Entering Hanoi and seeing the roads, I learned the true nature of bad driving and how Nash's Equilibrium theory does not always hold up when applied to traffic. They are crazy drivers in Vietnam. More crazy than any other country in the world I have visited (which is about 30). It is a mad house out there, and walking in the street can be quite harrowing. As my friend Janel described it, you don't just observe Vietnam, it actually comes out at you. In between being incessantly propositioned by tuk tuk drivers, and walking between densely packed crowds of people on a road filled with speeding scooters, it really drains you.
We spent a coupe of days in Hanoi, and walking around the lake in the old city is the nicest part of it, and feels like Vietnamese/French colonial fusion. Its the only place we saw that didn't put us in traffic fight-or-flight, and had some decent eateries and coffee shops. We saw a mediocre water puppet show, and checked out a couple of historical sights.
From Hanoi we checked out Halong bay and Thamkok, which were pretty awesome. In Thamkok we saw a couple of impressive historical buildings and went on a 2 hour boat ride, powered by 2 old ladies who paddled. The tranquil water was nice and we paddled under some impressive caves an past some cool looking karsts. In Halong bay we went on a two-day junk ride to check out some more natural cave formations and just enjoy the amazing scenery of the sea with hundreds of beautiful karsts rizing from them. There were about 10 other people on the junk with us, and it was nice to talk to some other people for a change. One of them was a geek from Austrailia, so that was nice. We both had books written by Greg Bear in our bags, which was a pretty cool coincidence. Geeks are the same the world over. Even though our mini-van played chicken several times with heavy trucks on the way back to town, after some relaxation breathing techniques we were mostly fine.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Laos
We entered Laos, Vientiane, in good spirits and our first night was spent in a wonderful hotel. My stomach was still a bit off, but we had a tastey meal comprised of local fare, and spent the rest of the evening reading books, as we were exhausted. Laos is very much like Thailand on valium, similar cultural feel but much less hectic, I would even describe it as sleepy. The next day we obtained visas for our forthcoming entry into Vietnam, and then found a wicked awesome bakery/coffee shop and enjoyed the delight of true european pastries for the first time in what seemed like forever, and Anita read 1984 while I read metaphysics. A subdued day to match the atmosphere. Theres really not much to do other than that in Vientiane.
After the Vientiane experience we were off on a 5 hour ride to Veng Viang on a cramped tour bus, not fun, but have honed our zen travel meditation to an art in the previous months, making this an easyish trip.
Wow, this town was something out of the twilight zone, but in a good way. It had the same laid back feeling of Vientiane, but WAY more restaurants, cafes, bars and other places. There was one common thread that tied all these tourist venues together; Friends. I don't mean people you have bonded with and love, I mean the t.v. show. Thats right, pretty much every place in Veng Viang had episodes of friends blaring at maximum volume from multiple tv screens. Scores of tourists were layed out on cushions sipping beer or coffee and silently taking in the 90s sitcom. No idea how this started, or caught on, but it sure enough it is the norm there.
One extremely fun thing to do in this town is to go tubing. There is a calm river that runs along side the town that had beautiful views of a mountain coming out of a forest on the otherside. Tourists started taking an inner-tube from 7km upstream and float calmly back into the town over the next 2 hours, usually drinking from beer cans kept cold from being in a net in the river. At some point a local came up with the great idea of building an open roof bamboo bar on the riverside with a platform and zip line that extended into the river, to people could get boozed up and jump into the river from up high. Then another bar was built further down the river with another zipline jump. Then another. And another, etc...
So we went tubing and had a great time. We had a few beer, but we didn't do any of the zip line jumps, even though the river was deep, because we had heard of accidental deaths from previous years. So we floated sublimely down the river, carried by the current, occassionally becoming clustered with a few other tubers for short conversations but largely it was just the two of us. It was an excellent way to spend the afternoon once we had learned how to relieve ourselves in the river by dipping slightly lower in the tube. One of the highlights of our vacation so far (the tubing, not the urinating in the river specifically). After some Friends watching from a hammock in a bamboo hut, we hit the sack and prepared for the following day's travels to Luang Prabang (a 5 hour bus ride).
Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage sight, so there are a few special qualities in this town. One of them is a 12:00 curfew, which is fine by me, since I have regularly been getting up at around 8:30 am for the first time in my life anyway. It makes it a wonderful sleep experience when there are no noisy vehicles and honking which is so characteristic in other parts of Asia. Again, in true Laos fashion, Luang Prabang is a relaxed, slow pace kind of town. Once in the city, no transportation is need beyond your own two feet. One of the cool things about the temples here is that they all have gleeming carvings of Nagas (river spirits, serpents) as hand rails for the staircases. The temple landscaping was beautiful and the silver and gold nagas just added to it.
One night we had a wonderful meal of water buffalo BBQ. It is similar to the Japanese/Korean Shabu-Shabu with a few quirks. A gently sloped conical metal "hat" is placed over some open flames. The edges of the cone flatten out for a few inches and then raise to house a moat of broth that surrounds the rest of the sloped cone. Chili, garlic, noodles, and various vegetables are placed in the broth and the water buffalo meat (very lean, chewy, and delicious) is placed on the slopes of the cone itself. There was a tamarind sauce to dip the BBQed meat in. It was delicious and probably the healthiest meal we had eaten on our whole trip. Other than relaxing and enjoying food and literature, we did very little in Luang Prabang.
One unusual thing that happened was waking up at 4:00 am to a man singing "I just called to say I love you" over and over again. Not the whole song mind you, just that one line. Over and over again. It sounded like it was coming from the floor above us. He may have been drunk, heart sick, or just crazy. It lasted for about 5 minutes, perhaps longer thant he song itself.
After the Vientiane experience we were off on a 5 hour ride to Veng Viang on a cramped tour bus, not fun, but have honed our zen travel meditation to an art in the previous months, making this an easyish trip.
Wow, this town was something out of the twilight zone, but in a good way. It had the same laid back feeling of Vientiane, but WAY more restaurants, cafes, bars and other places. There was one common thread that tied all these tourist venues together; Friends. I don't mean people you have bonded with and love, I mean the t.v. show. Thats right, pretty much every place in Veng Viang had episodes of friends blaring at maximum volume from multiple tv screens. Scores of tourists were layed out on cushions sipping beer or coffee and silently taking in the 90s sitcom. No idea how this started, or caught on, but it sure enough it is the norm there.
One extremely fun thing to do in this town is to go tubing. There is a calm river that runs along side the town that had beautiful views of a mountain coming out of a forest on the otherside. Tourists started taking an inner-tube from 7km upstream and float calmly back into the town over the next 2 hours, usually drinking from beer cans kept cold from being in a net in the river. At some point a local came up with the great idea of building an open roof bamboo bar on the riverside with a platform and zip line that extended into the river, to people could get boozed up and jump into the river from up high. Then another bar was built further down the river with another zipline jump. Then another. And another, etc...
So we went tubing and had a great time. We had a few beer, but we didn't do any of the zip line jumps, even though the river was deep, because we had heard of accidental deaths from previous years. So we floated sublimely down the river, carried by the current, occassionally becoming clustered with a few other tubers for short conversations but largely it was just the two of us. It was an excellent way to spend the afternoon once we had learned how to relieve ourselves in the river by dipping slightly lower in the tube. One of the highlights of our vacation so far (the tubing, not the urinating in the river specifically). After some Friends watching from a hammock in a bamboo hut, we hit the sack and prepared for the following day's travels to Luang Prabang (a 5 hour bus ride).
Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage sight, so there are a few special qualities in this town. One of them is a 12:00 curfew, which is fine by me, since I have regularly been getting up at around 8:30 am for the first time in my life anyway. It makes it a wonderful sleep experience when there are no noisy vehicles and honking which is so characteristic in other parts of Asia. Again, in true Laos fashion, Luang Prabang is a relaxed, slow pace kind of town. Once in the city, no transportation is need beyond your own two feet. One of the cool things about the temples here is that they all have gleeming carvings of Nagas (river spirits, serpents) as hand rails for the staircases. The temple landscaping was beautiful and the silver and gold nagas just added to it.
One night we had a wonderful meal of water buffalo BBQ. It is similar to the Japanese/Korean Shabu-Shabu with a few quirks. A gently sloped conical metal "hat" is placed over some open flames. The edges of the cone flatten out for a few inches and then raise to house a moat of broth that surrounds the rest of the sloped cone. Chili, garlic, noodles, and various vegetables are placed in the broth and the water buffalo meat (very lean, chewy, and delicious) is placed on the slopes of the cone itself. There was a tamarind sauce to dip the BBQed meat in. It was delicious and probably the healthiest meal we had eaten on our whole trip. Other than relaxing and enjoying food and literature, we did very little in Luang Prabang.
One unusual thing that happened was waking up at 4:00 am to a man singing "I just called to say I love you" over and over again. Not the whole song mind you, just that one line. Over and over again. It sounded like it was coming from the floor above us. He may have been drunk, heart sick, or just crazy. It lasted for about 5 minutes, perhaps longer thant he song itself.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Leaving Thailand
We left Chiang Mai by plane to Bangkok to go meet my brother and his wife Ana. It was good to see him and finally meet Ana, and long overdue. After a fun evening with them eating by the river and having a few drinks (purchased by them), I felt unusually bloated and full. This wasn't that unusual as I consumed a copious amount of food and beer, but something was different about this feeling. When I got into the taxi on the way home I started sweating profusely (even more profusely than usual) and felt dizzy. By then end of the taxi ride I was doing all I could to not belch forth whatever demons were in my stomach (something i'm pretty good at; both the holding in of, and expulsion of stomach demons).
We made it to our hostel, and I went straight to the lavatory. I prayed to the porcelin god for a few minutes, but none were answered, so I grabbed the rubber-maid trash bin on the way out and took it to my room. Moments after, I began a chorus of contrapuntal convulsions, likely looking like a cat coughing up a hair ball, but sounding much more violent and loud. Luckily the trash bin had a plastic bag lining. The next 6 hours were spent in the bathroom, alternating between oral and anal explosions. Anita felt fine. Good times.
The next day I felt much better, but my appetite for food was destroyed. Best diet ever. We caught the train to Vientianne, Laos, that evening. The train itself was something that was probably state of the art 50 years ago. It was very well put together but seemed shabby with age and the lack of newer facilities. It was comfortable in a Russian sub kind of way. It was a 14 hour journey, but we had sleeper seats (I had bottom bunk) so it wasn't too bad. At the border we received our visa, took a 30 minute taxi to Vientianne, and checked in. No a bad trip considering I was recovering from a stomach flu and it was 14 hours.
We made it to our hostel, and I went straight to the lavatory. I prayed to the porcelin god for a few minutes, but none were answered, so I grabbed the rubber-maid trash bin on the way out and took it to my room. Moments after, I began a chorus of contrapuntal convulsions, likely looking like a cat coughing up a hair ball, but sounding much more violent and loud. Luckily the trash bin had a plastic bag lining. The next 6 hours were spent in the bathroom, alternating between oral and anal explosions. Anita felt fine. Good times.
The next day I felt much better, but my appetite for food was destroyed. Best diet ever. We caught the train to Vientianne, Laos, that evening. The train itself was something that was probably state of the art 50 years ago. It was very well put together but seemed shabby with age and the lack of newer facilities. It was comfortable in a Russian sub kind of way. It was a 14 hour journey, but we had sleeper seats (I had bottom bunk) so it wasn't too bad. At the border we received our visa, took a 30 minute taxi to Vientianne, and checked in. No a bad trip considering I was recovering from a stomach flu and it was 14 hours.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Finished in Chiang Mai
Anita just finished her 5 week massage course, and we are off to Pai now.
