*this is getting boring, I gotta wrap this up soon*

At the night market near the area where many a sex show happens… you are bombarded with many things- candles for sale, tshirts, pants, sneakers, dvds, soap, statues, things with stuff, and stuff with more stuff on it. There’s aisles and aisles of material goods for sale and every now and then a person stops you with an index card in their hand saying, “Ping pong show, pussy!” To which you can only reply, “no thanks,” and keep walking.

We did go down a street where the neon was just calling you to the bars… and peeking into the doorways walking by I saw – 4 girls in white bikinis spinning around a pole looking bored, 3 girls and an older woman sitting in lawn chairs looking bored, 2 girls sitting in bar stools nursing their drinks looking dazed, and one guy who hit on J asking to buy her a drink… hello… why are you picking up a white girl while you’re in a thai bar watching asian girls spin on poles and probably preppin’ to shoot things out of their vagina?

Ah yes, here’s a brief description of what the sex shows are like from wikipedia:
“Several upstairs bars still feature (technically illegal) sex shows, with women performing various creative acts. Perhaps the most notorious of these features women performing exotic feats involving their genitalia and projectile table tennis balls. Some of these second-floor bars are run by scam artists who lure tourists with offers of low prices and later present a wildly inflated bill along with a threat of physical harm should the bill go unpaid. The Tourist Police, usually stationed at Patpong 1 and Silom Road, can help in these situations.

Some establishments in Patpong employ kathoeys (or “ladyboys”) either exclusively or as part of a mixed gender staff. As of 2005 the King’s Corner bar on Patpong 1 was known for doing so. Unlike the kathoey bars in Nana Plaza, many of the staff at these Patpong bars are post-operative trans-sexuals.”

Now we could go into a whole socio-political feminist debate about why/how/and what should be done to help women not enter into such a career… but this is not that kind of post.

After a while we got tired of walking around and found a puppy to play with who belonged to one the of the street vendors. Then we hopped on the skytrain and went home.

went to eat at a place called Pisces — great thai food – the breakfast was soso… best to stick with rice and noodles if the place doesn’t seem to be super touristy or something. Went to Siam Ocean World- crazy aquarium, but super cool. Saw critters that I’ve never seen before. Got to watch some sharks get fed and lots of odd worms and eels. King crabs scare me. The Jellyfish room was cool though, it was like floating neon strands with the dark lighting and such – hard to describe but it was super cool. I watched some otters wrestling and got popcorn and soda as part of our admission. We also did a glass bottom boat ride that went on top of the big tanks that house the red snappers, sharks, and such… not exactly the best but not a bad way to see some fish.

I thought J was getting tired of being with me cause we’d go back to the guesthouse and she’d start reading a book while i just itched about. She didn’t seem to wanna hang out or talk – and I didn’t know if she was sick of me or wished she had come alone or what. Apparently she just liked her book of some dude in prison. This is not to say it didn’t end in tears and what not. We ate at a japanese BBQ… boy was that a fucking disaster.

The grill area wasn’t like what you get at korean BBQ – they gave us this thing like a big juicer and kept filling the sides with water. We didnt’ too bad, but the idea is that the juice and stuff from the meat creates the broth with the water – that’s where you place the noodles and veggies. We, being stupid, placed everything on the juicer area not sure what to do. It wasn’t very good… but it was ok, neither of us got sick which was a good thing.

Afterwards checked out the Erawan Shrine – huge numbers of people there – pics are on my flickr page – and Indra a few blocks away. Apparently Indra doesn’t draw as much of a crowd. For dinner we had pizza and then checked out the night market down at Patpong… where the ping pong shows are.

Apple Guesthouse and it seems, most guesthouses, have a check out of noon. So we took our time the next morning – ate, hung around and played with the puppy some more – packed up and made our way back to the bus station. We took our time. Even though it’s cooler outside of Bangkok, that didn’t mean it wasn’t hot. We stopped in a cemetery – War memorial ally – and rested/ walked around a little.

Eventually we made our way downtown to the bus station. There were 2 stations within a block of each other- one was first class, the other was the main station. We ended up taking a 2nd class bus back to Bangkok – took about 45 minutes longer, no bathroom, and seats were worn out. It was still air conditioned – WHEW!

From the Southern Bus Terminal – we made our way Downtown. It was J’s idea to try and stay in a different area – preferably one near the skytrain to cut down on taxi rides.

We stayed in a guesthouse that was super cheap, right around the corner from the skytrain stop and across the street from the mall. So we lucked out. However, this place was a bit odd- it was fine- just odd- the front desk was more so a desk placed in the vestibule – there were several doorways in and out of the place – and it was like a big white sanctuary. Also, this was the first guesthouse where I saw old men and *ahem* young women leaving in the morning. As much as the front desk woman tried to keep hookers out- I suppose there’s only so much you can do. It’s weird, the room was a decent size, the AC was fine if not a tad bit cold – but there was something sort of lacking about this place compared to the other one we stayed in the first few days.

The cool thing was, our window faced out front and you could see who was on the street. I kept waking up at like 5am while we here. I would look out the window over the bed and watch the vendors set up in the morning. Then sleep from about 6am to 7am. One morning J and I watched a bunch of people just bustling about and going to work. There was a pizza place next to the guesthouse which was pretty good. They had a wood burning oven OUTSIDE – which generated massive heat.

