Thailand

The next morning we flew from Krabi back to the Bangkok airport, this time landing at the Don Muang airport. It's a bit closer to the city, but the airport taxi stand forced us to take 2 cars so it ended up costing almost 1000THB to get to our hotel in the Sukhumvit area. We had chosen the Atlanta based on some positive reviews in our guidebooks and because a family room only cost 2000BHT. The lobby area seemed very nice, with a antique style décor, but the rooms were not so wonderful. It's one thing to have old and barely functioning fixtures, but when my Dad wiped his finger through the dirty-looking sink basin, it was grey - they hadn't even bothered to clean properly. The tub was also dirty and cracked, and one wall had a row of cinderblocks - the kind that have holes to let in air from outside (and thus flying insects as well). We decided it was good enough for one night, and would seek a better hotel the next day.
My parents and sister went to visit a tailor shop which had been recommended as a good place to get a custom dress made. My sister had brought with her a series of diagrams of her dream dress, along with photos that illustrated various features that she wanted to include. Unfortunately, when the tailor saw the photos he refused to make the dress, saying he wouldn't steal someone else's design. More likely he was just trying to get them to agree to use one of his pre-made dress patterns. Meanwhile, my girlfriend and I went our own way and shopped the Siam Paragon and MBK (Mah Boon Krong) malls until most of the stores closed, about 8:00pm.

My Dad got up early to go online in search of a new hotel. He found a place nearby called the Star Suites Serviced Apartments, who had a 2-bedroom suite for only 2200BHT. My parents took a taxi to check it out, and upon returning they asked the driver to wait while they picked up our baggage. But when we came down, he was gone and the lady at the front desk said she paid him and demanded we repay her. We suspect that she chased him off to prevent us from leaving. Dad walked up the road to Sukhumvit to hail another taxi, but while we were loading the baggage the front desk woman spoke to him in Thai, and then he began refusing to take more than 3 of us. Realizing that the lady would chase away any other taxis that came near, we picked up our bags and walked down the street to the Marriott, where a doorman helped us get a metered taxi. However, the problem with metered taxis is that they will take you the long way - sometimes saying it's a shortcut, or in our case using bad traffic as an excuse.

Though Star Suites is a long ways down soi 15 (a soi is a small road), they offered a free tuk-tuk service to the nearest Skytrain or subway station. There were a bunch of tailor shops near the station, so we chose one and showed him the dress design. After much discussion, material selection, and bargaining, we finally had the dress creation underway. We all went to the Pratunam center for more shopping, but discovered that many of the shops had gone out of business. The girls explored what stores remained, while my Dad and I walked down to Pantip Plaza - a mall full of electronics - to buy him a new waterproof camera (see end of the Similan Islands chapter for the story of what happened to his last one). When we met back up again, my Mom, sister, and girlfriend were all getting massages that they enjoyed immensely. We shopped the Platinum Fashion Mall, and MBK, then ate supper and took a cab to the Suan-Lum Night Bazaar. There were all kinds of hand-made goods, clothing, jewelry, purses and wallets, paintings, wood carvings, etc.. There was even a stall selling glass coasters and other objects which have bamboo, lemongrass, or other things embedded inside the glass.

The next day had even more shopping in store for us, as it was now Saturday and the Chatuchak weekend market was open. The Skytrain goes all the way to the market, which is on the northern outskirts of Bangkok. Inside, it was very hot, somewhat crowded, and unfathomably huge. We wandered randomly through unending isles of stalls, doing our best to avoid the watergun toting Thais (that weekend also happened to be the Songkran festival, the Thai new year, where it is traditional to throw or squirt water at others). We ran into some tourists who had wisely purchased a map of the market from a bookstore, and were then able to locate the textiles area, where my girlfriend bought 3 silk scarves for 80THB each. Spread throughout the market were people selling a popsicle made from pouring pop or juice into an inverted metal tube, which is then placed in a large metal bucket full of ice and salt-water. These popsicles are wonderful when you're hot and thirsty, and they only cost 3THB! Still, the heat became too much so we headed for some air conditioning in the nearby JJ Mall.

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to explore the rest of the market as my sister needed to return to the tailor for a fitting. In 24 hours they had already put together the basic shape of the dress, but there were several features that were either done wrong or hadn't been done yet. After a relaxing swim in the rooftop pool, we went out for dinner at a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms, which has many decorations made out of condoms, and you are given condoms instead of dinner mints! And, all proceeds from the restaurant are used to fund the social development programs of the Population and Community Development Association. There was also 15-minute Thai foot massages available, so I decided to give it a try. It was my first ever foot massage, and though the Thai's can be a bit rough, it felt pretty good.

On my final day in Thailand, I finally got to see some elephants. We hired a taxi driver for the day to take us to the Samphran Elephant Grounds, and the nearby Rose Garden cultural show. We arrived just in time to catch the crocodile wrestling show, and though the program was in Thai, we still enjoyed the bravery of the two boys. They would grab one of the many crocs by the tail and drag it around into position. Then they'd pry its mouth open and tease it a bit, by prodding it with sticks. One of the more impressive stunts involved wetting down the ground, and then sliding head first along the slippery surface toward the gaping jaws of a huge crocodile. At the last moment before getting eaten, the boy would jump up and go over top of the croc! They also played with an large, older looking crocodile, by putting their hands and even their entire head inside its mouth.

There was an elephant show immediately afterwards, but our taxi driver told us there would be another one later in English. So we wandered around the grounds (a small zoo), looking at a few monkeys, rabbits, and the crocodile breeding pits. They also have some hanging orchid gardens, but only a few plants had any blooms. Next we shelled out 500THB each for me and my sister to get a 20 minute ride on an elephant. It was awesome to be riding on top of such a huge animal, but the highlight actually came at the end. They gave me some bananas to feed my elephant, and while doing so, the trainers brought over an even bigger elephant who gave me a big "hug". Basically, it wrapped its trunk around my waist, and then picked me up off the ground!

After a quick, cheap lunch, we headed over to the elephant show early to get good seats. First there was a magic show on a small portable stage, but the tricks were pretty bad - only children would be impressed. The elephant show was really good though, and included demonstrations of how they were used for logging, and how they hunted and captured an elephant from the back of another one. They performed a battle simulating how the ancient kings used to participate in combat from elephant-back, with authentic costumes for the riders and the elephants! There were even some pyrotechnics to simulate a cannon assault on a castle wall. Finally, there was the fun part of the show, where a team of elephants wearing the colors of various countries came out onto the field, and did tricks like dancing, picking up objects, and racing through a obstacle course. The best part was a soccer shootout: with a human goalie, the elephants line up and kick giant soccer balls at the net one at a time. Whenever an elephant scored, it would do a little victory dance!