Pete & Rach's Big Trip: Bangkok: 22 Nov

It is only the lady-slash-boy on the left
that tells this is not a regular bar...

Pete says:

We arrived in Bangkok at night, tired and in need of food. When I asked our hostel's staff where we could get something to eat, they pointed us down a dark empty side street with about 3 restaurants and nothing else. They seemed to think there was nowhere else nearby, which made us wonder if we had picked a bad place to stay. We were amazed to find however, a few days later, that walking a short way in the opposite direction brought us
to Silom Road, a famously lively area. As well as a few chains, like Subway, there was an Irish Pub, which was expensive but served pints of lager and British pub food, and further along there were many good small family owned restaurants that sold nice Thai food and many more bars. We were always puzzled why the hostel staff had so little idea of what was in the area.

We went for a long walk along Silom Road the next day and ended up eating in a Mexican place. While we were there we noticed a market being set up just outside the window and decided to look it up on our phones. We read that this was Patpong Night Market, in the main red-light area of the city. We had both had about 4 pints by this time and so decided to explore...

The type of establishment we were dealing with

The market ran along the central area of a wide street where almost every building was a "Go-Go bar", in which various women and ladyboys dance on the stage in their underwear, or a sex club where things happen on stage that you cannot un-see. We went from bar to bar having great fun guessing which dancers were men and which were women (not as easy as you might think) and drinking a single beer in each place. We probably should have taken into account the fact that we were already at a fairly advanced stage of drunkenness before we started, but sadly we did not and we got a bit carried away...

The only surviving photo...

At some point we switched to vodka (my usual trusted method of reducing the morning hangover) and soon after that Rachael was up and dancing (not on the stage but I feared it was the next step) in a very enthusiastic manner which was quite a contrast to the listless half-hearted dancing up on the stage. To cut a long story short, the night ended with Rachael being helped off the toilet by two ladyboys and emerging to find me passed out on a sofa in front of the stage. Not our most dignified moment. Luckily we did not wake up the next day with tattoos on our faces, but we did have serious hangovers.

A few days later our Dutch friends Marije and Evelien turned up at the hotel, having tracked us down (they were staying a few streets away) and we all went out. They wanted to see the area where we had our night out and we went that way again. This time, Rachael was too ashamed to go back to the same places so we went somewhere we were sure we would not have been. Imagine my surprise when the little man who showed us to our tables said to me "Hey!! Remember me?! You want some more vodka?" - Rachael is now mortified that we are notorious in Bangkok's most notorious part of town. It was fun, though we had to leave when a ladyboy took a bit too much of a liking to me (he discussed this at length with Marije who was thankfully between us to protect me) and we moved on. The way this night ended is best left unsaid. The lesson learned is this - when in Bangkok, never enter an establishment that has an interior you cannot see from the door. We may never recover....

During our stay there were protests against the government and this stopped us visiting a lot of the places we had wanted to. We saw a few marches on our travels and one day, happened to walk past the police headquarters, where the whole force appeared to have barricaded themselves in behind rows of razor wire. All dressed in riot gear. Not very reassuring for the locals I would imagine!

Rach says:

Due to the protests, we missed out on the major temples and the original backpacker central: Khao San Road, which would have been interesting to see, but is probably a hell-hole. Feeling travel weary and in need of our Christmas beach break, we also passed up on daytrips to the 14th century city of Ayutthaya and the "Death Railway" in Kanchanaburi, instead favouring long lie ins, cinema trips (we got our horror fix watching the Carrie remake), shopping trips, daytime drinking and hanging out with Marije and Evelien. We spent 12 enjoyable days in this way whilst waiting for our Indian visa applications to be processed. Saphaipae hostel turned out to be a good place to spend time. It was clean, had a decent restaurant, beer and snacks on sale, a row of good PCs to use, large seating areas and a roof terrace. We were sad to leave.

The Skytrain was cheap and a great way to get around the city.
Bangkok is renowned as a shoppers paradise, but we visited three different malls and I was unimpressed - the clothes may have been cheap, but they were also tacky.
We realised how acclimatised we were getting to the heat in Bangkok. After steamy Cambodia, it felt almost temperate.
We saw our first Christmas tree in Bangkok. Until then, we hadn't seen anything to do with Christmas, which was quite refreshing. There were big trees and large displays of decorations outside the shopping centres, but no cards on sale as it is not celebrated at home in Thailand.
The King's Anthem (and promotional video!) is played before every film showing in Thailand and everyone stands as a mark of respect.