so, i guess the snake farm isn't going to happen. we have tried to go every day this weekend, and the first time we were 2 minutes too late, the second time we only had half an hour to see the snakes (i gave up after the second time) and the third time (andy and marney went to conquer their fear of snakes) they were not "milking" the snake venom....we give up!!! (SNAKE AT THE SNAKE FARM)other than this small mishap, i had a fabulous weekend in bangkok! on thursday, i was only out of bed for 8 hours, so i vowed to make the best out of the rest of my weekend, and i definitely did on friday AND saturday! :)
on friday, marney and i woke up early (9:30) and wanted to be adventurous, so we found the word for "sky train" in our lonely planet phrase book (which is the funniest phrase book ever!) and told the taxi driver to take us to the sky train. 80 baht and 35 minutes later, we arrived at the sky train, only to find out that our stop for Jim Thompson's house was only 2 away....and it probably would have been faster and cheaper just to catch the taxi all the way.....it was going to be a weekend full of "cultural events" for us! the sky train reminded me so much of san francisco bart. i loved it! and it is so nice to be in air conditioner....we stay in whatever AC we can find for however long we can....sometimes we even go into stores just for the AC! i don't know what we are going to do when winter ends....anyway, we got on the sky train, had a nice view of some part of bangkok for 5 minutes, then got off at the National Stadium stop to see Jim Thompson's house.
it was so beautiful there. the house was built in a traditional thai-style with six different houses on stilts connected together. however, even though the house was built in a traditional thai style, it was decorated with the most wonderful furniture, buddah sculptures, silk paintings, porcelain, and plants from all over south east asia--china, india, malaysia, indonesia....you name the country, and there was something in that house from there! but, even though he collected his art from so many different places, it all strangely matched, and fit together very nicely. the living room reminded me of my living room at home because there was an opium bed in the middle of it that looks just like ours! and my mom would have loved the dining room because the table was made of two mah-jong tables pushed together and the chairs were beautiful teak wood with cushions hand painted to look like blue and white chinese porcelain. mom--you need to see this place if you come to thailand...i thought of you the whole time! (ORCHIDS...FOR MOM; JIM THOMPSON'S HOUSE IN BACKGROUND)after the jim thompson house, marney and i met andy at siam square for lunch...we figured we could reward ourselves with a little shopping after our cultural experience (we are trying to stay away from the shopping and do more bangkok-ish things....whatever that means!!! so, we ate at a japanese restaurant and then shopped for about an hour or so, then caught a taxi back home....the taxi ride took so long though because of bangkok traffic that we ended up getting to kaosan road, getting street pad thai and then turning around and going back to where we started to meet billy and his friend justin. billy was supposed to come in around 2, but with a combination between "thai-time" and bangkok traffic, he did not get to the hostel until around 630. it was alright though, because the hostel he stayed at was about 1km away from the boxing stadium where they have muay thai fights on friday nights!!!
once they settled in, we walked to the stadium and watched the muay thai fights. i think that this was the first thing in bangkok that is exactly how i imagined it would be. the stadium was really old and it was made of wood boards, so every time you step, you are afraid your foot is going to go right through and you are going to fall through the floor! also, there were mostly men at the fight, the only women that were there were the girlfriends, but mostly men go there to bet and drink. it is a mess inside, but it was very cool! in total, there are 8 fights for the night, and the main fight is the 5th fight. it was a good night to go because the underdog won the main fight, so everyone in his corner was ecstatic! then, after that fight, there was a fight between a K1 champion (whatever that menas) from korea (who marney fell in love with!) and some other guy from thailand i think. the last fight was between some boys who were SO little...they were only 14 years old!!! after the fight ended, we got food at the night bazaar and went home to get a good nights rest for the floating market on saturday morning! (MUAY THAI FIGHT--MAIN EVENT)went to bed at 130 on friday night, and on saturday when my alarm went off at 445 i second-guessed my plan to go to the floating market at 5am. but, since i organized it, i dragged my butt out of bed, brushed my teeth, found the biggest sunglasses i own, and went to meet everyone else in the lobby. marney and andy were already waiting...and of course, charity was the last one down ;) ;) hahahaha...she is on hawaii time PLUS thai time so we always make fun of her for being late!!! our friend JJ helped to hire a taxi driver to take us around all day for 800 baht, so the driver came at 5 am to pick us up, then drove us 2 hours to the floating market.
