Pirate Press - Running all around edition

Another day, a full day to be exact in Bangkok.

Started my day charging out of my hotel (which charged 500 baht per night / 21 SGD. I moved onto another guest house, a single room with fan and attached shower (no hot water, no TV but darn clean ceramic floor) for only 290 BHT/ 13 SGD (Call me ngeow... but this is what backpacking alone on a shoe-string budget is about. $$$ leh!)

Actually should have gone through the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Khao but due to my dressing yesterday, I put off the trip till today. Completed Wat Pho yesterday and today's trip took up almost the whole morning. After which I hopped back to Chinatown for a second round of snapshots. Till this evening, I was a little worried if I were to finish my remaining space on my card (I am using digital by the way... thus I have a fair share of my shooting these past few days.

Afternoon came and I rushed back to my accomodation, to change and thereafter meet up with a local friend, courtesy of my friend back home who got him to show me around.

We went down to MBK (I cant remember the full name of the shopping place but I shall get back to you all) and the first thing that greeting us was 'SALE!'

We have a fair share of
- up to 80% off
- 50% off storewide
and many other displays that could trigger a dormant sales shopping fan to go haywire. Basically the whole complex seemed to be on sale literally. My friend and I were staring down at a crowd, engulfing a 'Espirit' sale that was going on. I could not keep myself from bursting out laughing. It seemed like they were being derived from hunger of sorts for sometime, it seemed *chuckles*

After a quick dinner, we hopped down (at my request) to see the famous or rather, sleazy Patpong area.
In case for the uninformed reading my blog, it is the 'RED' light area (basically, there are a LOT of RED light areas in BKK, Patpong happened to be packed with ah-go-go women and guys doing some pole-hugging gestures)

I was thankful that my local friend is around, else I would not have ventured through the gay scene (Sight-Seeing ok!?!) Of course, I also did glanced at the char-bo ah-go-go bars, but basically I was only curious (Guy mah... definitely would be curious to see what the real scene looks like.)

Patpong area:
- have a street (yea... basically running from end to end) catered to the Japanese cliente *reasons being obvious*
- for the people with alternate preferences, there is a street over here as well.
- for the angmo, they would not be too much to miss.
- Chinese customers? The so-called 'cha2 shi4 - tea house' are the fronts for such sleazy business.

I ordered lunch while at Chinatown and very innocusly, I saw a sign, (air con tea house) and very 'bodoh' me went up without a clue to what happen.

Until I reached the top floor *It was strange that I could not find the chairs and tables at the 2nd floor, so I went up higher* that I indicated one person to a granny (I.E just before I reached the top flight of the steps)

To my horror (yea, I was REALLY freaked out) when I saw a number of gals sitting plainly in sight. Wahhha... as though lightning struck me, I REALISED I walked into a you-know-where. I turned round and fled. *still very embarrased now... how the heck and why I didnt realise what was happening in the first place!?*

I even offered to help an old grandfather *complete with a walking stick* climbing up the flights of steps *pengz* Thereafter then I realised (over lunch) that he is a customer!

To sum it up, it is a bit sad that the gals have to resort to such a way of making a living. Well, technically if we are on a moral platform, this topic will never be concluded. On the other way, why get into such technicalities in the first place? There are a lot of issues we as humans have to agreed that we will disagree. So case closed.

Anyway, BKK is indeed a place to be if you are searching for things to put up back home. That is to say, if you are into handicrafts and paintings etc etc... there are a lot of cheap bargains (here I goes birdy again... *cheap cheap, cheap cheap*)

A wrapped up:
For a single and well to do traveller, you can have plenty of choices around. If you choose to come for the culture or other reasons, there are a lot to be done over here in Thailand. She have the beaches and countryside views, plus good guide books to plough you through your trip here.

So much for this trip to Thailand and it shall not be the last. I am running out of time here at the cybercafe*the machine uses a countdown timer and I have prop coins in to keep the meter running*

Stay tune for more. I shall be up and away next week to HK-Macau. Till the next entry. Tata
HJ