Two and Out in Bangkok

So sorry for not keeping this thing up better recently...it's been a crazy trip thus far, and if we're not sweating outside we're passed out inside. Regardless, here's a recap of our time in Bangkok.

The only two things I had ever heard about Bangkok, Thailand's capital city, was that it was filled with temples and traffic, two very good nouns to use when describing the place. It is a living, breathing creature with motorbikes, taxis, tuk-tuks, buses, skytrains, and boats, running through its veins - which I should mention are constantly clogged.

The city has a very distinctive smell - somewhere between urine and exhaust - that i was never quite able to habituate to, but truly the city doesn't allow for much habituation in any sense.

Our first day was spent commenting on how hot the weather was. David and I ate at a restaurant where the chef cooked soup in a rolling trolly on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, while the actual seats of the place were deep within interior of the building. I flashed him my peanut card (for those of you who don't know, i have a wretched peanut allergy that should make this entire trip a most interesting experience) and he, with a nod, responded, "soup," to which I said ok.

From there we visited the Jim Thompson house - a traditional Thai house built by an American (hmmm) in the center of Bangkok. We spent some time touring the house in our socks, stepping over doorways with high hurdles over which you have to step into a room (these are spirit-guards according to our guide...you'll be glad to know also, that our bathrooms in every guesthouse we have stayed thus far, have had "spirit-guard" doors, preventing any bathroom bewitchings).

In the middle of our tour, we heard a loud roar from behind the house and discovered that there was a canal with a river taxi speeding through it...after some research by David (a truly masterful navigator, guide, and person in general) we found that we could take a river taxi to the Old City - the section of town where most of the temples and things are.

The taxi was pretty neat - but it was my first exposure to a now-familiar side of these cities: the slums. As we sped down these narrow corridors, we passed terrible houses leaning over the water with clothes and trashes strewn along their sides. I also noticed that, while the water felt nice when it would splash across your face, the locals sitting next to me had their heads tucked into their shirts to blog themselves from the water. After a quick smell of the air and water, I, too, tucked myself behind the tarp tied to the boat.

We arrived at the edge of the Old City and were immediately met by a group of smooth-talking tuk tuk drivers.
*It should be noted that tuk tuks are three wheeled taxi cabs - sort of like modern rickshaws - in which the driver straddles his gear shift (discouraging against quick stops for his sake) and two (or three) people crowd into a covered seat that is open on its sides. Tuk tuks are tricky characters, as they are notorious for scamming foreign travellers by telling them that temples are closed and that they will give them a good deal by sneaking them into some "really good" temples for a good price. Truly, after spending the day with them, i felt as though Homer had received his inspiration for the sirens or lotus-eaters on one of his visits to Thailand. While they took us to two pretty impressive temples, most of our afternoon was spent driving to various cheap suit shops, where the tuk tuk driver receives a commission for his services of delivering unknowing foreigners into their clutches. Finally after much pleading and promising to actually stay in one of the suit shops for more than ten minutes, our drivers finally agreed to take us back to our hotel. Sweaty, jet-lagged, and exhausted, we passed out.

The next day, we spent the day at the Royal Palace of the king of Thailand (who, it should be noted, just celebrated 60 years of rule, and as a result has a variety of unsmiling pictures prominently displayed throughout the nation. His pictures range from him looking pensive on his throne, looking pensive with his wife, looking uncertain with his camera, looking uncertain as a child in his regalia, looking pensive (again) on a jetski, and beginning to smile (surprise!) for some reason.) The palace was pretty incredible. Incredibly ornate with much gold and gold paint. The highlight of the palace for us came in this incredibly long series of connected paintings that completely covered the walls of the interior of one of the courtyards...although we didn't know exactly what the paintings meant (they looked to be the story of the creation of thailand), we found a few favorite characters who avoided getting eaten by eight-armed monsters that would suddenly emerge from the hills (very shocking the first time you see it). Rob found one particular character who lasted a good twenty steps along the wall and named him Jebediah.

From the palace, we decided that Thai massages were in good order. We had heard how famous they were and we figured that we couldn't leave Bangkok without getting one. Our Taxi driver told us he would take us to a famous massage place.

We arrived at a place tucked down a side alley, and were greeted by a line of pink-shirted Thai women waiting to deliver our massages. We arranged a one hour massage (they are usually two) and were escorted into a room where we took off our shoes and were given foot-washings. From there, we were moved upstairs to rooms with three or four beds in them. Matt and I were put into one room and told to change into these white pajama-looking clothes. While doing so, we noticed the little green signs with "no prostitution" written on them and could only give a collective sigh of relief.

I was paired with a small woman, while Matt was paired with a man, who, while holding Matt in certain submission positions, would reach over a stroke my eyebrows and laugh (...). Thai massages are basically a form of soft-core wrestling - in which, as i said earlier, the massagee is put into various submission positions while having toes, backs, fingers popped.
The most difficult moments come when the massagers fingers begin to probe a bit closer to upper thigh/torso area. I, for one, am ticklish in these places, which leads to much laughter, but additionally, Matt and I were both received laughs whenever our massagers would get close enough to our "areas".

The rest of the massage consisted of Matt getting body slammed around the room while he groaned and exclaimed his hurt, while my masseus (no idea if you say masseus or massager) would look at me with frustration as she tried to stretch my legs (i was later named "big thighs" by her and Matt's).

We left our massages, no more relaxed than we had arrived and definitely feeling more violated than before. Regardless, we were glad to have had the experience. As we stepped outside it began to rain and David, Kiley, and Kelsey went to Thai boxing while Rob, Matt, and I decided to go get dinner and a beer to make ourselves feel better.

At the end of the night, we all decided that we had had enough of Bangkok and that is was time to go somewhere else. Finally, we decided that Hua Hin, a beach town on the Gulf of Thailand, would be nice.