Beautiful Singapore, probably the cleanest place I have ever been. After just being in Bangkok, this place was quite cleaner than just having a quick wash. The place had a thorough scrub, wax and polish. The problem was that for as clean and as nice of a place this was, they washed away anything interesting from the city. This meant that my extended five days was literally spent killing time.
Since the national pastime in Singapore is shopping, there are shopping centers everywhere. People parade from one mall to the next because that is how you get around in the city, by either train, cab, or walking through the malls. I'm not much of a shopper myself and I don't have much money to spend so I was a little bored there. Unfortunately, boring places make for boring blogs.
The only two interesting places were Little India and China Town. Little India was a small area packed with Indian restaurants and shops. Not really my thing, but at least there was some culture and identity here. China Town was the highlight of the city. It has a large outdoor market that was bustling with shops and stalls selling everything from fruit to jewelry to smoked animals hanging from the walls of the stalls. I spent a bit of time here killing time and again eating my fill of Asian food.
The most interesting place in Singapore has to be the botanical gardens. Now I'm not a horticulturalist, but this place was cool. They had so many exotic looking plants all over the place. It felt like I was walking through an ancient (incredibly clean) forest. The highlight was the orchid garden. Now I personally am not a huge fan of orchids for a very good reason. Growing up, my neighbor had a swimming pool which we got to paint every few years. The first pool scape was an incredible underwater sandcastle scene complete with castle, fish and naked mermaid. Unfortunately this masterpiece of art was painted over due to my my neighbors decision to paint a Georgia Okeeffe in this concrete hole. The next few years I would spend my summers swimming in this giant concrete vagina, damn orchid painting. So I might not have had the greatest expectations going into the orchid gardens but I was soon surprised how cool these flowers were, and yes, they do look like a vagina. There were over two thousand varieties in the garden, which included the famous persons flowers. When they develop a new variety of orchid they name it after a famous person, Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth, and there was even a Ricky Martin. I decided that if Ricky Martin could get an orchid named after him that I would aspire to have one of these flowers that I used to hate so much named after me some day. The gardens were great and a good ending to quite a boring leg of my trip. I wasn't too upset to be moving on.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
One Night in Bangkok...
So all I have to say is fuck you to all of the people that were betting on how old the hooker I got with in Bangkok was. So the over under was fifteen years old. Didn't anyone bet on if she turned out to be a man or not? Well I'm sorry to disappoint everyone but I did not have any sexual relations while in Thailand. Hell, I even felt weird looking at girls there, trying to figure out if they were really born that gender. I will admit that there are tons of girls soliciting everywhere and I didn't have one tuk tuk ride where the driver wanted to take me for a quick massage. Happy ending?
Bangkok was nice though. My time there was cut shorter then planned due to an appointment in Singapore that I had to make. Let me say though, four days was more than enough. It allowed me to see everything that I wanted to, buy some counterfeit items and even get a massage... no happy ending.
My first day there I decided to go for a walk exploring the local part of town. Apparently not many people do this because I got plenty of looks from people obviously thinking 'what is this guy doing here?' It might not have been such a good idea as an introduction to Bangkok though. I found the neighborhoods to be overcrowded with stray animals wandering everywhere. Strange smells emanated from small shops selling food. Horrid rotting smells, like the trash behind a Chinese restaurant or NYC on trash day, chocked me leaving me gasping for air and questioning why I came to this place. After experience the local, exceptionally dirty and smelly part of town I decided that I would stick to the tourist spots.
The rest of the days were spend enjoying all of the tourist attractions that Bangkok has to offer. I visited more temples than I imagined could even exist in a city, and I still didn't see them all. They were wonderful buildings though, architecturally each one was amazing, and each had its own Buddha to pray to. The problem was that after a while they all started to seem the same with the only variation being the position the Buddha was in. The Grand Palace itself had numerous temples within it all sitting in front of the palace itself. My favorite temple though had to be Wat Pho, home of the reclining Buddha. As amazing as this gigantic reclining man was, it was the other services that were great there. If you head to the back of the temple you can get a massage. Apparently not many people know this because I was the only white boy in a room full of a hundred or so locals getting a massage. It was quite nice to lie there for an hour getting a massage, too bad the temple was pretty far from where I was staying or I'd be there every day.
