Happy Mother's Day

Today (August 12th) is her Majesty the Queen's birthday, and therefore Mother's Day. So Happy Mother's Day Mommy! =)

Bangkok, after three days, remains a puzzle. With no lines running into Central Bangkok, taxi's and tuk-tuk's that will rip off any foreigner like me that doesn't like to (or know how to properly) barter, and unwalkable distances to all the fun stuff, this city is really hard to manage! Unlike any city I've been in really. BUT all that doesn't really matter, because the FOOD is AMAZING.

Uncle Fung has been spoiling me, quite a bit. We usually meet Uncle Fung and Uncle Dtaw for dinner, each time our table overflowing with food. My first night, A-fung took me and A-Dtaw to seafood (Tom Yum Pla, grilled fish, crab, fried rice). This first night, I learned that with A-Fung, "everything can do", cause A-Fung knows and has connections to everyone in Bangkok (to which he says, no no no, just half of Bangkok), as he lists the hotels he knows the owners of (including our fancy schmancy hotel), and almost every restaurant we will go to will give us a complimentary dish for A-Fung.

Late that night, my roommate Kayleigh came into BKK. On poor Kayleigh's first real day in Thailand she had to meet ALL of my family here, most of whom I haven't seen in 20 years, and can't remember any of the names of. But we did get spoiled with some delicious lunch: catfish salad, roast chicken, sticky rice, papaya salad, omelet, pork skins. A dream come true, pretty much. My Dad's cousin was really goofy. He kept scolding Kayleigh for not eating with her hands enough. He showed us his house, and all the fake animals in his backyard. His "zoo". He points at the deer, and says, "your Dad's zoo is better. You have real deer!" But we don't have fake zebras.

After lunch, Dtaw took us to IT, a huge store with five floors of technology stuff. Computers, TVs, cameras, flashdrives, keyboards, extension cords, laptop covers, anything you can imagine dealing with anything that will plug in. It was really intense. Maybe I shouldn't be sharing this secret, but there were a lot of monks in the store! I had no idea that monks liked computers. Anyway, I really don't know why Dtaw took us there. Kayleigh and I asked if there was somewhere we can go that had bookbags or purses, and this is where he took us. I guess it's cause he needed a flashdrive, so we spent an hour wandering around this superstore waiting for him. It worked out quite nicely; Kayleigh found a North Face bag for like 10 bucks, and I got a nice day bag for 5$.

That night, A-fung took us out to a Japanese steakhouse. I had gone to one of these in Japan once, but there it's called Korean BBQ. I wonder what they call it in Korea. They bring out a bunch of raw beef and we cook it at the table on a built-in grill. I was a little skeptical cause most of the beef came out still frozen, but A-fung seemed unconcerned, so I trusted A-fung since he eats there 3 times a week and, of course, knows the owner. A-fung pretty much never eats at home. He hasn't had a dinner at home in over 20 years. As soon as we slow down eating, he piles more food on the grill, and says, why aren't you eating? We say we're full, and he says nooo, eat more! Every night with A-Fung, this is what happens.

That night, Kayleigh and I picked up our other roommate Jillian from the airport. So Thursday is when our real adventure with the three of us began. I kind of planned a loose agenda, which we actually accidentally followed for the most part. Of course I thought it'd be a good idea to walk to Central Bangkok from the hotel, which of course was not a good idea. It took us two hours to just get to the train station to buy tickets to Chumphon (where we will be going Saturday). But along the way, we started walking along train tracks on this small non-existent road that led us through a very poor neighborhood. The path along the tracks ended, so we were weaving our way through these people's yards till we could find a main road. We must have been somewhat close to the train station when a tuk-tuk driver pulled over and yelled 20 Bhat! I'll take you where you want for 20 Bhat! And when he kept persisting, Jillian yelled, no zero bhat! He laughed and kept up, okay zero bhat! let's go! But we just ignored him and kept walking. After we made it to the train station, I gave up on my walking idea, and we decided to just take a cab. And of course, the tuk-tuk driver we saw earlier ends up at the train station, sees us and starts yelling zero bhat! zero! We asked him if he could take us to Wat Arun. He says, okay you take a boat, 1000 bhat. All three on the boat to Wat Arun, 1000 bhat. This wasn't really what we wanted, but I guess Wat Arun was too far since it’s across the Chao Phraya River, so he takes us to a pier where there are tourists getting ripped off for a boat tour. When I tried to pay him, he said no, zero bhat. I laughed and asked again how much, and he said no, zero bhat. How do these guys make money!? That was like a 20 minute ride. He really took us there for free, but I guess has some hook up with the rip off boat people. They tried to charge us 2000 bhat for a boat tour to Wat Arun, Wat Pho and Wat Phra Kaew. I accidentally bargained down to 1500, which was still more than I wanted to pay. I think you can get express ferries for 50 bhat. But it was still really cool. We had a long boat to ourselves, and our driver was awesome. The first place he took us to was a snake farm. This was definitely not part of the deal. I told him we didn't want to go to a snake farm, we want to go to Wat Arun, so he skipped all the other tourist spots to take us there. Along the way, we had two market boats come up to us. The first one was just a bunch of do-dads we had no interest in, so we just bought our driver a beer. Then a boat that was making food came up cause our driver wanted lunch. They were making almost like a fried omelet with oyster and flour which made it fluffy, and put it over bean sprouts. So of course we got one too to try, it was amazing! With a sweet and sour sauce on top! So good. I think our driver was really excited we were trying it. He came over and showed us how to put the sauce on and made sure we all had chopsticks.

