Code Elephant, Ping pong and Sticky Rice

So much for codes! Nothing can be more obvious clues to what's coming up than elephants, ping pong and sticky rice.

In a pledge to get lost in life and all things (and people) that get me excited more than a bag of Cheetos Jalapeño, I found myself in Bangkok with my best friends on day 7 of being 27. One of the gays was OC enough to make an itinerary, daily themes and visual pegs included:



Copyright 2014.
With an itinerary like this, what can possibly not go wrong? Hahaha





Technically Day 2 but Feels Like Day 1 Because Day 1 Started at 2:30am and Ended at around 4am: "Shopaholic B*"
For us girls who enjoy dressing up, Bangkok will always be shopping heaven (a very hot and temptations-laden heaven at that). New wardrobe hoarding being the main purpose of our trip, we set off for Chatuchak, Platinum Mall and Siam Paragon the first chance we got.



Kris and I got these hats from Chatuchak that screamed très chic. Or très touristy haha.

Overwhelmed by too much choices (mostly souvenirs) and too little space (Chatuchak's a weekend market, after all) and happy with our purchases (these hats and Muay Thai shorts!), we moved on to Platinum Mall.

It's easy to lose track of time (and budget) when in Platinum. As Bangkok's largest fashion mall, it has two buildings with five floors each. That's floor after floor of trendy clothes, accessories, shoes and bags sold at wholesale prices. I remember how my college best friend and I wanted to get into retailing. We planned to personally buy items from Bangkok and Hong Kong then sell them to our friends at not-so-friendly prices. It never happened, though. At the back of our minds, we both knew that we'd want to keep the stuff we'd buy to ourselves and it would be hard to let them go. *Cue scene showing Rebecca Bloomwood and the rest of her Shopaholics Anonymous friends snapping "No, that's not for sale!" at their auction.*

I was on a mission to check out every romper and tattered boyfriend jeans there was. If there's anything that stopped me from buying every single piece that caught my eye, it's that most of the sales ladies were rude and unaccommodating--and I'm not even that customer who haggles for an unbelievably lower price, fits stuff and checks for damages before finally buying something. I want to understand them and think that they act that way because they're tired people who have to deal with indecisive cheapskates who would always want to try out a dress in all colors and sizes when they know from the start that they want the pink one in extra small.

Before I knew it, I've spent over five hours there and it was time to leave for Siam Paragon.

This Bkk find's easily my newest fave jeans--
borrowed-from-my-boyfriend loose and ripped at all the right places

I have nothing much to say about Siam Paragon, just that I had yummy pad thai and milk tea. And that I wish we can adopt their food court food card system in the Philippines. You basically exchange your money for a card which you use to pay for your food. The card's remaining balance may always be changed back to baht. The process is less complicated in other malls where they give you a card pre-loaded with 2,000 baht (I think), then you just pay in cash before leaving the food court. I just love the thought that the people who prepare my food don't touch money that came from I don't know where. 

Day 2: "Culturally Beautiful"--But If I Had It My Way, I Would've Named This Day "Culture Vulture"

Despite our sore legs and tired feet from the previous day, we were determined to walk some more and immerse ourselves in Thai culture. We cruised the Chao Phraya River to get to our first stop: Wat Pho.

One of the rare photos where we're complete

Welcoming committee

Not exactly temple persons, we decided to eat first before seeing the Reclining Buddha. We were skeptical in trying a small eatery near the dock but our hunger won over our skepticism. Plus we did not have much choice :) It proved to be a good decision, anyway, because everything we ordered was DELICIOUS. And cheap. The green curry and tom yum were only at 65 baht each. Shopping may be cheap in Bangkok but food is so much cheaper. Only onto day 2 of our trip and I already felt myself getting fat.

I got addicted to sticky rice with mango. But not as much as Chris
who ate sticky rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between

With stomachs full, we moved on to the main thing. For some reason, the Reclining Buddha reminded me of Rose in Titanic. "Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls. Wearing this...wearing only this." hahaha



Details and more details



We indulged our editorial (!) model frustrations and made good use of our beautiful backdrop. Following are our best shots (I acknowledge that they look very catalog though haha. Sorry, guys. We gotta work some more on our poses).