it was quite the experience. we got there, and it has become a tourist trap, so we had to pay 400 baht to get on a boat that would take us through the market. even though it was very touristy, i loved it, and it is definitely something everyone needs to do when they come here. at first, there was a food canal where we got mango and sticky rice (off of a boat, of course) and some coconut pancakes that were both "simply delicioso"!!! here, they also sold every kind of fruit, thai dishes, pancakes of every sort, fresh veggies and tons of coconuts. there are also vendors along the side of the canals, but we made a deal as soon as we stepped foot into the boat that we were only going to buy things if they were floating...like us. after the food canal we went to some other canals that sold a bunch of crap that you see all over thailand. its really funny though because all of the ladies selling the stuff have these sticks with hooks on the end, so they reach out with their stick and hook your boat and drag your boat to their side of the canal...we kepteven when we go home to go to bed early, we somehow don't end up sleeping early. i think i saying NO NO NO, MAI CHAI (it means no) MAI CHAI! we were pretty obnoxious (mostly andy, as usual) by the end, but they don't listen. none of us bought any durable goods...only food...and we thought there would be food during the whole tour, but it's only at the beginning so we were sad :( then, we stopped at a tourist shop in some other canal, were forced to get out of the boat, looked around for 4 minutes and then got back into our boat to go on the rest of the tour. we were probably the worst tourists they have ever seen...thats because we are NOT tourists!!!!! yayyyyy! we are locals...thammasat students! hahahahha....i keep going between feeling like a tourist because i want to do everything in the 5 months that i am here, and feeling like a "local" because we are indeed living here....it will probably be this way the whole time! lol. finally, when we were on our way back to the pier we stopped at some place where they tried to make us buy fish food to feed the fish but I HATED IT. the fish were SO gross and they spray dirty dirty water all over you. and we were all screaming and saying GO but the boat driver and the other men who were selling the food thought it was hilarious so they poured two whole bags into the river and we got so much water all over us. i even got some in my mouth because i was screaming while the fish were flapping. it was disgusting. i purelled myself afterwards to protect against pregnancy, rabies, hepatitis, etc. you would too if you saw the water!!! hahahaha...not even being dramatic ;) then, something else even more scary happened! we saw komodo dragons in the water!!!! well, one komodo dragon swimming, and one dead one floating upside down in the river. andy saw it and i have never heard someone scream so badly, or look like he was going to die as much as he did. i think he was literally shaking, and holding his knees to his chest and, yeah, dying. and the boat driver thought this was funny too so he slowed down....just what we wanted to do. finally, we got back to the pier, and even though this story makes it sound like i didn't like it, i really really did! my favorite part was the food part, of course. and i would recommend this to anyone visiting bangkok too! just be sure to tell them you don't want to feed the fish or slow the boat down in open water ever. thats all :) (PICTURE OF THE FLOATING MARKET)after the floating market, we wanted to ride elephants so we went to an elephant riding place
that was sort of near by, and got out and realized it was another tourist trap for 600 baht for 30 minutes only, so we just took pictures of the elephants and left...we are so cheap......its bad. so we got back into our car and went to King Rama 2's palace (we don't know if it was his summer palace or his regular palace), but it was stunning. the buildings were all painted red and the landscaping looked just like kaneohe...everything was lush and green and the grass was perfect, rolling hills, palm trees, flowers, plumeria trees, the whole shabang. i took lots of pictures, so they will be on facebook soon! our last stop of the day was the snake farm, which leads to the beginning of this blog. (KING RAMA II PALACE)we got there 2 minutes too late, but it was ok. marney and andy had enough scaring for the day anyway. but, since the snake farm was near jim thompson's house, charity and andy went there to see it, and marney and i took the skytrain (for more than 2 stops this time) to the JJ weekend market. the size of the market and array of things to buy still shocked me the second time, and this time we found the animals!
they were selling baby hoku's for only 4000 baht, which is $120 US...they were the cutest things ever...we stood there and thought of ways we could hide them in our apartments, but decided against it. they also had golden retriever puppies and husky puppies (i felt so sorry for the dogs...they looked so so so hot...esp the siberian husky ). i also bought a BIG hiking/weekend backpack for $6!!! it is nice, except it says "jack wolfskin" on it and i don't know what that means. i was very pleased when i got home and all of the zippers worked. we'll see the true test during our next trip this weekend to koh samui. (i just planned it...we are leaving on thursday on a bus and staying until sunday in beach bungalows). (PICTURES OF THE PUPPIES AT THE JJ WEEKEND MARKET)after the weekend market, we went home in NO TRAFFIC :) and then ate dinner at the green restaurant and got ready to go to RCA.
this was the first time i went out since wednesday, and i didn't even drink! i needed to detox my body, and i did a good job of it this weekend....i was wondering how long i could go without my body hating me! for the record, i lasted 2.5-3 weeks...pretty good! but this past week has been pretty chill, and i plan on the next few weeks to be too...horray! i think i have a permanent stomach weirdness...its not upset, not sore most of the time, but sometimes has weird cramps or other issues. probably just getting used to everything :) not bad. (MARNEY, ANDY, AND ME AT RCA ROUTE 66)Best things to bring to Thailand/things i'm thankful i brought (in lieu of my "Thailand Fun Facts"):
-z bars
-bug spray
-gold bond
-sun screen
-napkins
-shorts
Things I should have brought:
-going out tops
-more comfy shoes
-strapless bra....i forgot it....sad
Things i shouldn't have brought:
-six pairs of jeans. yes mom, you were right....it was the dumbest six things i could have packed ;)
-towel/sheets.....don't ask.....
i also had a good observation that i wanted to write about, but it is escaping me at the moment...i'll probably blog about it when i remember! i still love it here....still so super duper happy! fernando is coming on feb 6-12 and I CANT WAIT!!!! sweet deal.
hugs and love from bangkok. -mer
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