dimly lit, its wall had a chart of the various acupuncture points of the body, a painting of a wat, and a sign asking guests to talk quietly to respect others lol.

We went makan at a restaurant – I had a fried omelette with rice for 25baht and a 10baht ice lemon tea in a glass bottle!

The aforementioned ice lemon tea in glass bottles :D (with the odd Pepsi)

Also went to another stall that sold some noodles which we shared.

The rows of stuffs that were on sale near said noodle stall.

Eventually I had a pad thai for 20baht as well.

Then we went to the cybercafe near our guesthouse for 30baht/hour (but it was 1baht per minute wtf). Chatted on MSN, checked my e-mail, etc.

I also had 2 small Leo bottles for only 26baht each (~RM2.60, SO CHEAP compared to Malaysia I tell you!) purchased at the 7-Eleven that was conveniently near our guesthouse too. But too bad I discovered that my companions don’t really drink, especially not beer. :( So I was drinking alone most of the time wtf.

Sometime during that evening/night, I had a Korean guy stopping me as I walked past him and he started speaking Korean to me wtf. I had to tell him I wasn’t Korean.. wished I could communicate with him though.

We then went to bed, in anticipation of the fishing trip the next day.