Bangkok offers many diversions - shopping, food, Pat Pong ;-). We got up early the first day to witness how the city stirs to life in the Thai capital. Outside of the Four Seasons Hotel a row of stalls were lined on both sides of the street, selling iced coffee, kikiam, tom yun gung soup, watermelons, roasted bananas, durian, and other gustatory delights that made us regret our breakfast of fried rice and sausage at the hotel restaurant. In the next four days, I was going to try as much of the food as I can, including cotton candy crepes.
Then of course there's the shopping. We visited the night market, the World Trade Center, Chatuchak market and this basement bargain center at the Gaysorn building where I found some beautiful woodcarvings and shawl. I did a pretty good job haggling at the night market, I was told, for I managed to drive the prices down to 1/4 the original. I had been warned that the prices at the night market were up to 500% higher than usual.
Tired from all the walking and running about, I treated myself to a thai massage at Pat Pong, the red light district of Bangkok where five newfound Filipino gay friends took us. Thai massage is not the gentlest of massages as the body is contorted into all sorts of awkward poses. At first it felt like the female masseuse was trying to kill me but I got the hang of it later on so much so that I asked for another massage at my hotel room the following evening.
On our third day, Lani and I together with our 5 friends, decided we've had enough of Bangkok so we rented a van to take us to Ayutthaya, the old capital city of Thailand. Ayutthaya has some of the most beautiful temples (wat) in Thailand and the most picturesque ruins, some of which were reminiscent of Angkor Wat. I would have loved to explore Ayutthaya more but our friends wanted to go back to Bangkok for more shopping. So back to the capital we went and shopped until we hardly had any baht left. The guys were saving the rest of their money for an evening at the sauna. Lani and I opted to rest at the hotel, and dined in a small restaurant on Petchaburi Road. Seafood rice flavoured with chilied fish sauce -that's the last thing I remember about Bangkok.