Category Archives: Thailand

The Politics Of Ice Cubes

In the bar at the fantastic Eat Me restaurant, in Bangkok, the head bartender hand made giant ice balls for some of the drinks he was serving. He'd chisel a chunk off of a huge block of clear ice; then he'd very patiently melt and shave and polish it into a near-perfect sphere about the size of a lemon. It was fascinating to watch.

Rebecca Cohen should probably not go there.

More Wacky Thai Stuff

Cause they so wacky.

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Literally every cab driver asked if we'd seen 'ping pong' girls (use your perverted imagination). I suspect cabbies get paid for bringing people there, the same way they get a cut if they bring you to sneaky tailors or to any of the tourist spots that they carry brochures for (and try to push on you). One member of our group went to see 'ping pong', but he didn't actually get to see it because getting to the ... action ... involved running a gauntlet of tourist traps and scams and overpriced drinks and propositions, and he gave up before he got to 'ping pong'. He did get to see lots of prostitutes though. They work as hostesses in the clubs, and for a fee, you can take them off-site. Technically this is illegal, and the club has to pay a fine if they do this. So, when you take a girl off-site, you're really paying the fine ahead of time (plus some to the club, I'm sure).

Bangkok, More

From the balcony of a very posh Japanese-themed hotel bar whose name I don't remember because we had just run in there to escape a sudden bout of rain (which happened every day we were there):
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The patch of vegetation in the middle is the residence of the US Ambassador and the US embassy. Acres and acres of very valuable real estate! The British and Swiss and Netherlands' and many other embassies are on the same street. Embassy row, I guess.

From one of the restaurants in the Lebua State Towers hotel. This is where some of Hangover 2 was filmed. It's a swank western-style hotel with awesome views. We stayed here our last two nights.

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The view from one of our balconies. One of our balconies.

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Looking the other way.
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It wasn't cheap, but I can't imagine what a suite with two balconies on the 56th floor of some NY hotel would cost.

Free booze and (awesome) snacks from 2 to 6!

Still, we couldn't afford to eat at that place, so we went down to reality for dinner. Here's the street view, one block from the hotel.
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Note the power lines. Regulation in Thailand is apparently very weak.

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Like Tokyo, Bangkok is full of little alleyways, and there are many good things to be found down them. We were lucky enough to go with a friend who had been there all summer and knew where to find good stuff.

Bangkok Canals

One of my favorite bits of my stay in Bangkok was a longboat ride through some of the city's canals. I did basically no research about the city or the country before we went, so I didn't know about the canals until we got on the boat and headed up river. But, turns out that there is a large network of canals that spider throughout the city, connecting all corners to the big slow river that the city straddles. And, while the streets are crazed and crowded, the canals are downright placid. Aside from boats full of tourists, there were only a handful of locals scooting around in little skiffs.

It's a completely different side of the city.


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Practically idyllic, by comparison.


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The open air and sunlight make a good place for growing plants:


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... or for putting up art galleries:


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And the canals are home to thousands of catfish which hang around waiting for people to feed them.


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It's good luck (or so the signs all say, in English) to feed the fish. And so there are people who make a living selling fish pellets.

And then there are the monitor lizards who lounge around on the banks of the canal, menacing anyone who gets close:


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A bit of nature, in the middle of a city of more than 6M people.

Bang

Bangkok is enormous and crowded and stinky in the way that most big cities can be, but more so.

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There is great food and beautiful stuff everywhere. But you often have to walk through some unbelievably horrid smells to get to it.

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And yes, it's hot. While the air temp is actually cooler than a summer in NC, the humidity is always near 100% - and, we don't go outside at home. Here, you sweat and sweat and sweat.

There was a lot of sweating at the beach house we were at, too. But this was the view:

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And this is the dining room and kitchen. Open to the air. And to the critters.

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It was a pretty swank place, but it was cheaper than most any beach house we've ever had in the US. And far nicer. There was a driver on call all day to take us anywhere (we used him to drive us to the supermarket for beer and wine, mostly). Also as part of the house package, cooks were available to come in and cook dinner for us. We paid the cost of ingredients plus a small charge for their labor. Homemade Thai food! We tipped them well.

The Thai food we get in the US is pretty much identical to the dishes in Thailand: a green curry here is the same as a green curry there. The differences are that there is a lot of dishes there that we never see here, and the ingredients in the dishes we do get are slightly different (different greens, different fish, etc.). But, overall, if you like Thai food in the US, you'll like Thai food in Thailand.

Food on the street is crazy, everywhere, and cheap. It's also a little squicky. There are, apparently, no sanitary regulations and so it's not unusual to see a big pile of raw meat sitting uncovered on a cart before being fried, surrounded by flies and bees.

I'm happy to not have to drink water from plastic bottles anymore.

Thailand is pretty cheap: most things, most places. Taxis, clothes, food and the little wooden Buddhas you see everywhere are super-cheap. Booze and electronics and jewelry are not. Also, you have to watch out for people trying to rip you off, for they are everywhere. Do not take a taxi or tuk-tuk (little open-air taxi carts) if the driver says "just one stop" - he's going to take you to a bespoke tailor who will try to sell you a suit - happened separately to two couples, one day. The clothes are cheap, though - can't speak to the quality.

Getting there ain't easy, though. It took us 29 hours to get home yesterday - Bangkok to NC. Zero layover - running from gate to gate.

Long boat

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Thailand has some spectacular stuff in the water.

And to get to it, you ride in these crazy long boats that have, no shit, car engines mounted on long poles - one end has a prop, the engine is on the other and the driver swivels it around to steer.

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They just park them on the beach. Docks ? None.

But they can take you here :

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Which is just up the beach from this huge cliff.

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And if you go into the gap on the right side of that, you can see this guy climbing up the 70 feet or so on the side of that small rock:

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And this woman doing sexy poses for her guy:

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And there are monkeys.