My Last Day

So this is it, my last day in Thailand. The hotel has given me until 4pm to check out, so I'm doing a final load of laundry and packing up all my things. My flight to Tokyo leaves tonight at 10.30pm, and then I'll have a 13 hour layover in the airport. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to actually leave the airport and check out Narita...because sitting for 13 hours at my gate sounds like less than fabulous.

Bangkok has been pretty cool. I've really done little more than shop (there are lots of temples here, but I was pretty templed-out after Angkor in Cambodia), and that's just fine because there are SO many malls and markets and craziness. There's an aquarium in the basement of one of the shopping centers, and I went there this morning. It was really nice and I took some pretty cool pictures I think. They had this 4-D movie that you could watch, and it was pretty cool because not only were you watching the film in 3-D, but there were points when water or air would be blown on you, or little things would tickle your ankles or your seat would vibrate--some people even screamed when it first happened because it was totally unexpected. But yeah, that was pretty nifty.

On Monday, I went to one of the shopping centers and explored even more. Centralworld is the largest mall in South East Asia, so it takes some time to get through it all. I went to a specialty tailor shop and considered having a dress or shirt tailor made for me...but the guy was a little too eager and made me slightly uncomfortable. I have his card, and he told me to give him a call the next time I came to Thailand (haha). I went to one of the department stores that is pretty prolific here, called ZEN and searched for a particular tie for my uncle. Eventually, I found one suitable. I then went to the movies (and paid like $4!) and saw The Orphan. CREEPY. That night I went to one of the more famous night markets, Patpong. It was quite the interesting experience...there are stalls and stalls of people hawking their wares (and for really exorbitant prices--you have to bargain hard to get something close to a legitimate price for a t-shirt and other sundry items) and on either side of the lanes of stalls are "go-go bars," or what I would call strip clubs. There are little men (most of the time, sometimes it's women) standing outside the bars/clubs with "menus" asking the men (mostly, sometimes they stop the women walking by too) to come inside and experience what they have to offer. It's really wild because the people selling their items are totally indifferent to what's going on around them; some of them are even there with their kids hanging out, eating dinner, and trying to attract the tourists. And yet, step 3 feet to the side and you enter a sleazy, dirty world. It was kind of a strange experience, and definitely made me a tad uncomfortable. Some of the names of the bars were hilarious, so much so that I considered taking photos, but they were also rather explicit, so I decided against that option.

I really have loved my time in Thailand, but this use and abuse of women really troubles me. There's this truly bizarre set-up in which the government is ostensibly trying to cut down on the sex industry in the country (pornographic websites are illegal and even the films and TV are edited to a greater degree than anything in the US--for foul language and sexual content), and yet there are these clubs where you can pick your woman for the night and "massage parlours" where you can choose your "masseuse." And if you get over-charged in one of these encounters, the tourist police are there to help you! So the government knows that this garbage is still going down, and pretends (?) to want to stop it, but isn't, really. I have seen so many poorly matched couples walking down the streets, in the malls. 60 year old unattractive white men with beautiful 30 year old Thai women. It makes me so sad. Fortunately, I have not seen teen aged girls walking around with these disgusting older men, but 30 years is still quite an age gap! It's truly a strange feeling, loving a place for its beauty and its kind people, and yet feeling so distressed by much of the status quo, but feeling like there's nothing I can do in my time here. What good would it do for me to approach those stinky old men and give them a piece of my mind? None, unfortunately. In fact...it would probably be a really bad idea on my part. So yeah, there's these two faces of Thailand, and one of them is so beautiful and lovable, and the other one breaks my heart. And you can see them both so clearly in Bangkok.

All right, now that I've completed my little tirade, I'll continue in the break down of what I've been up to. On Tuesday I went to one of the other shopping complexes, Siam Paragon. I ate lunch and then discovered that there were lots of little stalls selling gifts and such, many of which had competitive prices (I felt like I'd been ripped off at Patpong, even after bargaining down to half the asking prices!). There was also a CANAL in the mall. Yes, a river, complete with live fish and bridges from one side to the other and live plants. It was pretty incredible. Only in Thailand, I swear. I went and saw ANOTHER movie to kill a couple of hours before I was going to head to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar and Joe Louis's Puppet Theater, but unfortunately, the movie was longer than I anticipated and I missed the Puppet Theater! :( I was really tragecized by that disappointment. BUT, it just means that I have to come back, and since that is seriously on my agenda, we're good to go.

I didn't miss the night bazaar, however. I arrived just at the right point in time, as all the vendors had finished setting up and such. It's interesting to me that Patpong is so recommended as compared to Suan Lum. Suan Lum was SOOO much nicer. It was much bigger, with way more variety. It was also much hotter, as it's not entirely open air. Some of the vendors have fans blowing around their stalls, but it's still so hot that it's difficult to breathe, and the walkways are quite narrow. I only wandered around a bit because I had already spent so much money in Thailand and didn't really want to tempt myself with more silk or purses or handcrafted items. Because I knew I would buy them.

As I was leaving, I saw that there was this weird thing called "fish massage." There were people sitting inside this room that had a huge pool in the middle filled with fish, and they had their legs inside the pool and the fish were...well...attached to them. Apparently, this is something that is really good for the skin, as the fish nibble away dead skin cells, and it makes them happy because they get all kinds of nutrients. I stopped and watched for a bit, then headed toward the MRT, but stopped. Where and when else would I be able to get a "fish massage?" I walked back to the fish massage place and took a seat with my legs dangling inside the pool. Within seconds, my legs and feet were covered in little fish, sucking on me. It was such a weird feeling, very ticklish. I'd have to shake my feet every 20 seconds or so, because the sensation would become too much for me to handle. It was quite hilarious, as there was a couple from Spain sitting next to me and the wife was having a hard time with the fish all over her as well. The husband was totally into it, but she and I were commiserating about the strange sensation. They'd just come back from Krabi and enjoyed their time immensely (another stop to add to my itinerary for the next trip, hehe). It was nice chatting with people in English (because my Spanish would have been disastrous), and they were very friendly.

After my fish massage, I went back to the hotel. It was about 10pm, and I walked home from the skytrain station. Again, Bangkok is so interesting--it's sketchy (truly, there's no way to deny it), and yet somehow, safe. I'm really a fan, in case I have yet to mention that...

Today, as I said, I went to the aquarium in the basement of Siam Paragon. Quite enjoyable. I ate lunch at an "authentic Mexican grill" (I couldn't resist), which was quite an experience. The food wasn't too bad, but it certainly was NOT authentic! After lunch, I walked back to the hotel, and here I am, preparing to get the last touches together to head downstairs and check out, then off to the airport (at which I'll spend the majority of the evening...thank goodness they have restaurants and shopping and more!). I'll try to write while I'm in Tokyo, but if not...my next entry in this blog will be from the US of A!