Whats Next?

I came back from my amazing vacation on Tuesday night at 2:00am. From what i was aware of (what Infosys has told me), was that i would be leaving for Bangalore on Wednesday. From the airport i get a call and i find out that our trip has been delayed due to transferring of documents. Now my move is scheduled for Sunday at 3:00pm. I'm not really too shocked that things would change so quickly and in this case it worked out because i wasn't in any mood Tuesday night to pack up to move.

I'm pretty excited to be moving to a bigger city and to finally start some real production work, but unfortunately only 1 other person is moving there with me. The rest of the batch who has completed the training is staying in Mysore and 1 or 2 are going elsewhere.

They initially wanted us to take a train to Bangalore, but we were able to convince them otherwise. Currently I'm half packed... I hate packing so much.

Last night was fun when a bunch of us all went out for mine and Bill's last hurrah in Mysore. We went to Planet X and stayed there till it closed.

Next post will include pics of Bangalore DC and what I'll be doing.
BTW I have uploaded some movie clips from the Bangkok vacation.

I <3 Bangkok

Please be aware before i write about my vacation in Bangkok that i may use words not appropriate for anyone under the age of 16. Also I will probably forget a few things so this post will have version numbers and revisions blocked off. Current Version: 1.0

With that said, after the 6 days in Bangkok, i can honestly say that Bangkok is the best city in the world.

It started last Wednesday after work at 5pm. Flowers, Luis, Mike, and myself took a seat in our cab and took off for the Bangalore Airport. We arrived earlier than expected at 9:30pm and was at our gate by 10:30. Unfortunately, Bangalore airport is very small and only had a Cafe Coffee Day to relieve us of our hunger since we had no dinner. Our flight left as planned at 12:30am on Thursday. Sleep was difficult because we were extremely excited to finally get away from work, Mysore, and India all together.

We arrived on schedule and with the time difference it was about 5 in the morning. The airport was huge and looked very similar to Hethrow in London with its architecture. We were able to take a cab to our hotel for 450 Bahts. Not a bad price for a 30 minute cab split between 4 people with the exchange rate being 1USD = 34 BAHT.

We noticed a few great things once we got into the cab, the first being A/C. Yes just like in any 1st world country, all the vehicles came standard with A/C.. unlike India. Next... REAL HIGHWAYS. We topped 120Kmph in a sweet pink Toyota Corolla which is the standard taxi cab. These highways didn't have any random speed bumps or animals running across the road... nor were there any vehicles going in the opposite direction in your lane.

The trip was about to take a turn for the worse when we were taken to the Unico Grand Hotel in Silom which is the hotel we thought we had made arrangements, but realized that the Unico hotel we were really booked in was the Unico Leela Inn Hotel which is in the Sukhomvit area. We were put at peace though when we got to our booked hotel and saw our nice rooms with our amazingly comfortable beds. I stress these comfy beds as coming from the beds in India that don't use box spring mattresses, it was heavenly.

It was about 8am when we settled in and got ready to go out and explore. Mostly everything was closed still, but we passed a ridiculous number of 7-11 stores. There is about 1 every 2 blocks which is convenient for getting you necessary liquids. Among 7-11, there were also many other US chains including Starbucks, Dun kin Donuts, Outback Steakhouse, Dairy Queen, Burger King, Subway, McDonalds, Pomodoro, Tony Romos, and ToysRus. First place we went into was a coffee house to feed our coffee addictions. We went to a local chain coffee show called Nero Coffee or something to that extent.

We stopped in a 7-11 to see how it compared to the US's and it was pretty similar. Once outside we were encountered by a taxi driver who right away seemed very outgoing. He looks at our fat friend Mike and rubs his belly and says.. "He big.. he a good fuck!" We all broke out laughing and knew this was going to be a funny trip. We continued to walk around for a few more hours exploring the city. Eventually it was lunch time and we walked around to find a nice burger joint. We ended up in some mall and at the "Garage". Below is a mini replica of the mall and i was amazed on how huge that place was. Its called "Central World" and it is bigger than any mall i have been to in America.

We had our first pitcher of Singha local beer and each had bacon cheeseburgers.

After lunch we were getting tired and decided to go home and take a quick nap. On our way back home we would pass by shops and there were girls asking if we wanted a massage every block. The way they said it was the funniest part and i will try to imitate it... "massaaaaaaaaaaage" in a whiny voice. So the rest of the trip was a quote fest of us saying.. " you want massaaaaaaaage?" Every cab we ever stepped into always showed you a Thai bath house and offered you to go to it. The whole Thai culture is very laid back about their sexuality. So laid back that every place you go to eat or shop your would see white guys and their Thai escorts. It was almost felt weird because we didn't have any.

