The Coolest Thing I Have Ever Seen

Today I embarked on my second group tour. I was fairly pessimistic about the affair because of the last tour but it was paid in full so I put on my big boy pants and got in the van. It was another awesome 6:30 am start. Since I was the second to be picked up the day started with the usual driving through Bangkok in horrible traffic to pick up the rest of the people on the tour. Once we had everyone on board we transferred to one of those huge air conditioned tour buses with 2 levels.

There’s no better way to say im a dumb tourist than when you step off of one of these bad boys. To top it off they wanted us to wears these sticker badges so that we could proudly proclaim we were on the tour. I applied mine but quickly took it off when they turned around. I wont deny I am a tourist, but I hate looking like one. Every time I look at the people on these buses I just see dumb, loud, and oblivious. Now I am one of them. I was a little embarrassed. Okay a lot embarrassed.

We set off for the city of Ayutthaya which is about an hour outside of Bangkok. It is one of three former capitals of Thailand. Our first stop was the royal summer palace. This is normally closed to the public when the King or other royalty are staying there but the king is in the hospital and apparently he prefers the beach palace over this one. It was a rather large complex with the excellent landscaping and building exteriors you would expect. There were all sorts of people there.

Boy scouts.

People with guns.

Dog people.

Militarized girl-scouts.

Lazy people.

One thing about the royal palaces that differs from most temples in Thailand is that the dress code is fairly strict. The big no-no's are no exposed shoulders and exposed legs. To alleviate this problem, they allow tourists to rent saris and shawls so they can cover up properly. Its really the Thai's subtle way of saying you dress like a whore.

Its like a royal tramp stamp

The palace was pretty but also pretty standard. Extravagant this and that. Nice furniture and artwork. Ect. Not to say it wasn't nice, its just i have seen this dog and pony show before. And before you ask, a dog and pony show is nothing like a donkey show.





Only one? Well if you insist your highness.
This building has a nutsack.

After we got out royal fix it was off to Wat Mahathat. This is one of many anchient ruins in Ayutthaya. The reason Ayutthaya is no longer the capital is because the Burmese attacked the crap out of the Thai hundreds of years ago and destroyed their capital. Instead of rebuilding it they moved. So now all that is left are these ruins. That being said, they are pretty fucking cool.





This is what I came to Thailand to see and they didnt dissapoint. The pictures dont do them any justice, they were amazing. But unfortunately not everyone shares this point of view. Mainly the tour I was on. We had an hour and a half at that boring ass palace but only 30 minutes in these beautiful ruins. I just have to accept that what im interested in is not what Jon Q. Public is interested in. I could have walked around there all day. I think if the worlds ultimate hide and seek game were to ever take place, this would be the venue.

One thing I can say about this tour is it moves SLOW. The guide was very knowedgeable but just talked and talked and talked. I quickly realized this in the summer palace which caused me to tour it on my own. Wat Mahathat was no different. Since I was alone I had no one to take photos for me. That being said, this was a destroyed city and naturally it had many nooks and crannies to prop up cameras with timers on them.





This is what they do to bad people.

As I was exploring Wat Mahathat more and more I noticed this beacon in the distance. It was calling to me. I believe it had some sort of aura. I had to achieve it.



It looked familiar from some of the scarce research I did before I left but it didn’t appear to be the complex we were in. I tried to find a way to it but got blocked by a wall every which way I went. I looked around for my tour guide and asked him how to get there (I later realized he was not my guide). He said I had to leave through the front gate and go across the street to the other ruins. I needed to ditch the tour entirely.

Looking at my watch, (which was really my camera, I have no watch. To tell time on this trip I have had to take a picture and check the time stamp.) I noticed I only had 10 minutes until the bus was scheduled to leave. In a moment of necessity I found the lowest wall I could find, hopped over it, and speed walked down the street towards my new obsession. I arrived at the gate and paid the 50 baht entry fee. I walked a bit further and was presented with this:



I mean are you kidding me? I felt like Indiana Jones immediately. I wanted to run around with a whip and leather hat. I wanted to raid temples and replace priceless artifacts with bags of sand I have deduced to be the exact same weight. I wanted to run from native villagers while dodging primitive darts blown out of bamboo shoots. Although I mentioned running in the last ramblings of fantasies I had, it was something I needed to do if I wanted to see this and also have a ride home. Goodbye power walk.

I quickly headed for the temple and it just got cooler by the minute. It became instantly clear to me you could climb up into it and see out. I was going to raid the temple.



How cool is that? It even has plants growing out of the top like it hasent been discovered in like 512 years.

