Hanging around the city…
Yesterday began with a taxi ride from a man who apparently had epilepsy, (his hands kept jerking the steering wheel in each direction as we’re going 70mph through the city) to the big famous market in Bangkok which is only open on Saturdays. The name sounds like Jay-to-Jay, but I won’t attempt to spell it. It was loads of fun, and MUCH to my surprise I was not hassled once!! I was there about three hours, and not one single “Hello my friend”, or “What you need sir? I give good price.” I’m still amazed by this because I hear it at least every minute walking around where my hotel is.
I bought a few cool things, didn’t take any pictures of the place since I was distracted by all the chaos and it was mostly long winding passages under a roof. People were selling clothing (some good clothing too I might add), jewelry, bags, artwork, candles, wood carvings, chopsticks, food, drinks, shoes, kitchenware, you name it…it was probably being sold. I couldn’t believe how big that place was! I walked around forever and probably didn’t even see half of it. The good this is that it’s surrounded by streets with taxis, so it doesn’t really matter which way you end up coming out of the market…it would be impossible to find your way back I think.
It got hot pretty quickly though, and there were these carts selling some kind of food shaped like a ball, they smelled horrible! Absolutely the worst smell I’ve ever encountered…after a while I honestly thought I was going to throw up, so I taxied back to my hotel and scrubbed myself down in the shower to get the smell off! If I had to guess, I’d say they were sewer rat stomachs, or something to that effect.
I did some more walking around and visited a few temples…
They’re all extremely beautiful of course, but similar to cathedrals in that you soon get the feeling of “when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all”. Of course I’ll still walk inside and have a look around, but they do begin to lose their awe-factor after a while.
Just after sunset, I took a stroll along the streets near my hotel to take pictures at night, I really enjoyed it!
Today has been a sort of chill day. I got up super early and had breakfast with a couple backpackers I met last night, we just sat along Khaosan Road and chatted for a while. Then I went to the snake farm (circa my friend I met in Mykonos who works for Lonely Planet, Matt Gibbs…thanks Matt, going to Wat Pho massage place tomorrow!). I was the first one there at 8:30am…didn’t really know what to expect, but there were these big wire cages planted around a big open/tropical area.
I walked around and soon found my way to the king cobra cage, the biggest of them all. So the sun was shining on the wires, making it really difficult to see inside amidst the foliage to try and spot the snakes. I lean in a bit closer. Closer still…until I notice that this branch-like thing hanging down right in front of my face is actually an enormous king cobra staring my directly in the eye! I jumped back probably about 5 feet behind me, haha.
Anyway, we all watched the “snake show” which was pretty cool, they brought out all the different kinds and talked about them. I really had to strain to understand the lady who was speaking…it is SO difficult for me to understand Thai people when they speak English (not that it’d be any better if they spoke Thai), and they have the same problem when I try to communicate with them. Seriously, I was at the front desk for what seemed like forever, just trying to communicate the words “What. Is. Name. Of. Big. Market. Today?” (Complete with hand gestures and pantomiming I might add!)
No luck? Ok how about “What. Is. It. Called. Big. Market. Today?”
Blank stare.
No offense to Thai people at all of course, I’ve met some really nice ones here, it’s strictly a linguistics issue. Anyway, so yeah, great snake show. I caught the main points like, “This snake venom. This snake no venom.” Then I got to hold one afterwards.
Pretty nifty indeed. Well tomorrow I’m visiting the “Home of the Reclining Buddha”, featuring the famous golden statue of him…then trying my luck at another massage before I’m off to Chiang Mai up north! It’s a 12-hour bus ride to get there (6pm-6am); fortunately I’m a pro at those long trips and they don’t bother me that much. I’m looking forward to getting out of Bangkok for some cleaner air, steep green hills, cooler weather, and well I’ll soon find out what else.
Much love!