Walking around the streets was fantastic for a guy. The hot girl to total girls ratio was better than America. Thai has the most beautiful Asian women in my opinion and they were all skinny, short, and cute. We talked to one particular tourist who is from the Netherlands and he said he has come to Thailand for the past 20 years every month. He told us that if you really want to get a prostitute you can get anyone.. whether it is a bartender, ticket person, worker... which led us to believe that these girls work in the shops and then at night as a secondary job, try to pick up business on the streets. At night you walk down any street and they have these outside cafeteria places where you can buy beer and food and try to pick up girls sitting at other tables. The girls were pretty classy looking though, so i think most do it so they can buy their nice bags or some use it to pay through college. This made them look like ordinary girls and even sometimes very classy. Very unlike of what we think of prostitutes in America as crack ho's... excuse my slang.

Now if you wanted to get a girl at a bar you would also have to pay a bar fee and pay her for her services, so if i can say that there is anything bad about Bangkok it is that. We were all afraid to dance with girls because we didn't want to pay for anything so ridiculous. Another negative is that there were all these girls at every club or bar. Even when we went to an expensive place which had a 600 Baht cover with 2 drinks free, they were still in there. I think the girls get in for free and get money from the bar fees if they pick up. So 90% of the club was prostitutes, but they never initiated any transactions if you can call it that.

Back to Thursday night, we pregamed a bottle of Johnny Walker Red between 4 of us and went out and asked a cab to take us to a club.

We later realized that it was Buddha's BDay on Thursday and most clubs were closed. We went to 1 and had some drinks. We retired early that night to catch up on some sleep.

Friday morn we got up and got some coffee and enjoyed our free complimentary breakfast that we only were able to get up for twice. We got into a cab to try to see the Grand Palace. We got dropped off in front and that area was packed with a big market. We looked around and decided to get lunch before going in. We had some nice Thai noodles. We asked the waiter what time the palace was open till and he said we had 2 hours left so we quickly hurried out. Right as we left the door, he told us we needed pants to go in. So we ditched the palace idea and got talked into taking a gondola ride. We wanted to do that anyway so we went on it. He took us around and through the canals and we saw a couple of temples and fed some fish on the way. The whole trip was only about 1 and a half hours and we felt like we got ripped off in price, but no matter we did it. Below is a pic of me and flowers when we stopped in front of one of the temples.

Another funny story about our big friend Mike.. while getting on and off the gondola, he managed to rip his shorts in half down the seem in the middle. It was comical, but he refused to let us take a picture of it.

BTW I have more pictures of the everything on webshots and some video as well.

We started the gondola ride from the palace area and our exit stop was down in Silom. We walked out and explored some more.. stopping for more coffee as well. We walked around some more until we got tired at 5ish and decided to go back to the hotel and get ready for the night. We went and got some dinner. After dinner was clubbing time again. We went to Q-Bar which was expensive but OK. Met some white girls who were coming from Bangladesh and know of our sorrows living in a 3rd world country with nothing to do. We spent the whole night there and then went back home.

Saturday morning we were once again determined to go to the Grand Palace now wearing pants. We got in the cab and he told us that there was a police meeting and the palace was closed.. we believed it and later found out he was lieing. Oh well.. instead we decided to go to get food and then get a Thai massage. We found a place and got them down to 1500 Baht total for 4. The girls weren't that attractive but knew what they were doing. We had the massage for an hour and a half and felt really good afterwards.

We continued walking and exploring a different area again. We must have walked about 5-10 miles easy everyday just exploring. We shopped a bit and then got home to get ready for dinner. We wanted some American food and went to a Cajun place. The food was amazing and we played some darts before we went out.

After dinner Luis had a friend working in Bangkok and called her to see if she knew a good place to go out and she told us to go to Kao Sao road. Here we saw many tourists and clubs. None were really all that impressive or good, but we still had fun. We got bored after a few hours and decided to go see the all famous sex shows that the city is known for. I wont get into details of what i saw unless you ask me, but it was quite funny. They would perform their act for 5 minutes and then another girl would go on stage and do her act. We stayed for about an hour and a half until the acts started to repeat.

