Back in Bangkok

Here we are again, for the last time, in the land of smog and traffic, backpackers and braids, late night pad thai and pancakes, and of course the famous Ping Pong show. Been here five days and I must say, we're enjoying it much more this time, considering it's been pretty cool out instead of the 50 degree heat we're used to and we've found some of the best green curry this country has to offer.

So far we've done some "drive-by tourism" as we like to call it (not really knowing what we're looking at or visiting the sights, just taking pictures as we drive or walk by), went to Chinatown, the land of cheap watches, jewelry and plastic things, where you can hardly buy anything not in multiples of six or more, at least the boat ride there was fun..... as was the evening that followed.

So after a long hard day of shopping we decided to relax with a few beers. It only took two big Changs and Robin's absence momentarily for our friend James to convince me it would be a good idea to eat bugs, as there's vendors on every corner frying up the little critters and we must be missing out on something! So we bought some crickets, huge grasshoppers, silkworms and the biggest black scorpions I've ever seen. (I opted out on the cockroaches) We started with scorpions, not that bad, but pretty crunchy, I managed to down half of it then spit out the rest as I no longer had the energy to chew the thing. We managed the rest alright too, James keeping a brave face on the whole time while I jumped up and down, whined and scrunched my face Fear Factor styles. All the while, Robin snapped pictures and took video so there's lots to come.

The next day after nursing our hangovers we went to the 3 big malls in Bangkok, all in a row and absolutely huge. "Luckily" we couldn't afford to buy a single thing there so we were in no danger of breaking the bank. Robin and I spent most of our time feeling like frauds, browsing in Chanel and Gucci, going into Hermes for the sole purpose of touching the bags, and down to Jimmy Choo to drool over some of the nicest shoes I've ever seen. I tried to convince Robin to go down to Harry Winston with me, and pretend we were interested in some of the billion dollar jewelry so we could try it on but she didn't think they'd buy it.

We also went to the biggest market I've ever seen boasting over 9000 stalls. Figuring we could only spend 15 seconds at each stall in order to see them all in the time we had, we rushed through as quickly as possible and probably saw about a fifth of the market. There were lots of funky t-shirts, the best brownie donuts I've ever had and tons and tons of puppies! Obviously we had to spread the love so we spent way to much time in the pet section playing with the puppies(I think I pet ever puppy there) and the just hatched chicks, they also had mice and squirrels for sale but I stayed away from those.

After our long hard day shopping we went to the movies as per our friend Rob's recommendation. An experience, to say the least, we sat in reclining leather lazyboys which had massage and heat, they give you blankets and pillows, and drink service if you like. You just can't get to comfy before the movie because you have to stand for the national anthem right before. One complaint- the guy who got a little too comfortable and snored through the entire movie, at least you could only hear him during the quiet parts, and it was kinda funny.

The rest of our time here has been spent wandering Khoa San Road, fending off offers for tuk-tuk rides, tailored clothes and those irritating wooden frogs (they make a noise just like a frog when you run a stick up the back of them, .....impressive.....once) We've been shopping for new travel clothes since most of ours have been bleached, dyed or lost in the laundry. Otherwise, we just waste time since it's monsooning on Phi Phi island, our next destination. So we'll wait out the rain another few days and hopefully our next post will be from "The Beach"
Hugs and Kisses,
Carla