Five days in Bangkok and I finally motivated myself enough to get out and do a little exploring. The day before I had dropped by the American embassy to get a refill on my passport pages and then dropped my passport off at the Vietnam embassy to get my visa taken care of. I figured I'd walk towards the Vietnam embassy and then stop by the 'Siam Center' (a giant shopping center I saw the day before from the taxi) on the way back. I made the mistake of waiting until mid-day to get started, and then rather than consult any map at the onset I figured I could retrace the route the taxi had taken the previous night when it dropped me back from the embassy. As a result I got fairly lost and spent 2 1/2hrs walking around in 100 degree heat, but I did get to see a bit of the city. I did finally make it to the embassy, just in time to pickup my passport before it closed at 4pm, and then caught the skytrain over to the 'Siam Center'...
The 'Siam Center' was an amazing conglomeration of several giant malls all in one place and all linked by large sky-bridges that let you go from one to the next to the next without ever having to go back down to the ground. I spent about 4-5hrs just wandering and wondering around at this place. As a result of my time there I'm going to have to revise one of my previous observations...the young white guys with thai girls are severely overshadowed by the old and entirely unattractive white guys, most of whom seem to be American, with beautiful Thai women on their arms. While at the Siam Center I did manage to stumble into some runway modeling going on for the 'Mango' store, pick out a few Bently's for sale on the top floor, see the tiny new Sony palm-top computer, have some iced-coffee from Starbucks, grab dinner at the 'Lee Cafe', see some crazy cartoon characters decorating the walls of one mall, and cross about 10 different sky bridges without setting foot on the ground. A tiring day...I still hate shopping I realized.
I also had my first close up encounter with a ladyboy who sat down next to me in an internet cafe, reaking of too much cheap makeup, stale cigarettes, and fruit juice, who later tried to grab my arm outside the cafe as I was leaving...I was nice in my rebuff this time, but I won't rule out a freak out if that continue's to happen.
Another observation: compared to those in India, the auto-rickshaws here are like trading in a push-mower for a suped-up limo-length riding mower built by 'tim the toolman', not only can I lay back and stretch out as we fly down the road at 80km/hr...I watched the guy next to us wheely his!
Photos: Bangkok
The 'Siam Center' was an amazing conglomeration of several giant malls all in one place and all linked by large sky-bridges that let you go from one to the next to the next without ever having to go back down to the ground. I spent about 4-5hrs just wandering and wondering around at this place. As a result of my time there I'm going to have to revise one of my previous observations...the young white guys with thai girls are severely overshadowed by the old and entirely unattractive white guys, most of whom seem to be American, with beautiful Thai women on their arms. While at the Siam Center I did manage to stumble into some runway modeling going on for the 'Mango' store, pick out a few Bently's for sale on the top floor, see the tiny new Sony palm-top computer, have some iced-coffee from Starbucks, grab dinner at the 'Lee Cafe', see some crazy cartoon characters decorating the walls of one mall, and cross about 10 different sky bridges without setting foot on the ground. A tiring day...I still hate shopping I realized.
I also had my first close up encounter with a ladyboy who sat down next to me in an internet cafe, reaking of too much cheap makeup, stale cigarettes, and fruit juice, who later tried to grab my arm outside the cafe as I was leaving...I was nice in my rebuff this time, but I won't rule out a freak out if that continue's to happen.
Another observation: compared to those in India, the auto-rickshaws here are like trading in a push-mower for a suped-up limo-length riding mower built by 'tim the toolman', not only can I lay back and stretch out as we fly down the road at 80km/hr...I watched the guy next to us wheely his!
Photos: Bangkok
1 comment:
that sounds like fun! i remember when i was in bangkok i had an iced mocha. i don't know if it was at the same place, it was 9 years ago now! yikes!
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