The stairs only begin at a certain point on the temple, so you have to scale a wall first to get up to them. Then oddly enough there is a railing to aid you on the stairs. Im not sure why they would bother installing it when you have to scale the wall to get there but who am I to judge. Once I got inside I frantically tried to see all of the views from the top, knowing I had to leave right away. That was until I saw the staircase. There was a staircase at the top going all the way past the bottom to an underground area within the temple.




This had to be the steepest staircase I have ever walked down. Again, the pictures don’t do it justice. I slowly climed down this terrifying staircase and eventually reached the bottom. At the bottom it was pretty much a 3 foot by 3 foot area but there was a hole on one of the walls. Yes it gets cooler. I climed through this hole and it lead to a compartment. A compartment with very old religious paintings on the walls. The compartment was not much larger than the 3x3 one that lead to it.



I felt like I had just discovered it. I was giddy. Apparently when the Burmese massacred the Thai they tried to destroy this temple but never noticed the compartment in the bottom. I was truly blown away. Then I checked my watch. I was 5 minutes late for the bus. Crap.

I made my way up the stairs as fast as I could and hustled out of the temple. I was running back to the tour bus which was awful because A: it was super hot and humid and B: if you know me I sweat like no ones business. As I turned the corner I saw my bus pulling out. I waved them down and got on just in time. They usually do a head count after every stop. I guess this was an exception? Regardless I made it back in time and didnt regret a thing. I felt like Eric Cartman when he ran through casa bonita. Even at the end when he had failed horribly, when asked 'was it worth it?', he replied 'totally'. Totally. It was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen.

We made out way to the next stop which was at Wat Phra Sri Sanphet. Although not as cool as Wat Ratchaburana(i did some googling and figured out its name), these ruins were the second best thing we saw. They were vast and diverse. I walked thorough saying 'that is fucking cool' about one hundred times. It really was worth it putting up with the cookie cutter tour package to get to this point. I have a lot of super cool pictures to show you.



Wait what? Thats it? Just the one? I'm sure I took more photos than that... Oh right. My camera died right after taking this picture. Thats right, this is all I have from one of the more amazing places i have been. Sad panda. Sad panda indeed. It is at this point I realize how dependent my writing is on photographs. Im not sure I can make it without them. Lets just say you have to be there to get the full effect. Pictures help me show you what it can be like but being there really fulfills the experience. I suggest following this link to see other peoples photographs of this temple.

One thing i have learned about my camera is that once it runs out of battery, there is always one left in the chamber. You just have to let it marinade a bit. That being said I held out for the perfect picture. I looked around for a while and saw this french couple taking photos from a location that could be labeled as such. I ackwardly hovered around them and waited for them to leave so I could take my perfect photo that was a total rip off of theirs.

Unfortunately i did not get the photo i wanted. Not even close. I had one shot and I blew it. I look like a fugu fish waiting to explode. The lighting is horrible. The framing is wrong. Just all over fail. I tried to get a second shot but after that my camera was truly dead. The good news is i was able to fix most of the issues in Photoshop.



After the last stop we went and boarded the cruse that would take us back to Bangkok. It was surprising relaxing and enjoyable. They featured a buffet lunch which made me feel even more like a fat foreigner but at least it was consistent with American buffets and the food was terrible. The one dimond in the rough was a Thai green curry soup with fish balls. This was my first experience with fish balls and they have the same consistency and flavor as tofu, which is none. But the broth was something to write home to mom about. Me? I just blog home to mom.

Gossip Teen NEWS

I have gotten close to kicking my jet lag and finally functioning on Bangkok time but it hasn't entirely worked out yet. I usually crash around 9pm and wake up around 3am. Sometimes i am able to wrestle myself back to sleep but other nights i am stuck in insomnia mode with nothing to do. TV is the obvious go to in these situations. Over all Thai TV is horrible. Its not funny and not entertaining like other Asian TV programs i have seen. I usually turn it on, zone out, and forget i was watching TV in the first place. The channel selection is pretty diverse here however. I get channels from all over the world; France, England, UAE, Qatar, China, and a number of Thai stations. The two us stations we get are Fox News and SyFy channel. Needless to say ive been watching a lot of SyFy.

This brings me to last night. I once again wake up at 3 and could not go back to sleep. This is when a magical program illuminated my TV screen; Gossip Teen News. I was hooked by the name alone. This is still relavant? I know boy bands are big in Asia but a full show dedicated to them? It was amazing. Most of the show went something like this:

Female: OMG have you seen PuPan's new hair!?!
Male: OMG no whats it like?!?
Female: Lets take a look!

.........

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!


Okay, to be fair, this was the internal dialog going on in my head. Being that i cant say or understand a word in Thai i have no idea what was going on. Also i may or may not have made up the band or singer PuPan. That being said, if you try to take it i will sue your pants off. Now im just getting carried away. Wait, what's that?