The cool things I did in Chiang Mai:
- Lit some latern baloons. These light paper lanterns capture the hot gases from the candle until they are bouyent enough to take off into the sky. It looks very cool to see something take flight from only hot air, and I have never seen it on such a small scale before. Once it takes off, it looks quite nice as it rises into the night sky, an orange dot against the blue black. There will be a festival where hundreds of them are released in a few days, so that will be good to check out.
- Finally finished a demo for my RPG book, Plutocracy 2060. It ended up being 203 pages long. I printed out 10 copies, and am looking into some E-publishing. Now it's on to the truly massive amount of spelling and grammar mistakes.
- Went to a fish spa. Garra rufa is a tiny fish species that eats away at the dead skin on your body. So, a fish spa is a place where you put your legs (or your whole body) into a pool filled with the little suckers and they immediately begin to nibble away all your detritis. It's extremely bizarre seeing scores of these things surrounding your legs, giving you an extremely intense tickling feeling. Anita and I sat there laughing for about 15 minutes until we got used to it for the last 30 mintues. Pretty cool experiance.
- Went to an herbal steam bath. Very hot, hard to breath, and somewhat uncomfortable. Felt nice and clean when I was done though.
Thats about all the touristy things we have done there, since Anita wanted to rest on the weekends and I was more than happy to plug away at my RPG. Now, its back to backpacking for a while.
The cool things I did in Chiang Mai:
- Lit some latern baloons. These light paper lanterns capture the hot gases from the candle until they are bouyent enough to take off into the sky. It looks very cool to see something take flight from only hot air, and I have never seen it on such a small scale before. Once it takes off, it looks quite nice as it rises into the night sky, an orange dot against the blue black. There will be a festival where hundreds of them are released in a few days, so that will be good to check out.
- Finally finished a demo for my RPG book, Plutocracy 2060. It ended up being 203 pages long. I printed out 10 copies, and am looking into some E-publishing. Now it's on to the truly massive amount of spelling and grammar mistakes.
- Went to a fish spa. Garra rufa is a tiny fish species that eats away at the dead skin on your body. So, a fish spa is a place where you put your legs (or your whole body) into a pool filled with the little suckers and they immediately begin to nibble away all your detritis. It's extremely bizarre seeing scores of these things surrounding your legs, giving you an extremely intense tickling feeling. Anita and I sat there laughing for about 15 minutes until we got used to it for the last 30 mintues. Pretty cool experiance.
- Went to an herbal steam bath. Very hot, hard to breath, and somewhat uncomfortable. Felt nice and clean when I was done though.
Thats about all the touristy things we have done there, since Anita wanted to rest on the weekends and I was more than happy to plug away at my RPG. Now, its back to backpacking for a while.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Chang Mai
Life has been very low key and relaxing since we have come to Chang Mai. We found an awesome guest house that only charged 200 dollars a month, and I worked out a deal where I get unlimited access to their computer room for the month for 20 dollars (which is a SUPER good deal as its the nicest cybercafe I've seen here).
Anita is taking a 5 week massage course here, and she is pretty stoked about it. I'm happy to as it has given me a chance to finish the RPG book I've been working on for about 7 years now.
My days here are always the same, so I'll talk about the routine I've been following for the past four weeks.
8:30-9:30 -I wake up. Anita has gone to school, and I begin my day by showering usually. Though lately I have been so excited about getting my ideas about the book into words I skip the shower 50% of the time.
9:30-10:00 - I eat a delicious breakfast. Its either bacon, eggs, toast, and tea, green curry soup, chicken masala, or red curry vegetables and rice. It usually costs about 4$. Then I go to a juice vender that sells freshly squeezed orange juice and I buy a 500ml bottle for one dollar. Freshly squeezed orange juice is fan-bloody-tastic. I get it in the morning, an hour or so after it has been squeezed. I love how cheap it is here.
