Bangkok, Thailand

The bus rides from Siem Reap to Bangkok took us 10 hours, including the time spent crossing the border. That was how the three of us spent our Thanksgiving Day, sound like fun?

We were outside our guesthouse ready to be picked up at 7am, but our bus was on Cambodian time and picked us up at 7:40. Three hours later, the bus dropped us off at a bus terminal in Puepet, Cambodia near the border. We waited 1/2 an hour for a shuttle bus to pick us up. The shuttle bus took us to the Thailand/Cambodia border a mile away. We weren't sure why the larger, original bus couldn't take us to the border, but whatever. At the border we waited in a very hot line for 1/2 hour to have a Cambodian border agent stamp our passport and take our departure form. Then we walked to Thailand. In Thailand we waited 1/2 an hour for a border agent to stamp our passport and take our arrival form. After the border crossing we had to find our bus to take us to Bangkok. There were about 30 buses scattered around the border area, none with names or signs and no organization at all. After an hour of looking we found our bus and got on. Our bus wasn't a bus, it was a 12 person van that became packed with 13 people and all of our luggage. Our van driver had a serious lead foot and on the mediocre roads of Thailand we did about 90mph the whole way. We stopped twice; once for the driver to do his grocery shopping and once for a bathroom break. We got to Bangkok at 5pm starving for our Thanksgiving Dinner.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Lara created a 'Must Do' list for things she wanted to do on our trip. Another item on the list was to get a Thai massage in Thailand. Since we were a little stressed from our travels we thought "What a good time to get that Thai massage?" So that night the three of us enjoyed a Thanksgiving Dinner in a Bangkok mall food court and Thai massages. We didn't have turkey or pumpkin pie, but the food was great and the massages made us forget about our travels.

Our first day in Bangkok we decided to explore the Bangkok area by taking a tour of the Floating Market. The Floating Market is a small area of a bunch of canals with souvenir and food salesmen on boats in the canals. We jumped on a boat and boated around the canals as well. It was a cool experience, but you can only make buying cheap souvenirs so much fun. To get to the Floating Market we had to take a motorboat and on the way we saw several Kumodo Dragons. That was extra cool.

We got back to Bangkok in the afternoon and toured the city a little bit, spending some extra time in Khao San Road. Khao San Road is a backpacker's Mecca. It's filled with cheap guesthouses and hostels, a street market with great cheap clothes, lots of bars, and tons of excitement. We bought some stuff along the way and were really close to buying some fake identification cards at one market. I was thinking about getting either a Harvard University student ID card or an Air France pilot's license. Both would have been pretty cool.

After Khao San Road we took off for Lumphini Boxing Stadium to catch some Muay Thai kickboxing. Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand and the people love it. Lumphini Stadium is the biggest and best venue to watch Muay Thai and we were sitting front row for the fights. For three hours we watched 8 bouts of great kickboxing. $2 beers, guys getting beat up, screaming gamblers, Friday nights don't get much better. Before the headline fight there was an exhibition fight between two guys in a different martial art. These guys didn't wear any padding and there was no clock; just beat each other up until someone gets knocked out. And somebody did. Since we were in the VIP section we got to get our picture taken with the night's champion. The little guy might be the champion, but at 121 lbs, I think I could have taken him on. The experience in the stadium is incredible. In the lower section where we sat there are chairs and assigned seating. Outside of the lower section it is just bleachers and unassigned seating. Gambling is technically illegal, but everyone does it. Before each fight and before the 2nd round a whole cluster of gamblers just go bezercks screaming to make their bets. It looks similar to the stock exchange but with more screaming and beer. The stadium itself is also unique. I've been in high school gyms that are better than Lumphini. As you walk through the hall to enter or exit the stadium the fighters are changing and stretching because their lockers are in the hallway. Part of the stadium is indoors and part is outdoors. It's a total hoot. The city of Bangkok has really good infrastructure, but Lumphini could use a lot of work. When the entertainment was over the three of us headed back to our hostel and called it a night.

The following morning we got up early again to go on another tour, this time to the Bridge over the River Kwai and Tiger Temple. The Bridge over the River Kwai is a famous World War Two sight and we thought it could be entertaining to see. It's about an hour to get there and once you get there you realize it's just a wooden bridge over a river. yawn. There are some small museums and a cemetery, but the quality isn't that great. The cool part of the bridge is that you can walk across it and there are zero safety precautions. The bridge is a railroad bridge and doesn't have a walkway. You walk across and have to make sure you step on the railroad ties, otherwise you're going into the river 30 feet below. After the Bridge we went to Tiger Temple. Tiger Temple is a Buddhist temple that has been around for a decades. About 8 years ago an orphaned tiger cub wandered into the temple complex and the monks took it in. When people heard that the monks were taking in tiger cubs people brought over other abandoned tiger cubs. Since monks don't believe in altering nature's course these tigers have bread rapidly and the temple now has 47 tigers. All of these tigers have been raised by humans and they are as tame as a tiger can be. When we walked into the temple grounds there were tigers all around. There were probably 20 tigers in the area. All of them were on short chains to the ground with several handlers nearby. The three of us and all other tourists were free to walk around the area and pet the tigers, which we did. A little later on we all walked to a special covered where we had a tiger lay in our laps. It was definitely a unique experience, but kind of weird too. The reason the tigers are so tame is that they play for hours before the tourists arrive and they are given their food before hand as well, so they have to gorge. This makes the tigers super tired and they just lay around the rest of the day.

A couple hours later the tour bus dropped us off at our hotel and we hit the town for a night in Bangkok. Of course, when in Bangkok you have to walk down Patpong Road, the red light district. It was an experience to say the least. A friendly salesman tried to get us to watch a ping-pong show in his bar and although we said no thank you he continued to walk with us and give us a tour of the strip. We were shown the Japanese street where Japanese business men go to have massages. The salesman commented that the Japanese are known for "Big wallets, small dicks." The salesman also pointed out other fine establishments in the area. We decided that the most entertaining thing to do would be to go to a bar and just watch the action. We stopped at one bar and observed all the old white guys picking up their 'desserts'. To get by the language barrier all of the working women wear numbers on them. It makes it kind of like In-n-Out Burger ("I'll have a triple-triple, number 3, animal style"). The night was actually very tame. With the exception of me trying to converse with a hallo person nothing exceptional happened. The next morning we got up early, again, and headed out to the airport to go to Singapore.