Male: Its time for First Class Artist! (At least i think its first. That was the assumption i made. It really looks more like a jacked up S than an F. Maybe Irst is some popular Thai slang? For the purposes for this, um travel blog post, we will stick with First. Sorry to keep you waiting. I know the anticipation is killing you.)

Male: Lets see who it is!



Female: OMG ITS K-OTIC! So edgy, so cool, with the dash in the name. Its dangerous but still fits in with modern family morals. Just look at that pile of hunky man meat. (this is how i assume girls talk about hunky guys. I give it an 89% confidence level)

Male: Lets see if anyone in K-OTIC has a new haircut!

........



Male: OMG turn it off, turn it off. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit and swallowed it because i was so disgusted! It looks like he shaved half of his head and then taped a fully cooked chickens rib cage on the other side! Next image, next image!



Female: Okay, that's better. The other members of K-OTIC really balance out the rest of the look. I think we can now proceed.

This is where i was really stumped. By law, all boy bands have to follow the same formula pioneered by new edition and perfected by the backstreet boys. Theres the bad boy, the clean cut one, the leader whose hotter than the rest, the older brother type, and the Ringo. To clarify on the Ringo, the Ringo is really the one in the band whose not as hot as the rest but somehow fits and gets a small, but also unattractive following. They will ultimately will be the least successful in the group in the long run, but they still serve a very important purpose.

When we apply this to K-OTIC, its hard to pinpoint which member takes on which personality trait. Lets get rid of the obvious choices and start with our friend chicken bone. He is clearly the 'bad boy'. Past that is where this gets tricky. To his left we have a strong contender for the Ringo. He looks just like Ringo but it just doesn't work. Hes too boring. The Ringo is usually goofy and that's the source of his charm. As an unattractive goofy man i am well aware of this tactic.

Next we have the young fellow in the middle. Looks just like a jonas brother. This would be an obvious choice for the leader but once again there's just something about him that doesn't fit. The other two suffer from the same problem. I just don't understand how this band made it. They have defied the laws of boy band science.

Ultimatly i have no idea how popular this band is. They were on TV so they must have some level of success. I checked out the pop charts for Thailand and the current number one boy band is called 25 Hours. A quick Google image search of '25 Hours band' will tell you why. I initially was going to write a quick post about my insomnia but i got a little carried away. I guess that's insomnia. I will leave you with a Thai TV honorable mention:



Who would have thought the Thai had mastered time travel? I for one am impressed. And all i have to do is send a text message? Fascinating! Also, i ate the following item at around 5am this morning. I do not recommend it. I do not recommend it at all.



After reading this over i think i probably need some type of therapy. The excuse of 'Jake is just using his imagination' doesn't really work when your 26 and alone in Bangkok.

The Most Exciting Show In The World!

Today was my second guided tour but this time it was a group tour. The bus picked me up at my hotel at 6:30 AM and we were off. To my surprise i was the only American on board. There were four Dutch, one Italian, and four Chinese. It actually was nice to have no other native English speakers in the group because i didn't have to hear their stupid comments about everything.

Our first stop was an elephant farm in the jungle about an hour outside of Bangkok. They were offering elephant rides and i was more than happy to take part. Because i was alone the handler let me sit on the elephants neck instead of the stupid seat thing they have for regular riders.





It was a nice break from the busyness of Bangkok. We even went through a river which was pretty sweet. The highlight had to be when the handler offered me ivory jewelry while we were still on the elephant. I politely declined but was not surprised. Although they kept reinforcing that the elephant was a lucky animal for their culture, they sure treated them like shit.




Once my elephant ride was done we boarded a water taxi and headed down to Damnoen Sadauk Floating Market.



An add for the 'most exciting show in the world'. We will get back to this later.

We were told is one of the last original floating markets left in Thailand. If by original they meant full of nick nacks and cheesy tourist souvenirs then yes, very original. This was a huge let down. I had been looking forward to this tour because i had assumed original meant authentic and still relevant. It looked cool for a while but almost every boat was full of tourists and every stand was the same things they sell on the streets of Bangkok.


Its this picture that makes me realize i should have never gotten my haircut at the Asheville, NC mall.


The sellers were really at an advantage in this market. If you made any eye contact at all (weather it be just looking around or actually interested in something) they would pull out this cane like they had from vaudeville to pull crappy acts off the stage. They would hook your boat and pull you in to their stall. Then the hard sell came. I've developed a pretty standard rule for pricing things here. They will always hit you at around 300% of what they actually plan to sell it for. If you keep walking away they price drops. The problem here is there was no walking away. I had a guy hit me with a 600 baht price tag for an item i didn't want. I turned away and ignored him and by the time he was done yelling it was at around 190 baht. He eventually gave up once he saw my power beard. Others gave into the pressure and were not as lucky. All in all id say avoid this mess of a tour.