10:00-4:00 - I work on my RPG book, Plutocracy 2060. Thats right. I spend 5 or 6 hours a day typing out ideas and rules concerning the RPG game. I've been a writing fiend lately. In the past 4 weeks, I have spent about 150 hours working on the game.
4:30-5:00 - I watch the end of "Grey's Anatomy". Its a show about doctors who act like teenagers.
5:00 -10:00 I go for an early supper with Anita. In the evening we either go for a movie, watch T.V. that I have downloaded, or go exploring.
10:00 - bed time
It may sound boring, but I have been having an awesome time.
Anita is taking a 5 week massage course here, and she is pretty stoked about it. I'm happy to as it has given me a chance to finish the RPG book I've been working on for about 7 years now.
My days here are always the same, so I'll talk about the routine I've been following for the past four weeks.
8:30-9:30 -I wake up. Anita has gone to school, and I begin my day by showering usually. Though lately I have been so excited about getting my ideas about the book into words I skip the shower 50% of the time.
9:30-10:00 - I eat a delicious breakfast. Its either bacon, eggs, toast, and tea, green curry soup, chicken masala, or red curry vegetables and rice. It usually costs about 4$. Then I go to a juice vender that sells freshly squeezed orange juice and I buy a 500ml bottle for one dollar. Freshly squeezed orange juice is fan-bloody-tastic. I get it in the morning, an hour or so after it has been squeezed. I love how cheap it is here.
10:00-4:00 - I work on my RPG book, Plutocracy 2060. Thats right. I spend 5 or 6 hours a day typing out ideas and rules concerning the RPG game. I've been a writing fiend lately. In the past 4 weeks, I have spent about 150 hours working on the game.
4:30-5:00 - I watch the end of "Grey's Anatomy". Its a show about doctors who act like teenagers.
5:00 -10:00 I go for an early supper with Anita. In the evening we either go for a movie, watch T.V. that I have downloaded, or go exploring.
10:00 - bed time
It may sound boring, but I have been having an awesome time.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Kanchanaburi
We set off from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi in a moderately pleasant bus. The 2.5 hour trip went by fast and we got an overweight lady to take us to our hotel in her bicycle taxi. Its amazing that she could be overweight with that job, pulling an extra 200kg or so more than what one normally has when biking, and doing it many times throughout the day.
After a 10 minute ride we arrived at our hostel. It looked very small from the street, but discovered that it went about 250 meters in, all the way to the river. After descending some stairs we walked across a long walk way 2 meters above swampy algae and weed filled water. On either side of the walk way were 2 levels of bamboo bungalows, Swiss Family Robinson style. Ours was at the very end of the walkway facing the river, which was nice. It was very private and had a definite "I'm in Thailand!" feel. We had a nice porch were we could sit and watch the river while having a drink. It was late, so we didn't do much that night, we just ate and read books. That night Anita became very concerned about largish creepy crawlies shuffling about room so she couldn't sleep, but I didn't hear much and slept fine.
The Next day we went to a 1-day Thai cooking course we signed up for. The lady spoke very expressively, which helped us get through any poor English quite easily. There were 6 people in total in our group, a young British man, an older Aussie, and a young couple people from the Netherlands. First, we went to the traditional market to look at ingrediants. It was a very raw place, with things like skinned frogs, but nothing we were not prepared for. After we got to the kitchen we made pad thai, green curry chicken, spicy chicken salad, thai fried rice, and tom yam (spicy soup). We kicked ass at making all the dishes, but of course she held our hand while making them and we will likely screw them up when we try to replicate them at home. Our green curry in particular was awesome. I scalded my mouth quite badly when trying to taste it, leaving a painful burn in my left inner cheek for the next week or so.