So we went to Wat Arun, then to Wat Pho. They're temples along the Chao Phraya River, which by the way is really gross. I had asked our driver if the seafood in our lunch had come from the river, and he just laughed and said no. I don’t think he knew what I was asking, but I pretended they were not. The river looks like the Delaware when it’s been flooding north of us, which is hopefully also the case for the Chao Phraya, but I have a feeling it’s not just churned up from floods but is more from all the diesel that gets poured in there from the long boats such as the one we were riding. Anyway, the temples of course were beautiful (we didn't pay to go in either, it was cool just to walk along the grounds outside the main temple). Wat Arun is actually an Indian temple I guess, it looks totally different than the Thai Temple's we've been seeing. With both temples, the attention to detail is amazing, and were incredibly ornate, as are many Thai things. One thing was a bit disappointing about the temples (maybe because we didn't pay to go inside) was that there were no English descriptions of when then Temple was built, what it signifies, or anything about the history of it. Though my retention on any of that stuff really sucks, it would have been nice to learn at the time. Wat Phra Kaew, supposedly the most impressive of the three temples, had closed by the time we got to it, probably because I got distracted with a huge street market between the two temples. In my opinion that market is just as impressive as the temples. I love looking at what people are selling and how they set up. The food part is the coolest. There's just a bunch of tables and chairs and if you sit by the stand that has beef noodle soup, someone will bring you a bowl of soup! magic. And when Kayleigh asked for Fanta, even though he didn't have it, he took a bottle of coke to the neighboring stand, and exchanged a Coke for a Fanta. I love stuff like that.

The next thing on my agenda was to take Jillian to a rooftop bar, but the weather impeded that plan as a huge storm came barreling through. We grabbed a cab, and got caught in the infamous Bangkok traffic on the way home. That night, A-Fung said sushi. So we had sushi. And a lot of it. I didn’t even try to pace myself that night. I ate too quickly, and to A-Fung’s disapproval, quit way to early and sipped green tea to pretend like I was still consuming something. As A-Dtaw inquired about American pop, I watched A-Fung in his food coma try to pay attention, but with absolutely no understanding. Out of nowhere, he perked up, and looked and me and said, Karaoke? Okay, let’s go. And so we did Karaoke at Karaoke City across the street. “The best in the world”, says A-Fung, “because Thailand is the world!” And it actually was a lot cooler than the ones I went to in Japan. Kayleigh was dead tired, I think Jillian was kind of into it, but A-Fung and A-Dtaw had a blast. They knew more American songs then we did, though A-Fung often pretended he didn’t know the words, pushing us to sing these English songs we’d never heard of. Before we left, A-Fung walked with me to show me where the bathroom was, and said, Karaoke is very fun in Thailand. But don’t come here with any boys. Only cousins. No boys. In Sukothai, you can drink. But not with other boys. Okay? Okay Uncle Fung. I hope Uncle Fung visits me in Sukothai.

The following day in Bangkok, Mother’s day, was less of a success. We overslept, and missed our hotel’s free breakfast feast, which was unreluctantly replaced with beef noodle soap and Thai iced coffee from the street market underneath the expressway around the corner from our hotel (don’t worry, it’s been over 12 hours, and I haven’t gotten sick). Best breakfast in the world. Because Thailand is the world. Since it was the queen’s birthday, the royal palace was closed, which I had really wanted to see. The temple across the street and a nearby museum were open, so we got to get some of our touristy things in. Then the rest of the afternoon was spent trying to get taxi’s and tuk-tuk’s to get us to several destinations without ripping us off or taking to us to the wrong place. This involved: going into two stores for a tuk-tuk driver so he can get free gas, and getting kicked out of one for browsing, fighting with a lot of taxi drivers about price, and getting stuck in a lot of Mother’s day traffic in the middle of Ko Ratanakoin, the old royal district, where there were parades and food carts galore. After a lot of walking and getting lost, we finally gave up when a taxi driver took us to the Sky Mall instead of the Sky Bar. All we needed was a drink on the top of a skyscraper, and we couldn’t seem to get there. So we walked back to the hotel, after of course, getting lost again. And not a fun kind of lost either, cause I was hungry. Quite a frustrating day. But A-Fung saved us with crab curry. Accompanied with tom yum pla, sea bass, cabbage and Chinese greens, grilled shrimp, and ginko beans for dessert. I was sad it was our last night with A-Fung and A-Dtaw; they were a nice comfort in the mayhem of this city I don’t quite understand yet, but I’m also excited to head south tomorrow. So as the Queen’s birthday comes to a close, we are ready to take a break from Bangkok and go see some fishes! Tomorrow, we leave for Chumpon, and take a ferry to Ko Tao to get scuba certified! 4 nights in Ko Tao, 3 in Ko Samui, then north to Chaing Mai!