After i had the one encounter with the stall salesmen i decided to not look at anyone anymore. This lead to some pretty interesting no look hip shots of some of the locals. I think some of them turned out pretty good.







After i got off the boat i still had some time to kill before the bus left. Already done with this market i needed something to eat because i missed breakfast due to the early departure. I found a food stall and ordered pork with rice. It was bland and horrible. I went outside and found a 7-Eleven across the street and got a Slurpee to make up for it. Grape to be exact.

The time came to finally leave and our next stop was a snake farm. This wasn't a farm so much as one of the sadder reptile Zoos i have been to. It was what you would expect from a third world attempt at a Zoo. Small cages, sad hungry looking animals, poor conditions, dirty, ect.




Food!


At the end of the Zoo was an arena. And this is the moment you have all been waiting for... The Most Exciting Show In The World! AKA the cobra show. If your an animal rights activist you will hate this. If your a redneck you will love it. I fall kind of in the middle. I will say i mildly enjoyed it but eventually felt bad for the snakes.

The show consisted of 5 'Acts' all narrated by an old man with very bad English. Act 1: Man Dodges Venomous Cobra!



This was fairly unimpressive (especially since we were told all of the snakes were trained ahead of time). He pretty much held its tail and then tried to get the snake to strike him. He then held it up for everyone to see. Then it got a little weird. They first took the snake around the crowd and bled its fangs to show it was still poisonous and that the danger was real! Next they let us all pet it while they crushed its head between their fingers. They they pulled its foreskin back and show us its penises. Yes i said penises.



Apparently male cobras have two penises. But don't worry, they informed us the ladies also have two vaginas. Glad they cleared that up. People were literally running to the front row to take photos of the cobra penises. It was rather strange. One lady asked if she could touch it and since we were in Thailand, they let her. After all of that i hope your ready for Act 2: Mongoose V. Cobra, battle to the death!



Okay not death but until the cobra was pretty messed up and bleeding a little. They wheeled out a see through box with a mongoose and just dropped a cobra in. Hilarity ensued. Once they sensed the cobra was loosing they tried to pull it out. This was not in the mongooses game plan. He jumped up and clung to the snake like a monkey to a tree branch and pulled it back in. A few more tries and they got the cobra out. I'm fairly sure it is dead at this point but that cant be verified. They assured us no cobras die in the stunt so i guess i can sleep easy now.

Time for Act 3: Jumping Water Snake!



Having seen the jumping water snake in action i am not sure how much this snake actually jumps. They would pretty much grab its tail and throw it across the small arena. It would smack against the wall towards the crowd, some water would splash up, crowd would scream, and then they would try it again. It was rather strange but hey its a cobra show. Go big or go home. This brings us to Act 4: Jumping Water Python!



They didn't call it a jumping water python (partially because i don't think those exist) but they performed the exact same stunt as before. Throw snake, crowd yells, ect. This stunt required 3 people to complete it and was just as exciting as the last. Super exciting. At the end they completely crushed the snakes head in their hands and paraded it around the crowd. Again people rushed up to take this strange photo. I was in the front row so no rushing needed. VIP.



It was now time for the 5th and final Act: Man Vs. 3 Snakes!



If you thought the first act was exciting, this would put you through the roof! So much dodging. So many snakes thrown. The climax to the whole show was at the end the guy caught all three snakes. You may be asking yourself 'Hey, humans only have two arms. How could a man possibly catch all three snakes when he is lacking the third necessary arm to complete this challenging task?'.



With his mouth of course! This guy literally, with a snake in each hand, dove to the ground and bit the snakes neck with his teeth and then picked it up in his mouth. He then took the snake and swung it over his head like a helicopter blade. The crowd went nuts. It was a little hard to watch for me. I'm pretty sure he hurt this snake fairly badly but hey if your the most exciting show in the world you have to deliver. As you can imagine it was very tough trying to go to our next stop with all of this adrenalin pumping but we managed. The next stop was labeled a local wood carving market but was really just another tourist trap. I was not amused.



Reasonable prices for sure!

The ride back to Bangkok took about an hour and a half. This did not include the time it took to drop everyone off at their hotel in rush hour. It was taking forever and we were not moving. I got cranky and when the van was at a stop light i jumped out and walked away. Luckily i was able to find my way back to the hotel. I think i would have been on that friggin bus for another hour and a half at least. It was super horrible. All and all an ok day at best. Peaked too soon. All i can say is stay away from this tour.

I am now waiting on the skeezy suit guy to deliver my suit to my room. Wish me luck...

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