Thailand: I Gave Them Everything!

Nov 22nd-Nov 27th

I caught a local shuttle bus to Kunming's airport. The prospect of taking a two-hour flight rather than a marathon train ride was pretty exciting.

My original plan had been to exit China by land and continue on to South East Asia, but seeing as though my friends Bryan and Richard were arriving in Bangkok and spending 3 weeks in Thailand, I couldn't resist meeting up with them.

As soon as I arrived at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, the culture shock was immediate: I was so used to seeing slender, homogeneous, cookie-cutter Chinese, that when I saw the rainbow of nationalities and hundreds of white people, it was quite foreign to me.

I caught the airport express and then the skytrain to the Silom district of Bangkok where Josh, Bryan and Richard were staying. The train ride revealed just how attractive Thai people were: thin, dark-skinned and always smiling. A definite contrast to China's pale, flat-faced, featureless population.

As I was turning the corner towards our hostel, WE Bangkok (www.we-bangkok.com), I saw Bryan and Rich walking towards me!

We bear hugged and they told me about their ridiculously drawn-out flight, wrought with delays, added stop-overs and an unforeseen night in Tokyo. They had actually arrived a day later than expected.

I've known Bryan almost my whole life: we were neighbours growing up in Pierrefonds. He's one of my best friends, former band-mate and my photography mentor.

I worked with Bryan and then later with Richard at Royal Montreal Golf Course for several years and that's how I know Rich. They were headed to Glow, their swanky, nearby hotel and we would meet up later that evening.

I approached the hostel and saw Josh sitting in front of the hostel chatting with Alexa, an American girl from California who was fortunately born in Canada.

Josh, Alexa and I went to Bryan and Rich's hotel for some pre-drinking before heading out to the infamous Khao San road.

Although most of Bangkok is touristy (white people everywhere), Khao San road is even more so, but in a good way. This small street is lined with a ton of both proper and makeshift bars selling cheap beer, buckets of Thai whiskey and shisha.

Add shops selling hilarious or stupid t-shirts and singlets; food stalls and touts for sexy lady massages (aka prostitutes) or regular massages-- and you only have a taste of what Khao San has to offer. The blasting music of competing bars was music to my ears.

After walking around for a while, we settled on a place just in front of the McDonalds because we had bargained a good price on buckets and shisha.

Within a few hours we were all basking in the spirit of Khao San (aka drunk). Even though Sang Som (Thai whiskey) is really sweet and pretty disgusting, it still does the trick. By the end of the night we had all purchased novelty bracelets such as 'I am lady boy' (mine), 'Up bum no baby' (Josh), 'I love dick salad' (Rich) and 'Love you long time' (Alexa). We also somehow playfully angered a little girl selling flowers who then started a hilarious feud with Josh.

To cap the evening, Josh even ate a scorpion!



I also took quite a shining to our waiter, Kumar, an 18-year old from Burma, who was a shisha wizard and a really good kid (I made sure to tell him numerous times during our stay in Bangkok).

The following day Bryan, Rich and I went to Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace. We took a delightful ride on the Chao Phraya Express: a public boat taxi taking you to all the sites along Bangkok's main waterway, Mae Nam Chao Phraya.

It took us a while to actually find the entrance to the beautiful complex, but when we did it was well worth it.

The temple of the emerald Buddha or Wat Phra Kaew, while being Bangkok's most popular tourist destination is also the holiest site in Thai Buddhism due to the presence of the aforementioned emerald Buddha contained inside.

Construction started in 1782 during the reign of Rama I. After having seen so many temples in China, I didn't have any expectations, but I was pleasantly blown away.

The temple is one of the most colourful, ornate, and intricate buildings I have ever seen.

The detailed mosaics, interesting yakshas, nagas, human-bird hybrids and shimmering stupas are sights to behold.

Despite being forced to wear pants for modesty reasons in the sweltering heat and humidity, we still spent several hours exploring and taking pictures of this beautiful building.

From there we visited the Grand Palace, the former residence of the Thai monarchy. An opulent building conceptualized by British architects in 1882, now houses an antique gun collection and is flanked by bodhi trees and elephant statues.

After visiting this royal and holy splendor, we returned to WE and had our first 7-eleven beers of the day.

That evening we wanted to check out a professional Muay Thai (Thai boxing) match after a tremendous fried chicken feast at Kai Thort Jay Kee.

Unfortunately the tickets were quite expensive so we just opted to go to Khao San road again to visit Kumar and company.

The night culminated with Josh and Rich arguing on my behalf with a bouncer I had apparently given all my money to and who had kicked me in the stomach, or at least that's what I said.

The more likely story is that I in fact did not give him any money whatsoever and walked into a chair incurring my stomach tenderness.

I kept saying "I gave him everything", when I gave him nothing at all.

I'm an idiot.

The next two days were spent nursing our Khao San-induced hangovers during the day in front of the hostel, cracking open our first 7-eleven Chang beers in the late afternoon and then heading back to Khao San for some more partying.

Living the life indeed!

After the perpetual party that is the BKK, it was time to move south . We were going to Koh Samui for a few beach days before heading to Koh Pha-Ngan, home to the original and debaucherous full moon party.

Josh and I took a night train to Surat Thani, then caught a ferry to Koh Samui. Bryan and Rich would be flying directly to Samui and meeting us there.

Once there, we checked into the fanciest hostel I have ever seen called ibed (www.ibedsamui.com).

As luck would have it, we seemed to have arrived in Thailand at the end of the monsoon season and it rained like crazy for most of the day. I didn't even visit Lamai beach during our two days on the island!

Lamai beach is Koh Samui's second most popular beach, known for its golden sand, relaxing atmosphere and penis-shaped rock (sorry no pictures!)

With the rain not being conducive to beach life, we spent our days avoiding shrill-voiced women and lady-boys shouting massage at us.

Koh Samui, more than other places I visited in Thailand other than Bangkok, has huge amounts of white men parading around with a Thai woman or lady boy.

The lady boys range from regular, slightly hairy, blatantly obvious cross-dressers; to post-op, confusingly attractive women.

I gotta say, Thailand has great plastic surgeons!

While in Lamai, we frequented a nearby pool bar where we really couldn't figure out if our attractive hostess, Enjoy, had formerly been a man.

Her pool skills and connect-4 prowess made us have our doubts, but I'm still not 100% which chromosomes she has.

After 2 short rainy days it was already time to move on to another island. It was the full moon the following night and we were headed to Koh Pha-Ngan for some partying that only the original home of the full moon party could provide.

Bring it on!