This is it, Khao San
Rd. If you've seen The Beach or know anything about Thailand, you've probably heard about this place. Most travel guides will direct you here because it has cheap accomodation, most people speak enough English to communicate and you can get pretty much anything you want (at inflated prices) here. The only thing about this place is that there is a serious lack of German sex tourists. Kinda takes away from the whole Thai experience without them.
See that flowery van in the background, on the right? Remember it.
It gets pretty crazy around here, especially at night. Street vendors, taxis, tuk tuks and pedestrians all fighting for a part of the road to call their own. Lots of travel elitists don't like this place because they feel that it's too touristy. And it's true, there are lots of tourists here, and the locals don't come anywhere near this place unless it's to do business, but it's still something you have to see if you're in Bangkok.
Sandra and Aubs. I met these two in Japan, and it just so happened that they were on the same flight as I was to Bangkok. What were the chances of that? We spent the first two or three days together and then they went off to Phuket.
Durian durian. I ate an entire durian on my own. It was disgusting.
Khao San is littered with these little stands that sell food. You can stuff yourself for as little as $2 CAD. It's not the healthiest food out there, but its damn good.
After two days of diahorrea, your stomach adjusts to the food and you're in heaven. This is a banana pancake. It doesn't sound that special, but believe me, it is.
I passed by a particular street vendor the first night I was here, but I didn't have the balls to try the assortment of bugs she had on her cart. There were grasshoppers, worms, beetles, cockroaches and scorpions. I asked Aubs to join me, even offered to treat, but she refused. Sandra didn't seem too keen on the idea either, and just offered to tape it while I ate one.
I chose the scorpion because you could by them individually, as opposed to say grasshoppers, which had to be bought in little bags. The scorpion cost me 10 baht, which is about 40 cents Canadian.
It took me a little while to gather up the courage to put this thing in my mouth. It was hairy and I wasn't entirely sure that it was dead. As far as I could tell, it was just playing possum until I put it somewhere that it could do some real damage to me. But the film was rolling and I had a small audience - I remember thinking back to a time a few years back, standing in front of sifu. He had just nailed me with a beautiful shot to the throat and was yelling at me, "Don't just stand there! When in doubt, ATTACK!" So I did.
Kinda crunchy, but the thorax was squishy. I barfed a little into my mouth, then swallowed it again.
Some random temple. I'm sure that there is some impressive history behind it, but to be honest, I just don't give a shit any more. I've seen so many temples in Japan already that I'm numb to the beauty.
This one might be a famous one, but then again, it might just be your run-of-the-mill temple with gold trim. I'm not being sarcastic this time, these things are really a dime a dozen here.
I saw this lovely sight in Bangkok's Chinatown. It was so hot that day. Like a sauna. A filthy sauna...just the way Chinatown should be.
Seeing this bbq'd pig's head brought my mind racing back to William Golding, Gr. 9 English class. "Sucks to your assmar."
Man it rains a lot here. I think that it has rained at least once each day I've been here. The thing with Thai rain is that it's pleasant and good-natured, soft and cleansing. You feel good after a short walk in it. Not like that malicious North American rain that has but one purpose: to mess you up. Now this can manifest itself in anything from making you crash into a tree while driving to flooding your basement just before the guests show up for an important dinner party.
Internet cafes are the cheapest way to keep dry around here, so I was able to feed my net addiction for only 40 baht an hour.
Abok and I took a water taxi because we thought it would be faster and cheaper than land taxis (they also can't scam you by taking you in circles). Boy were we wrong. The map we had didn't have the correct water taxi stops labelled and we ended up in the north of Bangkok instead of the west.
As we were walking back to Khao San from where we got off the water taxi, we noticed that there was a lot of commotion coming from round the bend. We walked toward the noise and saw this. A bunch of middle aged women dancing and singing on the street.
Flowery van revisited. Abok christened this van full of drinks and skanky women "A go-go to go." Which I thought was quite funny. This larged-breasted individual was dancing (well, it looked more like she was humping the side of the van, while slithering down a tree) on a stool a few minutes before I took this shot.
As we got closer, we realized that she had the ability to pee standing up, or did at some point. I had to get a picture.
journal Escaping the madness that is Bangkok. Finally got on a bus to Chum Porn (to catch a connecting ferry to Ko Tao), but then again, that's what I thought the last time. They made us (Abok and I) get off a few minutes before the bus was due to leave (8pm) and told us to wait for the next bus. As far as I could tell, there was some communication problem between the travel agent and the bus people, which still isn't clear to me because nobody there spoke English.
In the end, things turned out for the better. We had to lug our stuff back and forth between Khao San and the pick up point a few times, but the bus we ended up getting on was almost empty. Funny how these things work out, huh?