It is a known fact that tourists are often treated as fresh meat in just about any country. Taxi drivers will try to charge you more, you pay more at pasar malam, and even some restaurants will have 2 different menus, one for the locals, another for foreigners. This is a story on how we got conned at Patpong, the red light district of Bangkok.

So after a long day chilling around the city, the three of us (including Terence & Dree) decided that a visit to Thailand is never complete without going to Patpong. We boarded the train and headed to the station nearest to the red light district.

all these go-go clubs and ping pong bars

The place has more flashy neons and interesting sign boards than the whole of downtown KL. Thai girl, Thai boy, lady boy, go-go bars, you name it, they have it. There is also a lot of street stores selling “I love Bangkok” T-shirts and imitation Bell & Ross watches. As we were walking along the shops, we were ushered by many pimps asking if we wanted girls, beer, ping pong shows, etc. We kept rejecting them.

look at the 2 guys in black and yellow shirts, dodgy?

And then one particular pimp told us “You wan watch ping pong show? 1 minute no pay, you no like you go, free. If you like, just stay and buy drinks. 200 baht per beer, that’s all!” (10 baht is roughly 1 Malaysian Ringgit)

Wanting to experience everything Bangkok has to offer (sans the STD activities), we reluctantly said yes. The guy then led us to a bar a level on top of the popular shops/restaurants/bars.

We sensed something wrong as we went in, there were no customer in that place. A group of not-so-great looking girls were on the stage, dancing half naked, trying to be seductive but failing miserably.

We ordered our drinks, 2 beers and a coke, and then the show started. A chunky lady stripped and started shooting darts on balloons. It was done in such mechanical precision and ease, dart in hole, squeeze, dart flies, pops balloon. I was as impressed as worried about her aiming as we were only a couple meters away from the stage.

ping pong balls love Terence

Then came the ping pong show, same thing: ping pong in the hole, squeeze, ping pong flying at Terence. Poor guy had to swat away all the incoming missiles lest having them landing on his face. It was a lot more scary than funny, I kid you not.

In between, the girls kept cajoling us to buy them drinks, 100 baht per coke. We kept saying no, but goddamn dree finally agreed to one coke per girl after the shemale kept pestering him, dude is weak. He didn’t even realize that was 100 baht x 10 girls!

Only 10 minutes into the whole thing, we decided to make a move and called for the bill. It was 3,900 baht!!!

We were like WTF, and started arguing with the lady boss (who was as big as Terence) saying the other guy told us it was 200 bath per beer and the show is free. She said she didn’t know who that was, and this is her bar. I put down a 1,000 baht bill and prepared to walk away, but our good friend dree kept saying “dude just pay just pay I’ll pay you guys back” in a very emo and worried voice. We kept arguing for a bit and decided to give them 3,000 baht as there were about 10 of them surrounding us already..

1,000 baht per person for a lesson to be smarter tourists. Lucky I didn’t have to touch any ping pong ball.

Tags:  bangkok,  conned,  patpong,  ping pong show,  Thailand,  tourists

Posted by KY | 40 Comments »

The long overdue pictures from Bangkok is here, the Black and White series anyway. I still have some architectural photos (mainly temples) yet to be processed, and of course that juicy story from red light district and the other food hunts around the city. But anyway, here is my very small contribution to the world of photography.

The photostream at flickr is here.

showmanship

I was walking around taking photographs, and suddenly this ice cream seller started performing for me. He scoop up the ice cream, threw it up about 20 feet and drop it on the cup. This was his victory pose after performing his trick. It was a shame I did not manage to capture that in action, but at least we have this pose.

taxi stand

Tuk-tuk, the three wheeler “taxis” are omnipresence everywhere in the city. You can catch a short ride for as low as 20 baht. However, do be careful as some of them do conspire with shops in an attempt to con unsuspecting customers. The normal taxis, on the other hand, are very reliable and honest in Bangkok.

the line up

This photo is taken at the famous 4 faced Buddha statue (Thao Maha Brahma). It is said that many Hong Kong celebrities pay their respect at this place yearly.

