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by Daniel Berger.
Original Post: So, Thailand
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Here's a little diary I wrote while vacationing in Thailand this past May. Enjoy.
Trip themes: Massage? Taxi? Same same! Cheap!
Ironic quote of the trip: "You all look the same to me". - Mike's Thai 'girlfriend', referring to blue eyed, blond haired men (me).
The trip was long, but relatively easy. No delays to San Francisco. No delays to Tokyo. No delays to Bangkok. One nice thing they had in Tokyo were "daily rooms", i.e. rooms that you could rent by the hour. We all decided to rent one - Jon and Mike so they could sleep, myself so that I could take a shower to wash the slime off, along with the diet pepsi I spilled on myself on the plane earlier (that sucked). We eventually arrived in Bangkok without incident, met up with Pimdau (my friend's, er, contact here) and headed out.
The first night we stayed in an out-of-the-way hotel somewhere outside Bangkok. It was a nice hotel in a fairly poor section of town. This is not unusual, since most of Bangkok is "fairly poor" as far as I can gather. What can one say? It's a relatively poor country. But there's none of the violence you might typically associate with a poor country. More on that later.
We got to the hotel very late, but sampled the local cuisine outside - noodles at what we would call a "roach coach". These little roach coaches are everywhere in Bangkok, and the food's pretty good actually. Then off to bed.
The next morning we hired a cab driver for the day (you can do that) to take the lot of us to the Ancient City. It's a very impressive and pretty tourist attraction. Lots of kids were buzzing around, wearing yellow in honor of the King, whom they revere very highly here. In addition to taking lots of pictures, we at the water market, which was pretty neat.
Later that day we boarded our plane to Phuket, checked into our rather nice hotel (the Royal Paradise - I recommend it), and napped for a bit. Later that night we walked around town.
Oh. My. God. This place is like Vegas on steroids. There are prostitutes everywhere, and lots "bar girls" who want to keep you company so you'll buy them drinks, but aren't necessarily looking for sex. One of my friends hooked up with a bar manager (and got home at about 6am), while Jon and I mostly played pool and chatted up some of the locals. After I got over the initial shock of "how things work here", I had a good time. But not too good, if you know what I mean.
On Tuesday we had a blast on the go-carts, then went to a driving range. It rained. Then we went out to the bars. Pimdau has some friends that work at one of the clubs, so we went there a few times. The female servers are all quite aggressive, btw. I think this is also the night we went and got a massage. A real one.
On Wednesday it rained a lot, but we went to a monkey show. We also went to a shooting range, but decided not to do it when we discovered the prices were awful. This was the only place where the prices were *worse* than the U.S. That night we went out.
On Thursday we went on a boat ride out to an island and did some sight seeing and snorkelling. It was alright, but the rain sorta ruined an otherwise fun time. That night we went out.
On Friday we went out on a longer boat trip, were we did kayaking, and cave swimming, which was awesome. On that particular boat I met a guy who used to work for my company on his honeymoon. Small world. That night I think I actually crashed instead of drinking.
On Saturday we went to the beach and hung out most of the day. There I did parasailing for the first time, which was pretty fun. I also got a little burned, but not to terribly. Later that evening we flew back to Bangkok.
Sunday was a shopping day, and we spent most of it at a place called "Mo Chit", which is a huge, semi-outdoor market where you can get great deals on, well, just about everything. I bought some trinkets as gifts. That night we also learned the hard way that Italian restaurants in Thailand are BAD. So are their desserts in general. Dairy and sugar products are just not big here.
On Monday we took the train up to see some more ruins, which were pretty fantastic. That took most of the day. I think we went to Soi Cowboy that night.
On Tuesday I flew home, slept, then left the next day for RailsConf. :)
Somewhere in there (I forget which day) we went to a strange variety show of some sort, which was a mix of cool theatre, dance, and bizarre comedy.
Some after-thoughts:
The Thai people are a very nice and polite people.
Thailand is very low crime nation. I walked to the hotel down some dark alleys at very late hours, but never once felt threatened. I attribute this to the Buddhist philosophy that is prevalent here.
There are massage parlors and taxi drivers *everywhere* here. Hearing "massage?" and "taxi?" every 50 feet did get pretty old after a while.
It rains daily in the monsoon season. You should visit between November and February. Wear a big hat if you have fair skin if you visit in the hotter months. Like me. I'd say it was basically like Florida in August.
The girls, yes, there are lots of girls available here. We weren't even in Pattaya, which has many more - I think I read 200,000 somewhere. Bring condoms if that's what you're going for. Prostitution doesn't seem to carry the negative connotations in Thailand that it does in the US, and I never saw any pimps or drugs or any violence. On the contrary, they had a few policeman stationed in the area to keep an eye on the girls (and the foreigners). That doesn't mean that it's all well and good. I'm just saying that I, personally, never saw anything nasty or brutal. I doubt you'll ever see it in the touristy areas.
The price of everything, except food, is negotiable. :)
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