Well, I guess I will start off this page with my first impressions of Bangkok. I don't think my mom and I were prepared for such an intense level of culture shock. We planned our vacation around the Study Abroad that my school offered. It turned out to be way cheaper to just do it on our own. Our first two days of the trip were spent in Bangkok. Right off the bat, we were slightly conned by a taxi driver from the airport, he didn't give us the correct change because we didn't know how much coins were worth. Trust me when I say that this was the beginning of our growth as hardened travelers, it was one of may times that a driver tried to rip us off.
Even thogugh we arrived at 1:00 am Bangkok time, the weather was dully warm and sticky.As we entered the city via our hot pink taxi, we were suprised to see that the streets were bustling with action. The food carts that we have been seeing all over Thailand have no refrigeration (just the occasional blocks of ice) and no electricity. They make all sorts of food on these carts, Fried fish balls that are cooked over a charcol fire, grilled bananas, grilled meats and fish (most of which are unidentifiable to the foriegn tourist, and much more. They also offer drinks in a bag, now this is something that I desperately wanted to try but the ice is pretty risky to consume if you don't have a built up immune system like the locals. These drinks in a bag come in all sorts of variety, Chrysanthimum tea, Tamirind tea, some sort of green vegitable juice, and of course Thai Iced Tea.
Later on in the morning after we had taken a cat nap at our hotel, we walked the streets in search of a pharmacy because we didn't bring much in the way of bathroom supplies. My mom and I only brought one backpack each, small enough to carry anywhere comfortably and to use as our only carry on. We do laundry every night because we only have about 2 or 3 sets of clothes for our 3 week trip. As we were dodging hot carts of food and being completely bombarded by the locals trying to sell factory produced clothing, we were laughing at the sheer crazyness. The street booths (just metal frames that they hang merchandise on) next to the river are set up long before dawn for shopping. We had to be the only white/ non-local people on the whole strech of street.
Since it was Sunday we gradually made our way to a portion of town that housed the Chatuchak Market, 35 acres of market stalls all of which where crunched together. They sold all sorts of things, beautifuly rich colored cloth and clothing, cheap Thai souveniers, jewlery, little figurines of buddhas (some of which involved penises? weird and amusing to my mom and I ... they said that it represented fertility). The other main streets of the Market offered fresh produce which consisted mostly of fruits and vegitables of intensly bright colors that would never be found in America, little carts that served full meals to the individuals that wanted to sit on plastic furniture and wobbly tables. We of course found the one with the most locals and had quite a time ordering food. The Australian girls next to us who were thai had to order for us because they kept bringing us the wrong food. One of the things we discovered was that the best food is usually found in these carts. I had a wonderful shrip Pad Thai and my mom had Fish ball soup. The flavors were exotic and it was even better because the dishes only cost about 2 dollars each.
After having a complete sensory overload at the market we tried to ride the train back to our hotel to rest a bit. Luckily (or unluckily depending on your perspective) a young Thai man started chatting with us about what we planned to do the rest of the day. We told him our feet were killing us so we were trying to get back to our hotel, Cirus (the helpful Thai man) told us to just keep going and not go to our hotel, but rather go see a traditional Thai Puppet show. He said that on our way there we must also get a Thai Foot massage. We didn't really have a choice because he told us he would ride the train there with us. When we finally got there, we walked by a Foot massage place that had about 15 women outside trying to get us to come in, we asked them for directions and a tall woman stepped foward and directed us there. The more I looked at here though, the more I realized that she was really a he. She/him was beautiful, perfectly applied eyeliner and loosly curled hair, she was simply a vison of beauty. My mom and I giggling as we walked to get our tickets, decided that my mom would get "shim" as her foot masseuese.
When we went back to the Foot massage place, the women all laughed at my mom for requesting Shim as a masseuese. The massage was unbearably tickling for me but the way they did it was very neat. They used a black stick to do accupressure on points of our feet and they also would basically do handstands on our thighs to loosen our hip joints. To our horror afterwards (thanks to my keen observations) none of the towels used during the massage were cleaned and rotated after they were used and the people didnt' wash their hands between cilents. Hmmm. This all registered when we arrived in Cambodia 2 days later with feet that smelled absolutely foul and had a dull itch. Again, we had a few learning experiences, this was one of them.
The puppet show was wonderful, the instruments that were used were eerie and inchanting. The puppets themselves were about half the size of a person and had to be opperated by three people. All of it was quite good, but after having been up since 5 am, it took every ounce of strenght to stay awake.
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