the crowd, chatuchak weekend market

Chatuchak weekend market is a congregation of over 6000 stalls selling anything from bacon stick to foot massages to pet rabbits. The place is packed with bargain hunters and clueless tourists alike.

divers at chow praya river

These kids at chow praya river make a living by fetching and reselling animals released to the river. Here they are just warming up to start the day. It is a common practice for pilgrims to release animals to the wild. (for good karma?)

ringtone

A baby girl guided by her father to ring the bell at the temple, probably for the first time in her life.

guards - emerald Buddha temple

The guards at Emerald Buddha temple reminds me of those Buckingham Palace guards. They were completely stationary with only movements on their eyeballs. Respect.

fat boy supper

Day or night, you can find hawker stalls by every roadside. Bangkok is the city very favorable to food hunters like me, I just wish I had a bigger stomach.

Tags:  b&w,  bangkok,  black-and-white,  canon,  monochrome,  Photography,  streets

Posted by KY | 24 Comments »

The streets of Bangkok is dotted with many hawkers selling all sorts of food for those with an appetite for adventure. While noodles and rice dishes are mainly found in food courts and small restaurants, many hawkers offer bite size snacks at road side. From the more mainstream sausages to cold drinks to fried insects, you can find virtually anything.

Bacon Stick for 20 baht each

I noticed that many snacks choices consist of pork. There are pork sausage, bacon sticks, grilled fried pork, deep fried pork skin, roasted pork, ah, it was good for the pork lovers, maybe not exactly so great for health, however.

My favorite would be the bacon stick we had at the Chatuchak weekend market. For 20 baht (around RM2), you get mini sausages wrapped with bacon on a skewer. The union of sausage and bacon was a match made in heaven as the juice and slight saltiness from bacon compliments the texture and taste of the sausage oh so well. You have to try this if you manage to find the stall!

grilled pork strips on a ring

Grilled pork strips on bamboo string is a pretty common snack that can be found at many places. The meat is marinated and carries a pretty salty taste, while pretty good, eating too much of these will make you very thirsty.

deep fried pork skin

Another sinful snack would be this little bowls of deep fried pork skin that goes for 10 baht that we found at Chatuchak. These are very crispy and goes well with a little bit of Thai chili sauce. Now imagine having this with a cold beer watching your favorite football teams on a big LCD TV, with the air-cond full blast, and maybe a hot chick dancing on the side…

roasted pork (siu yok)

Roasted pork isn’t usually served on rice over here, you just have it as snacks to munch while walking around the weekend market. I guess we deserved it since we were getting enough exercise from walking under the searing hot April weather in Bangkok anyway, right?

colorful Popsicles

Then there’s the Popsicle stalls. The popsicles are actually made on location, usually with bottled fruit juice poured into a metal mold. A wooden stick is added as the handle. The mold is placed in a contraption consisting two parts, a top with little holes to hold the molds, and the bottom container filled with dried ice.

The seller often stirs the top part of the popsicle maker attempting to freeze the products faster. A stick costs something like 5 baht, and they were perfect for the weather.

fried mini banana (including the skin)

Other than the meat items, I also tried this curious little deep fried banana Terence bought. It was basically some species of mini banana sliced down in the middle, deep fried. While they look rather uninspiring, these things were actually very sweet and rather tasty. It is similar with our own “pisang goreng”, but sweeter and more concentrated.

Of course I enjoy every bit!

You can do a fair share of walking and eating in this city. Next up would be the various type of meals I had to sit down to eat. Stay tuned!

Tags:  bacon,  banana,  bangkok,  bite,  dining,  food,  fried,  ice cream,  pork,  streets

Posted by KY | 32 Comments »

One of my main aim going into the Bangkok trip was to taste some of the weird and wonderful foods the land of smile has to offer, something that is very difficult or impossible to get from Malaysia. This of course, would be the infamous deep fried worms, insects, and alike.

for a few ringgit, we got all these wonderful snacks

I was expecting fried insect stalls to be on every street corners. In actual fact, they are not very common. We weren’t able to locate anyone selling this for the first couple days of our stay. It was only on the 3rd night at Bangkok that Terence managed to buy a plastic bag full these weird and wonderful food from the streets near Pantip Mall (the one that is famous for selling Amulets, not the IT mall with the same name). Myself and Dree were overjoyed!

