February 13, 2005

• …year of the bangCOCK…

  WOW!!! Thailand was AMAZING!!! Where do I begin?!?!?! So because so much happened on this trip, I thought it best to add some pictures to help me describe the incredible time I had there. Here are the highlights…

  We left on Saturday evening and flew on FinnAir.

  

  We had all purchased a tour package through Hong Thai Travel, which included 5 days and 4 nights in Thailand. There were 9 of us going as a group, but we were all joined by about 30 other people, so it was a pretty big group. The tour was all in Cantonese, but two of the people in our tour group knew Cantonese, so they just translated some of the more important parts for us. It was a good opportunity to practice my listening skills though, and I understood most of what the tour guide was saying anyway. I also got to practice my Mandarin and Teochiu there as well, so that was awesome…

  We got in rather late on Saturday night. I don’t think it hit me that I was in Thailand when I got off the plane, but I was starting to settle into the idea when we hit the wall of heat once we left the airport to board our tour bus. The mosquitoes also helped me settle into the idea by giving me 4 welcoming bites within less than 2 hours of getting into Thailand. Ugh! I soooo hate mosquitoes! Anyhow, we checked into our hotel in Bangkok and decided to spend the night in because we wanted to be rested for the next day. We didn’t wind up going to bed until like 3am though because we stayed up to play SPOONS and do card tricks, hehe. SPOONS, it’s everywhere! The following day, we went to a tacky and tourist infested pseudo-Great America called Dreamworld. This place was sooooo cheesy, but you just had to love it. I felt bad for some of the people who worked there though, mainly the ones who had to be in a full costume during the day. I’m sure they were burning up inside. Ah well, gotta make a living somehow right? So I got to ride an elephant for the first time.
  

  It was pretty fun, although I don’t think I’d choose it as my primary mode of transportation. It was a bit rough and was untrained in terms of when it should handle its business.
  
  It was a cool experience though and I thought it worthy of a banana, but boy was I scared of feeding him.
  
  Dreamworld was also our first taste of Thai food in Thailand as well. We all filled up on pineapples and watermelon, the fruit there is sooooo good! They’re a bit explicit with their potties though.
  
  Shirley and I couldn’t help but find some of the signs they had hilarious. This was one of our favorites. It looked like he was constipated, hehe.
  
  Yeah, Dreamworld was fun, we all had a really good time just being dorks.
  
  Here’s us being tourists.
  

  So after Dreamworld, we headed to see the Four Faced Buddha. It was pretty interesting; we paid our respects and even got to see some traditional Thai dancers performing there as well.
  

  

  
  Needless to say, the first day was quite tiring and I was ready to crash.
  

  Monday: We went to see this awesome temple that had a really steep incline.
  
  The steps were crazy–almost an 80 degree incline. I wonder how the old ladies did it, how’d they ever get to the top of some of these crazy temples?! Anyhow, this was my first day at getting to know how Thailand operates. So as a tourist, you’re always a sucker, they don’t see a tourist and think, “aww, look how dorky he looks.” No, they see a tourist and think, “MONEY!” How sad huh? Well, I guess you have to do what you have to do to make a living.
  
  These girls were dressed up in their traditional garb waiting for us to come. They lured me in with the snake, then immediately came up behind me and started to pose. As soon as we were in our positions, someone had already snapped a picture, and the next thing I know, 3 open palms are out in front of me asking for their payment for posing with me for my picture. It all happened so fast that I didn’t realize that I was being scammed until it was too late. Ah well, such is life.

  
  We decided to go out that night though. We went to this red light district called Mike’s Bars, or something like that. It was pretty cool just hanging out with some of the prostitutes there. They were all actually pretty nice. One of the bars didn’t know how to make mixed drinks, so they let me go in and mix my own drink, it was pretty awesome, hehe.
  

  Some other memorable moments were:

  Parasailing in Pattaya
  

  Squattin’ my bizness
  

  Can you believe these ladies are MEN?!?!?!
  

  The Thai Crew workin’ it in front of Suan Lum Night Bazaar
  

  Me and Matt at dinner in Bangkok
  

  The Thai Crew after our tuk tuk adventure
  

  Me and Mei Mei, our tour guide
  

  Heading back to home sweet Hong Kong home
  

  

  And we’re back…

  

  Man, this was an awesome trip. I don’t think I could have had better company. I’ll expand more about the cultural observations I made in another entry later, but hopefully I’ll be able to add more pictures to my entries later on. They are a hassle though, lol, but a picture truly is worth a thousand words…

  • 7:56 am
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