Coup Coup Kachew, Mr. Meshew

Hello again friends and followers! After a long first week which culminated in the emotionally draining experience of going to the IDC, it was time for my first free weekend in Bangkok and a little much needed relaxation. Shireen's flight out was Saturday at 1:50 AM so we decided to take a day trip to Pattaya Beach which is about an hour and a half car ride away so we could lounge and decompress from the busy week and my co-worker Maya joined us. Fair warning, I have done a lot of stuff the last few days and this will be a decent sized post. Also, I'll try and keep it in chronological order but be prepared for me to go off on odd tangents. So many thing happening here sometimes, it is hard to keep it all linear and orderly.

We hired a cab to take us there and drive us back at the end of the day. At first we didn't really like Chatchai (our driver) but by the end of the journey we were fast friends. He's infinitely better than most of the cabbies you come across in Bangkok who argue with you over using the meter and just try to price-gouge you. Maybe its just because I'm very clearly not from here but every cabbie quotes me a ridiculous number and then gets offended when I'm not a total Munson and reject them. I get it guy you want to make more money and that's fine. But when I tell you no I'd rather not eat your turd sandwich because somewhere nearby is selling a cheeseburger, don't act like I'm the problem here.

Anyway, we made it to Pattaya with no issues but once there we determined the best course of action was to hop on the ferry to Koh Lan, a much more scenic island just a short ride away. Pattaya has a very seedy reputation, based mostly around prevalence of the sex industry there and a history of organized crime and mobsters-on-the-lamb that have purportedly made the city their home. Driving through it, I didn't see anything that looked mafia-esque but I don't doubt the reports. It mostly looked like a beach town that had, over the years, been inundated with tourists from Bangkok and reacted thusly, blowing all the beach town stereotypes out to 11 and becoming a place I would have absolutely zero interest in staying. So we hopped on the ferry and headed to Koh Lan which was also heavily frequented by tourists but retained a small island feel. The sand was white and the water was, if not quite crystal, still very clear.

We enjoyed the water some and walked around the swim barrier but there was really nothing to see in the water which was sort of a let down. However right before I left my sister, being the wonderful human that she is, gifted me a fancy waterproof digital camera so I could go diving and take pictures and I had yet to explore its underwater capabilities so I grabbed my camera and decided to mess around with it. Sadly, without snorkel and mask I quickly determined that it wasn't really possible to to see what I was taking a picture of, so I went up to one of the vendors that permeated the island and purchased a cheap snorkel set. It was garbage but eventually I figured out how to use it functionally and so then I got to try out my camera. Unfortunately, even with the mask, the digital screen was incredibly difficult to read underwater so you just kind of fly blind and have to take a bunch of photos and hope one of them hits the target. End the end it worked pretty well, but was a tad bit frustrating. (Which seems ridiculous to be annoyed with my digital camera that is waterproof. #firstworldproblems)

While I was paddling around with my camera I noticed some very small fish so I started following them for pictures. As I followed them out deeper I saw an actually decent sized fish (1 foot maybe) and got super excited and started chasing him with my camera. Then, shortly after the chase started, I was taken aback when I almost crashed into a field of sea urchins. When I say urchins, I don't mean tiny little baby urchins with 1 inch spines. I mean massive black urchins with foot long spears trying to stab you. And there were literally hundreds off them. The water in this area was roughly waist height and I had no flippers (I sink like a stone in the water so I was petrified that my legs were gonna drop and get stabbed) so when combined with the massive spines there was not a lot of room to navigate over this massive of painful sea-brambles. It was crazy that there was no sign alerting swimmers to these dangers as they were legitimately easy to have stepped on if you ventured out just a little bit and weren't looking. And to that point, when a group of Thai girls was walking out towards that area of the ocean I attempted to warn them and steer them clear, however, they spoke no English and my charades and attempts to show them the dangers weren't working. I gave it up as a lost cause and shortly afterward one of them stepped on one and had to go to the med station on the island. Not learning Thai beforehand is becoming increasingly unfortunate all around.

