So Thailand composed about half the trip. I was pretty hungover on the trip to Bangkok, and it was in a van, not a sleeper bus, and I was sitting right over the wheel at the back of the van wedged up next to some spanish dude, it was a pretty miserable ride and I couldn't stop sweating. Worth it, though, when we finally got to Ko Sahn Road in Bangkok. This is the area that the main character is in at the beginning of "The Beach." It's a long street, during the day it is full of T-shirt and chatchke vendors, at night it fills up with street food vendors. Full of bars and hotels. Here are pictures, day and night.
For me, the street food was a huge attraction. I didn't eat in restaurants much at all while I was in Bangkok. One particular stall I visited several times, it had about a dozen trays, and they just scooped curry or whatever over rice onto your plate. (This is the first of the food pictures below, and the red sausage was incredible.) Another good one was the hundreds of pad thai carts all over the city, easiest thing in the world. To be honest I nearly made myself sick I was eating so frequently. There was a stall where a woman was selling fried bugs, and I walked past it several times before I got the courage to buy and eat some. I had mantises, crickets, locusts, and grubs. I pussed out when it came to the cockroaches which were huge. I didn't love the taste of the larger bugs, like the mantises, but I did like the locusts which were much smaller. And unfortunately the pictures of the bugs are on my iphone which broke. So there is no photo evidence. The green drink pictured below, I have no idea what it was but it was cold and tasted like freshly cut grass smells.
I was pretty tired my first night in BKK, so I didn't go out very hard, just had a big meal of raw shrimp which despite being spicy I didn't enjoy that much, and then beers on Ko Sahn. And to be honest, after that I went back to the hotel and watched "When Harry Met Sally" in air conditioning. Hey I was tired.
The next morning I hung out for a while at the pool on the roof of the hotel. While there I met two Americans who were aggressively pursuing Asian Holiday Vice... they had gotten in the night before from Seattle and hadn't slept yet, and I'm pretty sure they were coked up that AM. One of them told me he'd carried coke up his ass on the flight. Now smuggling drugs INTO thailand seems like taking sand to the beach, but risking jailtime to do so, but to each his own. Before I left the pool we arranged to meet up that night to go to some Ping Pong shows, because it was Valentine'sDay, after all.
I spent some time wandering the city and looking at the temples. One of them I had to buy pants to get into, no shorts allowed, but the pants I bought are sick so I don't mind. After that I went to train at BKK BJJ, the school that graciously took me in for the weak. I was a little disappointed that it was mostly ex-pats, no thais, and on that first day there were no high level belts, only one blue, and they were more impressed by my game than I was with theirs, but I was pleased that they had a wrestling practice back-to-back with the gi. And practices are much harder in the thailand weather. I went back a few days later for a morning class and there was a much better level of competition, including a pair of tough purples from Japan. I enjoyed training with these guys quite a bit, it's always amazing how easy it is to fit in at a BJJ school, theyre all the same across the world apparently and I mean that in a good way.
That night I met up with the two guys from the pool and we went to Phet Pong, pretty much the sex tourism area. First we went to a place that was pretty much just a strip club, but without lapdances. Basically there was just a stage and about ten girls on it, just kind of dancing as if they were on a regular dancefloor, but topless and in skirts and nothing under. And the girls were hot, probably average age of 17, just hotass thai girls. We had some drinks and enjoyed the sights, but this place wasn't what we came for.
The Ping Pong show was kind of... well, interesting. First off, it was the only time I was on the second floor of a building all month, the place was kind of dingy and there were like 4 or 5 girls on the stage basically doing tricks with their pussies. Shooting ping pong balls, smoking cigarettes, writing our names, launching darts to pop balloons. I watched this while one sat, topless, on my lap, rubbed my crotch and tried to convince me to go to a backroom and buy a blowjob. Her main selling point? The backroom had AC. No joke.
The next morning I booked a flight to Koh Samui for the following day. The moon, by this point, was fat in the sky each night. I spent the day walking around the city and visited more temples, but my focus was shifted. It was almost time for Koh Phangan.