I get to have the biggest photo because this is my blog haha 

On a more serious and reflective note, there's a part towards the exit where visitors can give small donations in exchange for coins that they can drop in each of the 108 prayer bowls that line the walls. It is said to bring good luck. Like most of Thailand's temples, Wat Pho's preserved the way it is because of people's donations. A donation for preservation for good luck. Sounds like a fair enough deal to me.

  

Just walking distance from Wat Pho is the Grand Palace, arguably Bangkok's most popular and visited landmark. For someone who can't make art but can appreciate it, I can only imagine the craftsmanship and creative flair entailed by the overwhelmingly intricate designs and details of the pillars, walls, statues, everything. To me, Thailand's temples are the prettiest and most interesting in Asia (though I have yet to see India's temples).

The base of the pillars are made of tiny buddhas!

Me wearing the wall

Having seen enough temples, we rode the tuk-tuk to Khaosan Road to get a traditional Thai massage and cap off the day with beer and eye candies.  After all, this place is associated with swanky bars and blonde-haired, blue-eyed (i.e. dreamy) bar-goers haha. Too bad it wasn't as lively since it was a Monday night, after all.

The best part of the day was when we discovered bus no.2 which took us from Khaosan to 71 Sukhumvit for only 7 baht. It was an old, non-air-conditioned bus with wooden seats which we rode for almost an hour but who's complaining? :)

 Day 3: "Fierce Escapade", with note: It's not Bang-kok for nothing.

The day of inconsistencies. Day 3 started off with a wholesome trip to Damnoen Floating Market. Much like how we do it here in some of our tourist spots, we were charged double that of locals for a 6-9-seater "boat for 4". Though how it's depicted on TV's way better, I still enjoyed the cruise along the canal and the view of souvenir stores on stilts and Thai-style canoes carrying fruits, dumplings, noodles and of course, sticky rice with mango. I was amazed by how they can manage to prepare food (especially those with soup) in a rocking canoe, watch out for boat collision and literally hook customers towards them all at the same time. 

Sleeping Beauty. Damnoen Floating Market's about 2hrs away
 from the city, this beauty couldn't help but fall asleep.

Bea vs. Jayson: Who wore it better?

Then it was followed by an equally wholesome trip to the Chang Puak Camp where we rode elephants. It was a nice experience in that we got to ride an animal that's huge yet gentle (trained to be) and it was like being in a Katy Perry music video. However, I couldn't help but feel bad because the elephant riders had bull-hooks that they can poke the elephants with to keep them "behaved" and on track (there was no poking that happened while we were riding. But still, the thought of using pain and fear for motivation was sad). The part beneath their tails that I think supported the strapped-on seats didn't look good also. Plus there was a baby elephant that they kept tied with a really short chain so it couldn't really move around and they were threatening it with their bull-hooks to perform for the crowd. We stopped watching because we weren't enjoying the show. And that's how I got this idea of one day sponsoring an elephant in Thailand. Or South Africa. :)

Riding in style

My fave part's the dip in the water

giant poop

Somewhere after the elephants and before day 4, we ended up watching a ping-pong show. Everything happened in a blur. We somehow managed to hire a cab driver we met at the floating market to take us to Patpong and get us tickets to a legit show. The show was okay at first. It was everything as expected-- cake candles being blown, ribbons being pulled, water turning into coke, corks getting unscrewed. Everything was done in a mechanical way and most of the performers were old and looked bored. So there we were, amazed by the things that one's vagina can do, waiting for the next tricks while letting our drinks sit (we lost interest with drinking anything from that place after the water turning into coke thing). Halfway through, Mariah Carey's "Hero" started playing on the background and two girls were getting naked. After their short lesbo act, an old woman and a fat dude took the stage and did the deed. Kris and I got grossed out and uncomfortable and we felt unsafe because a bunch of guys were checking out our Thai local-looking selves that we had to leave asap. "Hero" used to be an overplayed graduation or any school event song for me. I'm never listening to it the same way again! 

Day 4: "Sweet Escape"

With no itinerary for our last day, we just did some last-minute shopping and watched Annabelle. We left Bangkok with a question in mind: Don't Thais get surprised easily (I swear we were the only ones screaming) or are we just a bunch of weird, shrieky suspense/thriller-watching friends? haha