Anyways, I decided to risk the dangerous swim over the urchins to see what the deeper water would bring and shortly after the urchin field there was a coral embankment which had some little tang fish and some butterfly fish so those were neat but the coral was so high and the water so shallow I could only swim around the edge. I took a bunch of photos and then braved the urchin mine-field once again and decided to head in for lunch. Nothing else really exciting happened on this particular adventure other than seeing a couple of macaques which ventured down out of the woods to steal food from tourists. Those were pretty neat I'll admit.

We headed back to the mainland and the Chatchai drove us home. It took 3 hours to get home which was absurd. Bangkok traffic is a real thing and it is the worst. What's impressive is that the highway was actually only 3 lanes but everyone just decided that the shoulder was being wasted and turned it into a 4th lane. Seriously, rules of the road here just don't exist. When we finally got back we all took quick showers and decided to head to Khao San road so Shireen could see it before she had to head out (Khao San is just a giant tourist street of bars and the like in Bangkok). It was kind of the worst but exactly what I expected.

Sidebar: Of all the great paradoxes in science and the world, the most flummoxing one to comprehend, for me, is why tourists are the absolute worst. I'm a firm believer in traveling; I think it benefits everyone by expanding perceptions culturally and personally and that it is one of the few things in life that has no real downside. Like Twain said “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” I believe everyone should take every opportunity to travel afforded to them because it makes them better people. And yet, somehow, a VAST majority of international travelers I see are the types of people I have no interest in hanging around. And inevitably, in any tourist locale there are hundreds of hawkers selling shirts, hats, bracelets and all manner of other ridiculous things with sexual or obscene images or slogans. Stuff that has no cultural relevance and seems like it would only be appealing to the most sophomoric of frat-stars or 3rd graders. Maybe my beliefs on the benefits of travel are just outmoded.

Anyways, on Khao San after Shireen had to leave for the airport, we ended up making friends with some South Africans who were on vacation in Thailand. We were drinking in the restaurant we had decided to eat at and they were at the table next to us. As the night wore on and they and I got more drunk, our tables began talking, culminating in us just kinda of merging into one big group. They ended up buying us a round of tequila shots which is where my night started to go downhill. The night get a little hazy but I remember all the highlights well enough. First, I ate not one but 2 fried scorpions. A recurring theme with the Thai people seems to be eating really weird stuff that has never once looked appealing. The scorpion was no different. It looked bad but it didn't taste *that* awful. Mostly it just tasted like eating a really crappy pork rind that was much crunchier. Insect husk is never tasty methinks. The other big highlight of Khao San was the small child who tried to hustle me out of 100 baht. I was pretty well roasted at this time and he kept coming up to our table and trying to sell us flowers to give to the girls (the SA's had foolishly purchased some earlier in the night) and I was having none of it. Even at high levels of inebriation I still disdain hawkers and particularly little kids doing it irks me to no end.

Somehow, the idea of a thumb war got started and the stakes were that I pay 100 baht to the kid if I lost while he didn't have to do anything if he lost. In legal terms, I was getting no consideration for my promise and in layman's terms I was getting screwed; the little kid loved the idea. Until, that is, I hit him with the old hidden thumb gambit. He never saw that one coming. (To those not in the know, the HTG is when place your warring thumb down by the opponent's pinky. It is physically impossible for them to get it with their thumb as no one's thumb can naturally reach across the back of their own hand to the pinky.) This kid had clearly never seen such stunning defensive strategies and became increasingly upset when he was unable to win. Eventually he resorted to a stunning combination of cheating using other hands, speed counting, and a wrist roll to try and get the pin and he still couldn't succeed (probably because he was 8 and I'm an adult though sometimes I don't act like it). This is when he got unbearable as he yelled at me for cheating though I used a perfectly viable strategy. Can't lose if the other team doesn't score. That's day one thumb war stuff really. Sorry you had to learn the tough lessons kid but remember that next time you step into the ring with the big boys. And quit harassing people who have politely declined your services roughly 23 times. Nobody likes that.