Being downtown felt a lot like several shopping districts mushed together depending what side of the street you were on, what block, and what you were staring at -
imagine Times Sq, Manhattan Mall area, grungy shopping mall, and avenues – that was downtown. The malls are insane! Major amounts of stuff – more packed than any mall I’ve been in here. There were mini malls inside the malls.

We ended up eating dinner in the MBK mall – cuz we just couldn’t find any local place that had stuff we could order. It seemed more of the vendors downtown did not speak english. Downtown is where the fancier hotels are with expensive restaurants… and more “sophisticated” tourists. I use that term lightly.

We walked around MBK till about 9pm and then watched some breakdancers on the overpass which brought you from one side of th street to the other. We had a lizard in our room – it was awfully cute and hid from us the whole time we were there. Only saw it once.

I woke up around 5am and couldn’t really go back to sleep. The non-a/c room was starting to heat up and the moment the temp is above like 80 I get uncomfortable. We walked up about a 2 miles to the River Kwai Bridge after breakfast and I finally realized why there was such a hard time to get my camera working- alkaline vs. non-alkaline AA.
AHA!

We walked on the bridge a few feet, then a train came by so we stood on the sides- and yeah, you could touch the train as it passed. I pointed out to J that the tracks bent as the train went over it and the wood creaked. That seemed to scare her a bit along with the fact that the bridge is really just train tracks with a steel casing on either side like rails on a stair case.

If you look at that pic, you’ll see a piece of metal running down the middle of the tracks for people to walk on- looks ok right? Well, there was two way traffic and some people were walking on the unstable water logged wood planks on the side- like me- and feeling the wood bend and stuff.

So I didn’t go too far either. I wonder how many people fall off the bridge into the water.

It was really pretty, the sky was amazing looking. Clouds looked fake and stood out from the blue so much it was pretty unreal. We headed back to the guesthouse, changed our clothes and went to Tiger Temple.

Our transportation to the temple was a modded pickup truck. It had some benches and a canopy placed on the back. Another modded taxi truck drove by at some point and there were guys holding onto the canopy railings and standing on the bumper. Looked pretty dangerous but probably an ordinary thing.

The experience at the temple is unique. You pay a fee, sign a waiver, and walk through the gates. Once inside there are random animals hanging out who normally would run or charge you – deer, goats, peacocks, pigeons, cows… etc… We walked down a dirt path to the quarry and there’s a roped off section with some benches for people to sit and some volunteers or employees explaining how it all works.

Basically, there’s two options-

1: give you camera to one guide, another holds your hands and escorts from lazy tired tiger to lazy tired tiger – you get about 30 seconds to a minute with each tiger – your pic is taken and you move onto the next.

2: pay 1000 baht=30 bucks – you get to do option 1 and have a tiger’s big bony head placed in your lap for a pic. I thought about it for one sec. I was also kind of in awe so I didn’t listen too much. I was too busy staring at the tigers.

One tiger I touched raised his head when I knelt down. I don’t know if it was surprised to see me, smell me, or something or if I tickled him/her but after a sec the tiger just laid down again. Their fur feels like petting a pitbull – straight, rough, thick. Their paws feel like a typical animal paw. They do roll around like a silly cat and stretch the same. They also lick their feet and wash their face. At least these guys did, they were a bit smaller than I expected but still big.

After J and I got to pet the tigers we watched them and then walked with the last one back to their cages. They sleep in these fairly big cement cages at night to protect them and probably to ensure that they don’t leave the place. The tigers are definitely well fed, some are rescues from poachers and others were born there. They do wear leashes and it looks cruel but it seemed to not bug them. Their collars were metal with material wrapped around parts to not hurt their neck. Once in the cages they have no collars on. When they were all placed into their cages, a few got really cranky, I think they were hungry. We got to see a 2 month old baby tiger and watch it eat- ate Little Ceasar dog food and had some bottled water. Then behind us the monks and volunteers put out mass amounts of vegetables- most looked like turnips.

The animals that come to the sanctuary to just eat were so varied and so many! Lots of boars and a few big bulls. It’s amazing they don’t care that you’re walking next to them, they just want to eat and be left alone. We walked around a bunch of horses, bulls, boars, goats, and peacocks – eventually we exited the temple. I guess while we were doing that, some people got to actually hold and play with the baby tiger. That’s the one thing I wish I would have done but I am pretty satisfied and happy to have gotten the chance to see a really peaceful sanctuary and touch tigers.

The other passengers with us on the truck were from England and Holland, 2 guys, both had been travelling for weeks. They were surprised that J and I only have 10 days. I mean I think in some ways we got a lot of days off- holidays and stuff – but yeah, the notion that you could save your whole vacation and travel for 4 weeks is pretty awesome.

When we got back, the baby mini poodle was sitting in the grass being a silly puppy. We had to play with it. TINY NOSE!! Such a tiny little nose and little light feet. I think the pup probably weighed about 4 lbs. SO little… makes my cats look gigantic. It was awfully cute and trying to eat J’s water bottle and hands.

After dinner we took a walk to 7/11 to suck in some A/C – I may have mentioned it before – but there is a bar called Spread Eagle and another called something like 69 Beer Bar. Ho hum.