THAILAND is a place that many of my friends have been to and rave about. Now that we are over on this side of the world, and Thailand is 2 hours away by plane, last week I was fortunate enough to head to over to go see what the fuss was all about. I left while Gio stayed home and worked. Feeling guilty? Well... maybe a little.... until I hit the beach and had a massage!! Guilt passed and the enjoyment began!!I stayed the majority of my stay in a beach town called PATTAYA. Before heading out I researched the place just a little and while most of the guide books and websites said not to bother with this town as it was the "Vegas of Thailand" and not truly representative of this amazing country, I have a friend who lives there and the opportunity to enjoy the place like a local.
Granted Pattaya is a bit of a den of debauchery, from what I hear that exists all over Asia so I settled in to explore the crazy streets and nightlife. And crazy wild town it is!! I had a great time walking the streets in the early mornings, hanging on the beaches, enjoying the amazing Thai street soups, booting around on the back of the scooter, getting massages and drinking and dancing at all the little beer bars and nightclubs the town had to offer.
The bar scene is quite interesting. Basically the Beer Bars have ladies that work there who get a portion of each drink they sell and if you wish to hang out with them you can pay a bar fine and they will leave with you to hang out for the evening. If you are wanting more friendly interactions, that has to be negotiated with the lady herself. The Go Go bars are what you would expect, scantily to non-clad ladies dancing onstage or performing various tricks, these ladies could also be hired for the evening. These bars ranged from very low end to quite nice and elaborate, with the girls in amazing costumes and awesome shows, sometimes full on, large scale Drag Queen productions. Then of course there are the freelancers who do not work in the bars and are their own entrepreneurs! Almost everywhere were the infamous ladyboys decked out in the tiniest outfits I have ever seen and looking amazing! Once I got over the "scene" I am not sure which was more fun, watching the girls being wild and crazy or the men who thought they were "all that" enjoying the environment. We would often start our nights out at the beer bar nearest the apartment with our lovely bar lady friends who would come have drinks and chat about their adventures the night before. My friend said many times he had bar fined one of the girls he became friends with so that she could show him around town and get to go to things that usually local thai only go to. One of my favorite things was listening to the house bands doing cover tunes with the thai accents, sometimes it was so difficult to even identify which song they were singing you had to just go with the melody of the music and not the words.
Now, in my usual way of chatting with random strangers, on the plane over I was fortunate to met a guy who worked for a company that designs and constructs exhibits in zoos, and trains trainers, and completes animal transfers and designs the animal programs. He was a really nice guy and we hit it off right away. As it turned out he was working for a year at the open zoo just a half hour from Pattaya and invited me to come out and he would show me around. I was crazy with excitement. So saturday we rented a nice big motorcycle for the road trip and headed to the zoo. The Khao Kheow Open Zoo is in Chonburi and is internationally recognized for its animal management and operations. There are over 300 species at the zoo living in huge open air compounds appropriate to their species and living requirements. It is known as a wildlife bank as there are a number of endangered species there and the zoo is known for its success in breeding some of these animals. We watched the animal show which is basically an elaborate feeding session where the animals have been trained with whistle commands to enter the vegetated arena to collect food. Not terribly original however for this show there are no trainers onstage, there is no dialogue with the audience, and to collect their food the animals need to complete tasks that mimic their natural behaviors. Example: the lion enters stage left and sees his food stash he goes to get it but it is tied to side and mostly encased in a container(that resembles a carcass) so he needs to drag the "carcass"then work at getting it open, the tiger needs to climb up the "tree" and swim to catch the fish (fish pieces dropped into the shallow pool). One at a time the animals come in collect their food and cross the stage based on where the trainer whistles are coming from. Pretty cool. I also go to feed a baby elephant, a giraffe, a pigmy hippo, deer, and a camel, ride an adult elephant and snuggle with a young orangutan. At the end of the day I was filthy in dust and elephant slobber and could not stop grinning. If you have the opportunity do not hesitate and get yourself out to this zoo.
And the food!!! The food was amazing! Mostly we ate at the street side food stalls found everywhere that made the most amazing bowls of soup with chicken, spices, fresh thai basil and other greens. Man I wish I could find that in Singapore but alas, no. I have never had such good thai food in my life, which makes sense really.
So while Pattaya may not be in every travel book as the place to see it was alot of fun and I really enjoyed the sense of ease of the town and its convenient proximity to the beach. Besides by hanging with a local i think I was fortunate enough to have a glimpse into the heart of this town that I think the regular traveller does not get to see.
Monday we decided to go to BANGKOK for the night as I was leaving Tuesday from the Bangkok airport. Bangkok is a huge bustling city, awesome and BUSY! After the days on the beach this was a bit overwhelming. We got there early Monday and hit the streets directly after checking into our hotel. We took the skytrain to the docks and went for a long boat tour of the waterways where we bought overpriced beers and nick-nacks from the floating vendors. Afterward, while heading back to the train, we met a guy who worked for the train system who befriended us, took our map, circled a few places, found a tuk tuk driver and negotiated a 3 hour tour of the city including 2 stops at temples of note all for 50 dollars. The tuk tuk was really uncomfortable and we had to scruntch right down to even see anything outside of it but it was a great tour. Of course I have no photos as my camera battery died after my day at the zoo. Bangkok at night looks totally different than Bangkok by day. Daytime, it is business like with shops and stalls selling everything lining the streets, by night all the shops switch to sidewalk bars. We started the night of course checking the Red Light district but after Pattaya it was not as shocking as it could have been. Then off for dinner, and we found a great little tapas place in, what we realized after finishing dinner and enjoying the remaining sangria, was in the gay district. Awesome. then we went to find the bars and nightclubs. We hopped around a few of the little bars before finding a great hip hop bar for me to dance a while. Closed the places down and it was time for bed as we had an early check out and i had to catch a flight in a few hours. Before leaving though, on Tuesday morning I had to have one more Thai foot massage and a delicious bowl of street soup to make the trip complete.
Well one week and loads of adventures and awesome food I think I get it. I am hooked and I can't wait to take G there now that I have done a little recon. If you want to see some pics from the trip before the camera died check them out HERE!!!
