Same, Same... But Different

After departing the laid back vibe of the islands, the Scots and I headed for Bangkok. Now almost everyone I've talked to, both here and at home, says Bangkok is nothing special. It's a big chaotic city full of scam artists and traffic jams. Well it turns out it is. But what's a city without a bit of chaos, confusion, and a good tourist trap?
 At this point, the girls and I are going day to day; we don't make plans until the morning of, and we're collectively flexible to go with the flow. On our first night in Bangkok, after an overnight ferry and eight hours in a minivan, we were not up for anything crazy. Plus, I think we all agreed we need a major detox after the islands. We opted to go to a movie, which was a fabulous change of pace and a definite comfort of home (and for some reason, the big movie theatre is on TripAdvisor's top ten things to do in Bangkok...Huh?). I'll admit though, it was a pretty decked out movie theatre with VIP seating. The only catch of the evening was that, before the movie, we had to stand for the national anthem, played to images of the King. It's hard to know for sure, since we are constantly lost in translation, but I get the feeling that the government and royal family in Thailand censor a lot of media in order to maintain popularity. I would've assumed this was true to an extent, but I'd say it's quite a prevalent part of Thai culture. That night, Rachel met an Argentinian guy traveling alone in the stairwell (like I've said before, you meet people everywhere here...), so he tagged along the following day for sightseeing. We did the classic day in Bangkok of visiting temples, such as the Golden Mount, Wat Pho, and the Grand Palace. Of course we got slightly lost and wandered the streets for hours, popping into various air-conditioned structures along the way - one of them so happened to be a contemporary art gallery, which I can definitely appreciate any day. We finished off at Kao San Road, probably the most popular street for tourists in Bangkok. It's mainly crammed with street vendors selling souvenirs and food, thrown in with massage parlours (happy ending?) and plenty of restaurants and bars. I think there is some general thought that Kao San is filled with strip clubs and pingpong shows, but that's actually in the Red Light District, conveniently located next to our hostel. Naturally, you can imagine what we had planned for that evening...

Temple at Wat Pho

 Okay, so before I get into this story, for anyone reading thinking I'm in danger or just plain mad, it's not the case, and now that this story has happened, I can be extremely confident that it will not happen again. After having a drink at the hostel to loosen up and actually be able to sit through a pingpong show, we headed down the street. We went with the first person who came up to us offering a pingpong show with free cover and cheap drinks. We didn't really think it through because nobody tells you about that kind of scam; after all, it's basically a strip club. So we head with this guy to a place and it's fairly empty and the show isn't really too exciting. I won't go into detail on what a pingpong show is - if you don't know, look it up. We decide to head out and maybe try a different one to see if it's any better. When we stand up, we are ushered to a desk with the cashier. She writes up the bill and asks us for 4,400 baht, about 150 dollars. Obviously we did not see it coming and none of us even had that much money. We told them what the guy who had taken us there said, and she claimed that he doesn't work for them (right, I'm POSITIVE that's true...). The lady starts going off to Rachel saying that she'll pay her 100 baht to shoot a pingpong - laughable, I know. We gave them enough money to cover the cost of what our drinks should've been and said we didn't have anymore. The lady had the nerve to lift up my dress (I assume she thought I was wearing a money belt or something), and that was it. I was in assertive mode. In the meantime, five women were surrounding us and had closed the exit door. Rachel and Joanne assumed that they would rob us of all we had and beat up the Argentinian - I didn't even think that far, I just wanted to get the hell out. After the lady lifted my dress, I gave her my stern stare-down and assertive speech to lay off and bolted for the door. Once we realized they weren't going to stop us, we ran down the stairs and through the market until we were sure they weren't following us. Verdict for the pingpong show? Never again. While after relaxing and getting a grip soon after we could laugh about it, it was definitely a nerve-racking situation and I'm just BEYOND thankful that I was not in that situation alone. In short - lesson learned. And of course, there is never a situation that some late night street food can't cure.

Bangkok skyline

 The next day we didn't really have much of a plan, but had read that Chinatown was good, so went for that. I also read about bird's nest soup, and am always enthusiastic about gross new foods. If you've ever watched Planet Earth, one of the segments on caves shows Thai caverns where birds make their nests on the wall by weaving their own saliva. The nests are harvested and used to make soup. Basically, it's bird spit soup. We found it fairly quickly, and as is easily imaginable, the texture was a little strange - but it wasn't horrible. We wandered the streets and explored the market before heading back. I decided to split off and visit the Arts and Culture Centre, which was unfortunately closed, but I stuck around to take some photos anyway. Even though I'm not traveling alone right now, I got a small taste of what it might be like later on in my trip. Honestly, even after a day, I feel quite comfortable and secure in Bangkok. I don't feel targeted (though needless to say, there are lots of opportunities to feel this way), and it's very similar to moving around in any city; everyone has a purpose and destination, and if you don't give them a reason to care about your presence, you remain anonymous. As Rachel would say, 'I love a good city'.

bird's nest soup

 Lastly, I must explain my title because this is one of the staples of Thailand. Obviously locals generally don't speak a lot of English, and the only words they seem to have down are 'same same'. What does that imply? Whatever you want it to. Typically, it just a way for them to agree with you, but sometimes it actually does mean 'same'. Since these infamous words get thrown around extremely loosely, it's only natural that the 'same same' is actually different. I'm not sure if the Thai people completely understand the mocking humour involved with the saying, but they have mounds of t-shirts dedicated to it, and it's almost as commonly heard and found as Gangnam Style (that's saying a lot!).

Statue at the Golden Mount

 Tomorrow we head to Sukhothai. None of us really know anything about this place. We literally looked at a map and chose a town halfway between Bangkok and Chiang Mai. I guess we'll have to wait and see...