After the show we wanted to do some more scandalous things and went to see how a real whore house really operates. We got taken to 1 and it was so shocking. The girls were sitting in a room with numbers pinned to their clothes and they constantly wink and smile at you while you negotiate a price with the bar lady. We found out that it would cost 2500 Baht to take a girl from the house and this did not guarantee any sex so it seemed really expensive. I don't understand how they would make money because its a lot cheaper to just pick up a girl off the street. Anyway, after we bargained for the fun of it, we took off and went home.

Sunday was another shot to go to the Palace. Once again the taxi driver tried telling us it was some holiday so we could visit a bath house, but we just kept telling him to take us to the Palace. He finally did and what do you know... no holiday or anything. We got in, but they made me get borrowed sweatpants because i had a rip in my jeans. It was free so that's why i have those pants on in my pictures.

The Palace was very interesting and we spent at least 2+ hours there. The Grand Palace was much nicer than any Indian Palace. We tried finding the black market there afterwards, but realized that there is no big outdoor black market and that its all the streets that make the whole city one giant black market. Virtually every street you walk down would have a line of small shops selling lots of copied materials such as watches, sunglasses, jewelry... and more.

We knew if we came to Bangkok that we had to go see Muay Thai boxing at least once. We were able to find 1 stadium that had fights on Sunday so we paid an overpriced ticket of 1000 Baht each to get in to see 7 fights. The fights were cool, but a few of them featured really skinny people weighing in at less than 115lbs. The best fights had the bigger guys of around 140lbs. We only stayed through for 4 fights as we got bored and hungry.

At night we decided to eat at American chain Pomodoro and then set out for a club just like the past few days. You may say the partying was excessive, but we were just playing catch up as there is no such thing as partying in India. While walking another street there were a bunch of bars with girls trying to get your attention for a good time or a massaaaaaaage. We also passed by a bunch of "lady boy" bars. This kinda leads me off tangent for a moment.

These "lady boys" are also pretty prevalent around Bangkok. So i guess there is a big market for them. The funny thing is that they are more touchy than the girls. You would walk and they would touch your ass... and we would laugh when one of us got harassed. We got one to dance for us while we were cracking up.

We were then taken by a cab to a bar called "Hollywood". The bar was HUGE and was one big open space that had circular bar tables and bar stool around them. I would have taken a pic but they wouldn't let you bring a camera inside. The had a pretty good show with a live band playing, while different people came out to sing. They had background dancers and everything there too. I could tell why they wouldn't let you take pics. One act was in fact a "lady boy" signing and it was sooo funny. The crowd loved it and 1 guy gave the he-she a half bottle of whisky and he-she drank a few shots down on stage. Meanwhile Luis in the background is screaming "I love lady booooooooooys" because we have this running gag every time we enter a cab we would say we all want a lady lady, but one wants a lady boy. Most of those were directed towards Mike. So apparently the electric pianist heard Luis yelling and told the lady boy and he-she came towards us and asked for Luis's name. Luis goes up and yells in the mic, "USA loves lady booooys!" It was a riot. We stayed there a couple more hours and then went to another club were we smoke hookah, drank some more, and danced.

Monday was going to be our last full day out. So we walked around and were able to find a giant mall that was filled with black market stores. We were amazed to see a 6 story mall full of copied stuff.

We shopped around there for a bunch of hours... got some DD coffee then proceeded to find a Japanese restaurant because Luis and I wanted to get sushi. We ate the "Kobe Steakhouse" and the food was incredible. Afterwards, we came home and got ready for the night once again pregaming in my room. For our final night we decided to go to the Patpong area which is the most well know area for sex shows, night black market, and go go bars. Since we had already gone to a sex show and shopped at a black market, we wanted to see what the go go bars were like. They were very simple we about 10 girls on stage dancing very plain... just shaking their shoulders waiting for guys to call them by their numbers. After about 20 minutes, they would switch girls. It was kind of boring because they wouldn't get naked, so we went to try a couple of clubs. Most clubs in that area weren't too buys.. probably because it was a Monday. The rest of the night was spent bar hopping until 5am.

Finally Tuesday morning came.. our last half day in Bangkok. We woke up late obviously and went straight to The Outback Steakhouse for our last lunch in Bangkok. Got some food and just walked around a bit more buying some souvenirs before making our way back to get our luggage at about 3pm.

The rest is the return home... which was extremely depressing because we had the best vacations we ever had. So this is where I stop. Hopefully I got through the whole post without missing too much. Ask questions if you want to know more about the culture because that was the most interesting part about Bangkok. Below is a picture off a pedestrian overpass of a local street.... reminds me of America.

I would go back in a heartbeat!