McBugs, McFrogs, and Worm Fries

Inside the goody bag there were worms, crickets, grasshoppers, dragonflies, praying mantis, and of course, those little fried frogs in whole. Not knowing exactly how to start, we first arranged them into McBugs, McFrogs, and Worm Fries combo meal. A couple minutes staring at these creatures, we decided to bite the bullet bugs and go straight to it to get the maximum taste instead.

having a feast!

I attacked the worms first. I don’t know if they were just worms or some insect larvae, but the slightly yellowish exterior sure looked a lot more inviting than the dark brown insects laying next to them. As it turns out, the worms were actually pretty good, slightly crunchy and tastes a lot better than the bee’s pupae I had in Vietnam. They were seasoned with salt and some spices, I believe.

my god, we were so proud of ourselves!

Next in line were all the different types of bugs. It was a bit weird chewing down grasshoppers, crickets, and so forth, but actually they too tasted quite ok, very crunchy and tasted a bit like having deep fried small prawns with shells on. Again, it was a little salty and slightly spicy. The different bugs basically tasted the same except but with slightly different textures, you can make out the long arms of praying mantis and the grasshopper’s legs in your mouth, neat.

naturally we finished the whole serving

The more difficult part of the snack attack session though, were the frogs. Unlike the familiar big fat frogs served in Malaysia, these are tiny frogs the size of fifty sen coins. They come with everything intact except for innards, so you get the whole head, the eyes staring at you, the legs, spines and all.

We threw it into our mouths and start chewing off, amazingly there were actually pretty tasty! Crunchy with slight taste of meat, it goes well with the seasoning and not too salty like the bugs. Once you get over the fact that you have to chew the entire head, it was all good!

Of course, we finished the entire serving and like little kids we just finished their vegetables, we were proud. If you’re going to Thailand, this is a must-have!

Tags:  bangkok,  bugs,  deep fried,  eats,  fine dining,  frogs,  insects,  street food,  Thailand,  worms

Posted by KY | 60 Comments »

Got back from Bangkok late last night and all I could do was to download a tonne of pictures off the memory cards. Here is a preview of things that I have done during the rather interesting trip to Thailand from the few snapshots that I hastily processed late last night.

the ubiquitous tuk-tuk

We had our fair share of tuk-tuk experience across town. These little 3 wheelers are everywhere around the city. With total disregard of traffic pattern and sense of speed limitation, it was a ball of fun and excitement. One driver even did a wheely when we were on board! (perhaps due to the weight of Terence & Dree?)

the holy temples

We also visited a lot of temples around the city center as well as the outskirts. The particular picture above was captured when I purposely cleared my throat louder than usual, hee-hee.

the diver on Chao Phraya

At the various piers along Chao Phraya River, you can see kids whose job title are “divers”. Their job is to re-catch creatures (cat fish, frogs, turtles, etc) that were let go into the river by pilgrims to be re-sell at the various stalls along the pier. The kids did not let work gets in the way of having fun.

thai boxing!

Of course, I did a bit of practice on my Muay Thai on a proper rink at Pantip Mall (the King’s Cup competition was on)!

the red light district

What’s a trip to Bangkok without going to the red light district. I have a very good story on some 3 stupid fellas getting conned by a bar owner and a pimp. Stay tuned!

McWorms with a side of insects and the optional fried froggy

Last but not least, how can we forget about food? Weird and wonderful creatures that went into our mouth. I’ve had tomyam, pad Thai, pad see yew, pork dishes, and of course, the fried insects!

Full posts on the trip will be coming to your nearest computer monitor shortly.

Tags:  bangkok,  bugs,  photos,  temple,  tour,  trip,  weird

Posted by KY | 39 Comments »