As the night wore on, my work compatriots all decided to turn in as curfew was coming up, but I was having a great time with my new buddies and the rest of the bars and stuff didn't seem to be closing up. This is when were then informed that the bars here stayed open all night long so as to circumvent the curfew. Iiiiiiiiinteresting. So I elected to stay, and since my friends were concerned about my ability to find my way back home, Miranda opted to stay with me over my virulent protests against needing a babysitter. We stayed for a few hours more with nothing to write home about and then the SA's decided to walk to their hostel which was about 100 feet away. This put Miranda and I in an interesting position of breaking curfew to go home or staying at the bar by ourselves for another couple of hours when we were both tired. We opted for the former and walked our way to the street to look for a taxi. This is when I came to the conclusion that the curfew doesn't apply equally or maybe not at all. It was 2-3 AM and there was dozens of cabs just driving around flagrantly violating the martial law. We hopped in one and headed home. On our way home was my first exposure to the fact that Thailand is a military controlled country as we had to pass through 2 roadblocks which lasted about 5 seconds each as the driver spoke to some soldier who shined a light in my face, saw I was a drunk American, and waved us through. Maybe my experience was not the norm, but if it wasn't then I have no idea why there were still so many cabs on the road well after curfew.

Sidebar: For all the talk of the coup before coming here, I have genuinely never felt in danger once, and have seen very little military presence, no more than seeing cops walk around the streets like they would anywhere. Granted, I am a white male that is very clearly not from around here and I'm not really plugged into the Thai national political debate so that likely plays into my perceptions and experiences but the only effects I've felt from the coup seem to be lower amounts of tourists running around, cheaper fares and rates places, less traffic on the road at night, and a general appreciation for me the tourist as there are not as many of us around. If you ever get a chance to travel, I highly recommend going to a country that has some moderate civil unrest going on in it. So far it has been aces.

When we got home I passed out hard and got to sleep in for the first time which was very nice. Then on Saturday morning I woke up and assessed my life. I was quite hungover, desperately in need of food, and all my co-workers had other plans for the day so I was officially left on my own for the first time since getting here. This was optimal because I love to take in a city by my lonesome and I really love walking new cities, which is an activity my compatriots abhor in the sauna that is Bangkok in the summer. So I decided the best way to spend my weekend would be to explore all the touristy spots and get those out of the way and so I decided to go to the Chatuchak Market for lunch and some sight-seeing. Chatuchak is a weekend market with something approaching 10,000 stores and stalls. It is freaking massive and was absolutely packed with human beings selling and perusing. I grabbed some lunch and then just kind of meandered around for the rest of the day. There are so many things and a lot of it is repetative so I'm not sure how any one vendor gets a market edge over the others but clearly it works as there are so many people.

At one point I saw a sign for the fish market and I thought “Oh that could be cool; like in Seattle only with other types of fish!” so I followed the signs. It was not like Seattle. Instead it was PETA's worst nightmare. Imagine PetSmart took all their invontory and instead of housing them in tanks inside a building that are neat and orderly, they individually bagged fish in water and just had piles of them everywhere on the streets and sidewalks, hanging from clips, on top of each other and directly in walkways. We aren't just talking goldfish but stingrays and eels and pufferfish and all manner of other aquatic animals just piled together in the hot sun. and thousands of them. Thousands upon thousands. There is no way that the can accurately keep up with each bag and I can't imagine how many fish die from not getting new oxygen-rich water each day. Seriously, it was insane.

And then as I kept walking through the Fish Market waiting for it to end, I stumbled upon the rest of the animal fare. Puppies, kittens, hedgehogs, pigs, birds of all variety, lemurs, squirrels, flying squirrels, you name it they had it and were selling it to you. To their credit most of the smaller animals actually seemed well cared for and weren't stuck in awful cages. However, they were also selling an assortment of larger animals which were really getting screwed over. There were multiple gigantic turtles 3+ feet wide that were kept in cages literally the exact size of them and though the baby pigs had a nice pen, the sow could barely turn in her cage. Seriously PETA, step your international game up. So after walking through animal Alcatraz, it was getting pretty late and I decided to head home to grab dinner. Nothing else really exciting happened Saturday as I was too tired and hungover that night to go back out with my South African friends so I crashed kinda early.

I was going to write about the rest of the weekend but this post is already almost 3000 words so I think I'll end it here and update again tomorrow with the rest of my most recent adventures. Back to work on Monday, hoping to start really making a difference this week. Thanks for reading. Hope its not too long/boring and feel free to comment.

Jed