The next day was animal day, dubbed such because we were going on an elephant ride trek, and to go to the tiger temple (yes, a temple with many tigers). The elephant ride was awesome. We had a huge elephant and a very experianced elephant trainer who let me ride atop the head of the elephant. It was even more fun when the elephants went for a bath in a clear river, with us atop of them. Whenever the elephants dunked, we went under as well. We soaped up and scrubbed their heads with rough brushes before other dunkings. It was good fun. Later in the day we went to a Buddhist temple where they have been taking care of orphaned tigers for decades. Now, just as Buddha would have wanted, the are used to draw in hundreds of tourists every day to take robotically calculated photos while touching them. It was fun touch them for a couple of seconds before being escourted to the next 10 second photo op. All in all, the elephant ride was much better, as it was less crowded and more personal.
The next day we departed on a 13 hour journey to Chang Mai (and we saw a huge iguana just outside of our bungalow on the walkway when we awoke early that morning, probably 1.5 meters head to tail, it scurried away when it saw us).
After a 10 minute ride we arrived at our hostel. It looked very small from the street, but discovered that it went about 250 meters in, all the way to the river. After descending some stairs we walked across a long walk way 2 meters above swampy algae and weed filled water. On either side of the walk way were 2 levels of bamboo bungalows, Swiss Family Robinson style. Ours was at the very end of the walkway facing the river, which was nice. It was very private and had a definite "I'm in Thailand!" feel. We had a nice porch were we could sit and watch the river while having a drink. It was late, so we didn't do much that night, we just ate and read books. That night Anita became very concerned about largish creepy crawlies shuffling about room so she couldn't sleep, but I didn't hear much and slept fine.
The Next day we went to a 1-day Thai cooking course we signed up for. The lady spoke very expressively, which helped us get through any poor English quite easily. There were 6 people in total in our group, a young British man, an older Aussie, and a young couple people from the Netherlands. First, we went to the traditional market to look at ingrediants. It was a very raw place, with things like skinned frogs, but nothing we were not prepared for. After we got to the kitchen we made pad thai, green curry chicken, spicy chicken salad, thai fried rice, and tom yam (spicy soup). We kicked ass at making all the dishes, but of course she held our hand while making them and we will likely screw them up when we try to replicate them at home. Our green curry in particular was awesome. I scalded my mouth quite badly when trying to taste it, leaving a painful burn in my left inner cheek for the next week or so.
The next day was animal day, dubbed such because we were going on an elephant ride trek, and to go to the tiger temple (yes, a temple with many tigers). The elephant ride was awesome. We had a huge elephant and a very experianced elephant trainer who let me ride atop the head of the elephant. It was even more fun when the elephants went for a bath in a clear river, with us atop of them. Whenever the elephants dunked, we went under as well. We soaped up and scrubbed their heads with rough brushes before other dunkings. It was good fun. Later in the day we went to a Buddhist temple where they have been taking care of orphaned tigers for decades. Now, just as Buddha would have wanted, the are used to draw in hundreds of tourists every day to take robotically calculated photos while touching them. It was fun touch them for a couple of seconds before being escourted to the next 10 second photo op. All in all, the elephant ride was much better, as it was less crowded and more personal.
The next day we departed on a 13 hour journey to Chang Mai (and we saw a huge iguana just outside of our bungalow on the walkway when we awoke early that morning, probably 1.5 meters head to tail, it scurried away when it saw us).
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Thailand part I - Bangkok
We flew into Bangkok from KL and landed without incident. There was the usual crowd of transportation services ready to take you into town for inflated prices, but we bargained one of them down to less than 1/2 his original asking price, which felt good.
Our hostel was a nice place, a midrange hostel with aircon (we are addicted to it) and hot water. It provided internet service and boasted a pleasant garden and pond outside, as well as an ashtray in the shape of "predator's" head, which I appreciated despite not using it.
Also good was the location. The street is famous for food stalls and sold some delicious curries and other traditional Thai dishes for about 1 dollar.
