slosh down the pepper!

Bangkok "rendeZvous" DAY THREE

DAY THREE / 29th April 2006, Saturday

1. For the second consecutive day, we woke up at 10plus am, and walked down the street to the stall selling cut mangoes. The only addition was a proper breakfast meal at Happy House cafe,where we were able to utilize our three 20bht cash rebate collected thus far. They do serve decent amercian/european breakfast sets at below 100bht each. My misfortunate was not to notice earlier the 'Padthai' meal set @ promotional rate of 55bht! I learnt later on that "padthai" is in fact a pretty famous local dish.

2. The lady recep was still nice to us, despite us bothering her every morning on the directions to our destinations. "Bus 3 from opposite the road... to Chatuchak". We were rather lucky - the bus came when we just reached the bus-stand. Aircon one too! Within 5 mins of sitting down, the lady conductor held up a cylinderical container containing coins and bus tickets, and walked towards us. With her apt fingers, she skilfully took our 20-dollar note, folded it vertically into two and slipped it into her right hand which simultanously was holding the cylinder.

I wonder why there were empty squares not denoted by any number.

After 10mins, Mr Blur King realized he had misplaced his Fuji finepix camera on the internet PC table in Happy House! Once again, we embarked on a "walking tour". Our next wait for the bus was not as smooth; it was in fact long enough for us to witness a quarrel between a taxi & car driver. Apparently the latter had accidentally scrapped through the left side of the taxi, losing a thousand baht to the former in the course of it. A police officer was also involved in the argument, though he seemed to be of little help in appeasing the heated taxi driver.

The journey to Chatuchak must have taken 45mins or so, for I only remember the humping moments during the 70% time where I dozed off.

3. Chatuchak was HUGE! It's an organized arcade with nicely numbered sections that come with a theme too. There was a "Dream section" where they housed mainly books, not a very popular area. Since both of us are more of a walker than shopper, we trekked through the entire market, meandering through the wide spaces that act as dividers between each section. Numerous foodstalls lined the roads. Tried a few not-so-common-in-sg stuffs: redbull smoothie, coconut icecream topped with peanuts, attap seeds and sticky rice, and freshly squeezed juice from those greenish looking thin-skinned small oranges.

The male model who's perpetually being mistaken as a local Thai. Even the lady at the bus stop turned around to ask him for directions in Thai! Round features, tanned skin, rough texture, yea.. a Thai face alright.

4. We ventured into Jatujak/Chatuchak Market - a wet/animal market selling all kinds of live birds, fishes, puppies, rabbits and hamsters. There was even a peacock on sale! Also caught abit of cock fighting. Lotsa livestock... lotsa birds. But we are still safe. :)

5. Took the BTS from Mo Chit station down to Ratchathewi station [Silom Line]. Walked down the city streets of Pathunam area to Asia Hotel. Incidentally, a tour group from SG just arrived at the lobby. WR had strange thoughts of taking pictures with our comrades to form the 'small group' that he was supposed to be with. Without suitable candidates in view, we left the hotel in search of higher class ones to rest our feet after buying the Calypso Cabaret tickets.

6. The Baiyoke Sky Hotel! Yar, it's tall, but its toilets weren't fantastic, unlike those 5-star hotels' you find in SG. No glass sinks, no fancy tiles, nothing, just plain and simple and clean. I still like Fullerton's washrooms. THEN WR was caught in some Chelsea vs Liverpool live match. Hell with that!

7. Chanced upon S&P, a chained eatery in Thailand famous for its Thai milk tea, though I don't seem to find any bottled ones anywhere. It doesn't come cheap, at 40bht per 200ml glass. A concoction that uses native-grown Thai tea leaves boiled with star anise, vanilla and other spices, giving rise to a bright orange tangy color when condensed milk is added to it. Served chilled. The foods are relatively cheap compared to similar set-ups in SG, but compared to its foodcourts which serve meals at between 30 - 60bht, it's pricey at 70 - 150bht.

8. I was expecting a slightly dirty show at the Calypso Cabaret but it turned out that the only scene that was vaguely less than decent was the baring of the chests of the performers, all of whom sported an average height of 1.70 - 1.75m and a body shapelier than the average woman in the theatre. No restrictions to the type of audience they admit, so boys and girls and whatsoever of any age can stroll in happily without being bounced off. The 1.5hour show employed a mix of nondescript humour (man acting woman, woman acting ostrich) & broadway-like musicals; very conspiciously featured were their glittering & colorful costumes and familiar soundtracks like 'Arirang' & some chinese oldies. Their attempts to incorporate various foreign cultural elements such as the geisha, cheongsam & michael jackson's slick dance moves etc ought to be lauded as much as their efforts to address the audience in Thai, English, Japanese, Korean & Chinese. It is a show for tourists after all.

The 1000bht ticket also entitles each audience a drink ranging from orange juice to coffee to alcohols. To max our dollar, we asked for the whisky. Bah! Wrong choice. A beer or wine probably tasted 100% more concentrated than the diluted mixture we were served. Nonetheless, at least the preparation came in a little glass that has a cute stirrer in it.

A plastic opague cup is used to show the intricate design of the stirrer. Note the part of the woman's hair where it hooks on comfortably to the cup. Sooo pretty!

Total Expenditure:
- Room = 495bht
- Breakfast = 10bht (mango) + 95bht each (american breakfast set) - 60 bht cash rebate
- Bus fare = 18bht each x2
- Chatuchak = 40bht (redbull) + 40bht (coconut icecream) + 20bht x2 (orange juice)
- BTS fare = 30bht each
- SNP dinner = 40bht x 2 (thai iced tea) + 70bht (green beef curry) + 80bht (seafood glass noodle)
- Calypso Cabaret = 1000bht each
- Tuk Tuk = 50bht
- Other misc = 150bht

Per pax = 1658.5bht (SGD71.00)

Labels: bangkok, travel

posted by slingwoof @ 5/04/2006 06:22:00 PM