Day 4

June 29, 2005

Well, let me begin today by talking about last night. Around 10 pm local time we headed out for the night markets. It is held in the section of the city called Patpong. Strange combination of Canal Street in New York City (where all of the fake purses and jewelry is sold) and old Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh. The streets there are closed off to vehicle traffic and row after row of venders display their wares. On the sides, however, are all of these "dancer" clubs. If you've seen the Broadway show, Miss Saigon, you can picture these clubs exactly. Kaley & I were of course looking at stuff and Brennan & Jim moved at a slightly faster pace a bit ahead of us. They had lots of playbills stuck in their hands with coupons to check out the shows! Jim said that Brennan had quite an interesting look on his face when a guy stuck a card in Brennan's hand with pictures of women and asked, "Which one you like?" Age didn't seem to be any kind of requirement to get in. We didn't go in to any of the "shows," but since the doors were wide open it was easy to take a peak. We saw many very young looking women (most of whom had blondish highlights in their hair by the way) scantily clad and holding on to dance poles and just sort of swaying with the music. The vendors continued to be very confused as to our walking around through the markets with these two Thai/Cambodian looking teenagers. We didn't stay long (didn't take long to see enough!) and headed back to the hotel.

Since it was now late, dark, and the rain had stopped, there were LOTS of rats scurrying about the sidewalks and streets. That was not nice. There were also killer cockroaches running around. Brennan & Kaley have "inherited" my great distaste for bugs and Brennan literally jumped 3 ft in the air when one cockroach ran close to his foot. Being in the night market struck me as to how different their lives would be if they still lived in this area. Their reaction to the rats & roaches further enhanced that sense in me. Everyone else seemed to be walking around totally oblivious to the creatures... but not Brennan & Kaley. Is it part of being an "American" to learn such distaste for such things? As we go along I know their reactions to many such things will seem very odd to those around them here.

Around midnight our friend Derek arrived, fairly well rested. Because of his travel difficulties a day previous United had upgraded him to Business Class so he got to travel comfortably and take quite the nice nap. Dirty rat. (Hmmm.... that figure of speech now means so much more.)
Oh well, time to shower & get moving. Today we're going to the Royal Palace and seeing some other sights!

Evening Wrap-Up
Hi everybody! Had another long but good day. We started the morning with the breakfast buffet in our hotel. It was OK. Lots of fruit. Lots of weird stuff, too. Chicken sausages, fried rice, terriyaki fish... hmmm. From there we walked a few blocks to the river. We've been being harassed on a fairly regular basis by the tuk-tuk drivers. These are motorized little carts that carry passengers around the city dirt cheap. Problem is, instead of always taking you where you want to go, sometimes they take you to where they will get a kick back. We have avoided riding in them for that reason. Anyway, once we got to the river for about 10 cents a piece we were able to ride a ferry boat kind of thing to the Royal Palace. Along the way we had scam attempts a number of times. Scam artists are famous here for telling you that where you want to go isn't open yet today because of this or that... so why don't you let me take you to my brother's jewelry store while you wait? That kind of thing. One guy tried to turn us away from the palace because he said Kaley's shirt was too sleeveless. I knew that we had to wear long pants, closed shoes, and no tank tops, but she wore a shirt with little cap sleeves that I thought would be fine as her shoulders were covered. We ignored the man and kept going. Next person tried to tell us that it is a Buddhist holiday and only Buddhists can get in until the afternoon. There were a lot of Buddhists there and a worship service was going on in the temple of the emerald Buddha, but we didn't have trouble getting in. We just tried to be respectful. Did you know that you never point your feet at a Buddha, or point your finger in any way? The palace and surrounding temples were amazing. Kind of hard to understand how a nation with a difficult history and times of poverty can have such a huge compound of such jeweled and elaborate buildings.

I had a bit of a strange experience while we were there. A very polite group of teenage thai kids approached me and asked if I was an American. (Is it that obvious?!) They were working on a class assignment and were to interview Americans and bring back a photo of them. I have to admit that some of the questions left me stumped. They asked things like "What's the best thing about America? What values do all Americans hold in common? What are America's greatest social problems? What do you hope for Ameria's future?" They were very sweet kids and gave me a flower after the interview and took some photos of me with the group. These short two days in Bangkok have made me think often about being an American. Particularly how the rest of the world views us. There are many middle eastern people staying in our hotel and I find them staring at us from time to time. I don't know if it's because we are Americans, or whether they're baffled by Brennan & Kaley being with us. Perhaps it is a bit of both, but it is rather unnerving.

After spending as much time as we wanted to at the palace, we hopped in a taxi and returned to Pantip Plaza - the computer place. Jim wanted to look at some video editing programs and the kids wanted a couple DVDs and video games.The cab ride was about 20 minutes but only two bucks. Good deal. Of course we were all on each other's laps, but that was OK. We used many forms of transportation today because from there we took the skytrain to the MBK shopping center. We ate in a Chinese restaurant and the five of us ate for around $13.00 USD total. Jim had duck, the kids had noodles with chicken, I had noodles with vegetables. It was a little weird food, but it was OK. Price was right and it was air conditioned.

After that the "old men" in the group, Jim & Derek decided they were ready to go back to the hotel but the kids and I stayed behind at the mall. It was amazing. Sort of a combination of department stores, food courts, and lots of vendors like you would see on the streets but in a mall setting. It was seven stories high and I think we covered the whole thing. Kaley found shoes (imagine that) for 199 baht which equals about $5 so she was a very happy camper. Brennan found some fancy soccer shoes that would have been over $100 back home for $40 so he was pretty happy, too. I continue to be amazed by how many thai teenagers are in all of these shopping center, clearly making purchases and talking on their cell phones the whole time!
Bangkok is a crazy crazy city. Traffic is horrible and pedestrians definitely don't have the right of way. We have plunged into traffic a couple of times hoping to make it across. You see some very peculiar sites.... monks walking together talking on cell phones with their notebook computers tucked under their arms....I saw a little woman today who was a street vendor who clearly has very very little, but there she was sitting on the side of the street feeding this tiny baby kitten with a baby bottle. At 6 pm across the city the national anthem is played and people stop what they're doing to simply stand quietly at attention. KFC doesn't sell apple pies, but they do sell corn pies and pineapple pies! The colors, the sights, the sounds, and the smells assault us continually.

Well, it's 8 in the evening here and we are going to go for some dinner. Tomorrow we have to be at the airport by 6 am for our flight to Phnom Penh. I can't believe that day is finally here. Thailand has been fun, but for the most part just an exotic vacation. Tomorrow begins the journey.