From holly to kinky

Second day and Bangkok was our town!

On our first day we had a hint of the city and its culture. A hint of the crowds, the tuk-tuks, an amazingly air conditioned metro system, markets, street food, smells and even the odd cockroach. I guess staying near to Chinatown helped with a lot of these.

For the second day we had reserved our must-sees. First thing in the morning, we took a boat ride to Pier 9, the closest one to the entrance of the Grand Palace. This is a Bangkok must see, and to miss it, is almost like going to Rome and failing to see the Coliseum! The problem with this, is that we know this and, of course, everyone eles does as well. So, right from the entrance, we were engulfed in this sea of (mostly Asian) tourists! Most of them separated into large groups with a tour leader waiving an umbrella or a flag and miraculously keeping everyone together. Amazing as well was how smooth the whole entrance process was, especially considering that they take quite seriosly the enforcement of the required dress code. Everyone that did not abide, had to leave a deposit and take additional pieces of clothing that were available on site - I had to take (an oh so sexy!) pink shirt and Andre a pair of trousers.

From dressing line, to payment line, to ticket line, to bag checking line we quickly entered the huge premises. And it was impressive that even inside the number of people was so vast that even inside, the crowds would not disperse. So when we entered the Temple of the Emerald Buddah, was with the company of a lot of other people. But this is a place to pay respect to, so for someone to enter the Temple (even the corridors outside) had to do it barefoot. And everyone did! We put our shoes/sandals together in the pile and go inside. The colours on the tiles outside are intense and wonderfully put together along with large shades of golden. But it was only inside that my mouth literally opened in awe. Maybe it was the intense shine of the golden "pyramid" that caused it, maybe it was seeing that many people were actually praying/showing their devotion to Buddah, maybe it was both. There was even an area that seemed to be reserved for the Monks and they were all together occupying a section of the temple.

All the other buildings enclosed in what is considered the Grand Palace are amazingly colourfull and beautiful and I particularly enjoyed all the masked statues (big and small), but the image of that temple (then replicated in a few other temples around) was what touched me the most. That no matter the confusion or heat (the temperature continued scolding hot), that people wanted to be respectful to their faith.

Coming out of the temple, the rest of the day was split between taking care of some logistics (e.g. arranging our transportation to the next day) and walking around in Siam area and hopping from air conditioned shopping mall to air conditioned bigger shopping mall. In fact, Bangkok does not fall behind of Dubai in terms of quantity (maybe not quality/craziness) of shopping centres (see "Rodizio of Shopping Centres" post).

But at night... for our night we had reserved some time to our other must see. Something, that despite a bit sordid, is also unique in Bangkok (as far as I know). Patpong neighborhood is known to be one of the largest red-light districts in the city. And this means from displays of women on the street seating in chairs waiting to be picked, to ladyboys, to old white men holding hands with young local women/men, to restaurants with more than one menu! Yes, we realised at some point in our meal, that the restaurant we picked had more than one menu: one that we saw, and the other for... special services served upstairs. It is also the place for ping-pong shows. And it was for the latter that we had come here for. For the ones that have never heard of such a thing, try imagining a ping-pong game, where the player that serves is always a woman and never uses a racket! And no, it is played with her hands! Use the most dirty part of your mind! Yes, I guess you got it by now!

So, after escaping some places that looked scham-driven, we find one that promises no extra fees (and delivered!) so we payed 300 Thai Bahts each (a drink included) and we go up the stairs to another dimension. Yes, another dimension because the whole thing was surreal. There was barely anyone in the room when we first came in (and soon enough we were actually the only two in there!) and the show was being "performed" by two women in a see-through night gown that barely covered their belly buttons. And if ping pong sounds weird and/or bad, blowing out candles, smoking, popping out ballons and writing "Hello" using the same part of the body, was of a whole other level of degradation. I confess, after 3 minutes I was sipping my drink away so I could get out of there was quickly as possible. But we stayed because we wanted to see the ping pong show itself (which is, in my opinion, the best one!). When we got out there was a mixed feeling of accomplishment and shame. Shame that we were accomplices to the perpetuation of these kind of shows.

At the end of the day, and looking back to all of these hours, it is almost like we had expected two extremes of this city - one the respect to the holiness of Buddah and the other, the capitalisation of human desires with apparently little limits. They are two sides of Bangkok that are a bit of a mirror of the different sides of Men and the complexity of human behavior. And all of this made like Bangkok a bit more, even with all the cockroaches!

One of my favourite parts of the Grand Palace. The statues that seem to be supporting the weight of the World. Their masks are supposed to be scaring, but they just look sad!