Thailand Day 10 - To Each His Own (27th July 2006)

Having covered all that I wanted to see and but not all Bangkok has to offer, today would see a different programme for every one of us. Andy and Neal planned to explore Wonder World. Jeremy has his own program. I was on my own. I did not have the inclination to join Andy and Neal, having screamed myself to the extreme riding the world famous Cyclone rollercoaster at Coney Island, New York City, some mild one at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Hershey Amusement Park. Yeah, the kiddo feelings in me seemed to be missing this time. I hope it won’t be permanent!

I would spend my morning sitting for a few hours reading Bangkok Post at Dunkin’ Donuts while enjoying the nonstop free flow of coffee and munching their trademark delicious donuts. It’s been that long since I last tasted Dunkin’ donuts as Dunkin’ Donuts does not have an outlet in Kota Kinabalu! Sitting there, it was like Thai Culture 101 class as I observed people going about their daily life: motorcyclist taxis waiting for and dropping passengers at random spots, tuk-tuk drivers touting for tourists as they walked past, uniformed students queuing to board bus, cigarette vendor selling cigarette by sticks, traffics moving at a snail’s pace ... it was amazing…Thais sure know how to live… everyday is a paradise!


This was the very reason I didn’t use my plastic money! Everything I paid for in cash!



Monk blessing this newly opened shop for prosperity.



Bangkok also got Penang Shark Fins? Penang is one of the state in Malaysia. Shark fin soup is a must have in any Chinese Restaurant menu item. While competition is stiff for such delicacy and good for business, it unnecessarily drives up demands which are a bane to the shark population.



Shark fins galore! Even small sharks were sacrificed for their fins!

Greenpeace might not be happy seeing these.





And of course, some grandma shark might be furious…


Angry grandma....



MBK aka Mahboonkrong is just diagonally across the street from Siam Center. Long lines of small inexpensive stalls and shops sell cheap T-shirts, wallets, handbags, mobile phone accessories, handicrafts, etc. In fact MBK is populated with mobile phone shop and it was little wonder that teenagers like to come here presumably to eye the latest handphone models.



I saw this shop ‘XL FOR MEN’ that will welcome the like of my office colleague whose hapless sizes are hard to come by in Kota Kinabalu. He has to make do with custom tailored ones with brand like “Tailor Made by Ah Seng” stitched in!



I was practically salivating in this shop for about 1 hour seeing all those white knights and red-banded L-lens. This was my first time seeing the complete range of Canon lens in real time!


So close yet so far! Acrophobia Jeremy did not make it! Me like a kid up there!

Come across this outdoor shop in Siam Discovery Center, connected to Siam Center by an enclosed pedestrian bridge. We tried the 3-meter ‘wall climbing’ inside the shop to gauge our stamina after days of gluttoning on Thai food. This shop offers rock climbing packages in Bangkok.

As night approached, it was too early for us to have dinner or to go back to hotel. So we did the unthinkable – going to ‘Phuket without the beach’! Welcome to Bangkok’s famous red light district that is Patpong. Let’s face it… we male homo-sapiens were guilty of being voyeurism where go-go bars were plenty and bikini clad chicks and topless dances were going on inside. Yeah, I could felt the loud music blaring under my feet as we walked past go-go bars with their doors wide open and bouncers manning outside politely tried inviting to walk in. Indeed there were ‘free sex shows’ openly advertised on their doors but as Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring warned, “Avoid bars touting free sex shows as there are usually hidden charges and when you try to ditch the outrageous bill the doors are suddenly blocked by muscled bouncers.”

Even so, we didn’t go there to have a good time fucking pretty chicks! It just that we did not have the balls haha! I was glad my little brother behaved properly and my head did not succumb to the temptation!

At Patpong too, there is a long open-air market dealing in… you guessed it – fake designer watches, exotic foodtuffs, fake Levi’s that was spelt incorrectly like Live’s!



On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by this crowded open-air bar/pub to have a last hurrah of … Leo beers. We chatted about our trips, the food, Thai culture and so on we didn’t realize the pub was about to close for the night!


to be continued…last part next update :)