Anyhow, Anthony, Dennis and I all went into Bangkok to watch some sweet Thai boxing. First we decided to find dinner some where and we stumbled across a random deck with some white people eating on it, so we figured it was a safe, farang friendly place to eat, so we decided to go there. However, this place was not that friendly. The people of course were nice (as all people are in the Land of Smiles), but the meal itself was not "normal" to our Western sensibilities.
The restaurant was a raw-meat buffet. Instead of cooking the food for us, they gave us this strange iron stove thing that we cooked the meat on and boiled our noodles in. We were allowed to take plates up and gather the meat we were interested in and then cook it ourselves. We had no idea what we were doing. At first, they handed us chopsticks to manipulate our meat with, but after failing with those, they gave us forks, and after still not doing very well, they finally handed us tongs. The employees literally babysat us silly foreigners. It was kind of embarrassing. The food itself wasn't bad. We had lots of noodles until Dennis ruined them by adding in spicy noodles that made everything way too spicy. The chicken and pork were great too. I also tried Thai bacon, but I'll fill you in on that story a bit later in this entry.
After that, we decided to take in some Thai boxing. At the doorway, we were harassed by an employee to buy first-class tickets, but we insisted on the third-class tickets where the Thai people get rowdy and gamble. We got good places to stand and watched for five or so matches as jacked Thai people beat the crap out of one another. The crowd was going absolutely nuts, flipping out and screaming and betting. The matches were much more interesting than American boxing because instead of just punching once and then hugging each other for five minutes until the bell rings, the boxers here punch, kick, knee, and elbow each other. Hard. In every match, someone bled. It was great.The next morning I woke up in intense stomach distress. I'm pretty certain the Thai bacon ruined my stomach, because no one else here had stomach issues and that was the only thing I ate that they didn't. I took some antibiotics that the doctors gave me just in case I had issues and everything resolved itself after a day of rest and lots of fluids. Besides the frequent bathroom stops, it was actually kind of nice just to sit around the room and relax for a day.
However, one day was enough. The very next day, Anthony and Dennis and I traveled into Bangkok to visit a giant mall and get me some good-old-fashioned American cuisine - McDonalds. The McDonalds was rather bland. I'm not sure if it was because I'm so used to spicy food now or what, but I was disinterested in my nuggets. The fry serving was bigger than an American serving, which I found rather interesting.
Next we headed into a massive mall so Anthony and Dennis could buy cellphones. This mall was five stories tall and full of Hello Kitty stores and cell phone shops. I want to explore it one day, but we were getting tired and decided we needed massages, so we went to Khao San Road and found some shady Thai massage parlor and got an hour long massage for about $6. They kept offering us hot oil massages, which is slang for "the massage with the happy-ending" but we weren't buying it. After that, we got dinner and barely escaped Bangkok before monsoon rains poured down from the heavens.
The next day, I loafed around with health issues once again. The Bangkok air destroys my lungs. I've used my inhaler here more than I have at home in a year and I've only been here a week. I was up most of the night coughing, as the caustic Thai air irritated my lungs, so I spent most of the next day sleeping and drinking more. I never wanted cough drops more in my life.
But, much like Jesus, I rose again. Today, Dennis and I woke up early and he bought one of the sweet Thai bikes that Anthony and I already purchased. Then we rode our hogs down to Western Union and I picked up the money my parents sent me and also received a sweet bowl as a lovely parting gift. After that, the three of us got lunch at the pool and then rode bikes everywhere. We first checked a random train station to see if we could get to a boss temple where they filmed Mortal Kombat at, but we couldn't get there from there. Then we rode out bikes to Buddha Monthon, the sweetest park I've ever been to in my life.
This park is absolutely huge. It would take hours to walk from one end to the other. The park was absolutely beautiful and peaceful, despite there being a huge highway just nearby. There were tons of ponds and streams and animals abound. At one part of the lake/river that runs through the park, a Thai man was tossing food into the water and hundreds of catfish were fighting for bits of it. It was incredible. I can't wait to go there to read my coursework in just a few days. Pictures cannot do this place justice.
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