On one day there we checked out all the traditional Buddhist temples and statues, including the largest Buddha in the world. It was enjoyable despite the heat, and we got some good exercise and culture out of it. We wanted to end the day with a forensic museum whose claim to fame is the possession of a bloody shirt of a man who was stabbed to death with a dildo, but couldn't find it after looking for it for a long time, so we ate dinner instead.
On another day we went to see "Bangkok Dangerous", a terrible movie. The most entertaining part was Nicolas Cage's absurd hair. It was an excellent time. Why you ask? Because we reclined in very comfortable electronically controlled lazy boys under blankets. Yep, its the only way to watch movies I am now convinced.
After a couple of more days of checking out the sights, reading books, watching movies, and drinking expensive coffees we decided to go see a Muay Thai fight.
Muay Thai is perhaps the most vicious of all striking martial arts. It allows knees and head butts as well as punching and kicking, making the moves much more unpredictable. We went all out and got some ringside tickets, so we could taste the blood spatter more discerningly. I started downing beers to enjoy a little of the ol' ultra-violence with my glossy globes. The music played is dis harmonic and comes from what sounds to be some wind instrument. If you've seen a Thai fight on TV then you know what I'm talking about. It really gives you an anxious hyper feeling which lends to violent behavior. The first few fights were very light weight, but that didn't stop the crowd from shouting their bets with raised fists and crescendoing "Owwww"s every time a hit was landed. The best fight of the night was very evenly fought. One fighter won because he lacerated his opponents eyebrow with a vicious elbow, causing him to leak everywhere which each additional hit. Over the next few minutes the sanguine fluid was spattered across the mat and his back like Nosferatu's Pollack painting.
All in all our time in Bangkok was good, but I would say its not marketed towards couples as much as groups of rabid men.
Our hostel was a nice place, a midrange hostel with aircon (we are addicted to it) and hot water. It provided internet service and boasted a pleasant garden and pond outside, as well as an ashtray in the shape of "predator's" head, which I appreciated despite not using it.
Also good was the location. The street is famous for food stalls and sold some delicious curries and other traditional Thai dishes for about 1 dollar.
On one day there we checked out all the traditional Buddhist temples and statues, including the largest Buddha in the world. It was enjoyable despite the heat, and we got some good exercise and culture out of it. We wanted to end the day with a forensic museum whose claim to fame is the possession of a bloody shirt of a man who was stabbed to death with a dildo, but couldn't find it after looking for it for a long time, so we ate dinner instead.
On another day we went to see "Bangkok Dangerous", a terrible movie. The most entertaining part was Nicolas Cage's absurd hair. It was an excellent time. Why you ask? Because we reclined in very comfortable electronically controlled lazy boys under blankets. Yep, its the only way to watch movies I am now convinced.
After a couple of more days of checking out the sights, reading books, watching movies, and drinking expensive coffees we decided to go see a Muay Thai fight.
Muay Thai is perhaps the most vicious of all striking martial arts. It allows knees and head butts as well as punching and kicking, making the moves much more unpredictable. We went all out and got some ringside tickets, so we could taste the blood spatter more discerningly. I started downing beers to enjoy a little of the ol' ultra-violence with my glossy globes. The music played is dis harmonic and comes from what sounds to be some wind instrument. If you've seen a Thai fight on TV then you know what I'm talking about. It really gives you an anxious hyper feeling which lends to violent behavior. The first few fights were very light weight, but that didn't stop the crowd from shouting their bets with raised fists and crescendoing "Owwww"s every time a hit was landed. The best fight of the night was very evenly fought. One fighter won because he lacerated his opponents eyebrow with a vicious elbow, causing him to leak everywhere which each additional hit. Over the next few minutes the sanguine fluid was spattered across the mat and his back like Nosferatu's Pollack painting.
All in all our time in Bangkok was good, but I would say its not marketed towards couples as much as groups of rabid men.
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