Beyond the temples the most interesting thing in Bangkok is just how vibrant and alive the city is. Walk around during the day and you are surrounded by numerous people and shops all offering something. I have to admit that the food there was incredible and really cheap. I even gained the courage to try some of the mystery meat from the street vendors. It was actually really good. I'm not sure what animal it came from, but was in unidentifiable ball form and fried on a stick. Can't be any worse that our offerings of meat on a stick in the states though. In addition to the food it was the Fucci, Folex, and Fuis Vuiton that was for sale throughout the town. No where compared to Silom St. This is the Mecca of counterfeit items with three rows of stalls filling the street. Walking though Silom at night was amazing. It was packed with people browsing the goods in the street and bars, clubs and massage parlors in the buildings lining the streets. Each store had a girl outside showing the different positions you could get a 'massage' in. I didn't even look at the sheet though as I found myself staring at their necks trying to sight any bulges of the Adam's apple. It was fun walking around there though. I just looked at the other guys walking around there and could only thing 'pervert.' I then wondered what they thought about me but decided I'd rather not find out 'pervert.'
So I'm sorry to disappoint everyone that I didn't have the 'full' Bangkok experience but I did enjoy it and am glad that I went to see what the city is all about.
Bangkok was nice though. My time there was cut shorter then planned due to an appointment in Singapore that I had to make. Let me say though, four days was more than enough. It allowed me to see everything that I wanted to, buy some counterfeit items and even get a massage... no happy ending.
My first day there I decided to go for a walk exploring the local part of town. Apparently not many people do this because I got plenty of looks from people obviously thinking 'what is this guy doing here?' It might not have been such a good idea as an introduction to Bangkok though. I found the neighborhoods to be overcrowded with stray animals wandering everywhere. Strange smells emanated from small shops selling food. Horrid rotting smells, like the trash behind a Chinese restaurant or NYC on trash day, chocked me leaving me gasping for air and questioning why I came to this place. After experience the local, exceptionally dirty and smelly part of town I decided that I would stick to the tourist spots.
The rest of the days were spend enjoying all of the tourist attractions that Bangkok has to offer. I visited more temples than I imagined could even exist in a city, and I still didn't see them all. They were wonderful buildings though, architecturally each one was amazing, and each had its own Buddha to pray to. The problem was that after a while they all started to seem the same with the only variation being the position the Buddha was in. The Grand Palace itself had numerous temples within it all sitting in front of the palace itself. My favorite temple though had to be Wat Pho, home of the reclining Buddha. As amazing as this gigantic reclining man was, it was the other services that were great there. If you head to the back of the temple you can get a massage. Apparently not many people know this because I was the only white boy in a room full of a hundred or so locals getting a massage. It was quite nice to lie there for an hour getting a massage, too bad the temple was pretty far from where I was staying or I'd be there every day.
Beyond the temples the most interesting thing in Bangkok is just how vibrant and alive the city is. Walk around during the day and you are surrounded by numerous people and shops all offering something. I have to admit that the food there was incredible and really cheap. I even gained the courage to try some of the mystery meat from the street vendors. It was actually really good. I'm not sure what animal it came from, but was in unidentifiable ball form and fried on a stick. Can't be any worse that our offerings of meat on a stick in the states though. In addition to the food it was the Fucci, Folex, and Fuis Vuiton that was for sale throughout the town. No where compared to Silom St. This is the Mecca of counterfeit items with three rows of stalls filling the street. Walking though Silom at night was amazing. It was packed with people browsing the goods in the street and bars, clubs and massage parlors in the buildings lining the streets. Each store had a girl outside showing the different positions you could get a 'massage' in. I didn't even look at the sheet though as I found myself staring at their necks trying to sight any bulges of the Adam's apple. It was fun walking around there though. I just looked at the other guys walking around there and could only thing 'pervert.' I then wondered what they thought about me but decided I'd rather not find out 'pervert.'
So I'm sorry to disappoint everyone that I didn't have the 'full' Bangkok experience but I did enjoy it and am glad that I went to see what the city is all about.
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