One Night In Bangkok Makes A Lard Man Crumble

One of the major things that struck me about the food courts in Bangkok, is the abundance of that very haram meat. There's virtually no escape!!! I wonder where the Jewish people eat.

That aside, Bangkok is really quite a culinary paradise. Lots of good food, and very cheap too, wherever you turn. A lot like here really, people seem to live to eat. My kinda place. Thanks to air asia's free ticket giveaway sometime last year, we managed to get to and from bangkok for a total of RM356, airport taxes, for two, return!!! Now if that is not a steal, I don't know what is. And, accommodation courtesy of dear old friends, Bangkok Lawyer working for Swiss company, made it a really economical holiday. Food, glorious food, and lots of it. The only BAD meal we had was the "buffet" lunch on board the barge which was part of the tour package for our trip to historical Ayuthayya.

Evil Twin happened to be in town on Thursday, so met up for dinner with him, together with Mrs Bangkok Lawyer, and other half, in some restaurant in Emporium. Leon Lai had suggested I buy local prepaid phone card for cheaper sms-es, but it still worked out to nearly RM1 per pop, for a thai to msian number. But at least the prepaid card made me mindful of the unnecessary sms-es and the accumulated sms bill, unlike when we were in Hong Kong last year, and spent RM200 on sms-es alone. (each was RM1.60 per pop, on roaming).

Evil Twin and Me

This is an embarrasing confession, but the first night, after dinner, we hungout at Carrefour....check out the humongous durians...nice to look at only, but Thais eat theirs really dry and hard.

Day 2 saw us waking up yet again at some ungodly hour, to catch the tour to the historical capital, Ayuthayya. It's actually quite a good tour, coz it covers a bit of everything, the usual mandatory WAT, (temple), which housed supposedly one of the largest bronze Buddhas in Thailand, 12m high. Then there was the ruins, of the old capital, which was well worth seeing, and finally the modern Summer Palace.

WAT chamayacallit

Stupa -fied

Pimping the Pachyderms

Historical Ayuthaya

The tree trunks that have grown around this old water tower

Spectacular old ruins

Took this because of the interesting name of the Princess, which means something intriguing in Malay. "Dara Rasmi - Official Virgin"

The scenic summer palace....part of the grounds.

That was day 2 gone. Dinner again with Mrs Bangkok Llawyer, as Mr was still overseas. To work of the heavy dinner, we walked a bit.....

DAY 3, Bangkok Lawyer had arrived earlier in the morning, from Beijing. Headed for our favourite breakfast joint, Au Bon Pain, which sells the loveliest bagels, with bacon and eggs. Their adorable little girl came along too. Shopped a bit in Emporium, had vietnamese beef noodles for lunch, yummy, followed by ice cream, followed by massage.....(the third in the trip).
Another scrumptious dinner in Chinatown....courtesy of Bangkok Lawyer. Feel really bad doing a "Sponge Bob...." (ie, sponging off Bangkok Lawyer). I did offer to bake him something.

After dinner, we went jalan jalan in Patpong. The range of fakes isn't as good, I feel, compared with our petaling street. Pimps abounded, selling tiger shows, etc etc...

By this time, the rest were tired, so dropped me off to meet my Nestle friend, in this pub called the Dubliner. Alas, Nestle friend was nearly an hour late, but it was worth waiting, coz after that, he and his friend, the L of YSL, whisked us off to Q Bar on Soi 11, very very happening place, packed like sardines, predominantly with Europeans. Apparently all the "local" girls there were available...talk about your proverbial meat market. I found it a bit demeaning, but nevertheless, it was a great experience. I expected a bar brawl to ensue when a russian prost threw a drink at one of the swiss guys in our group. He was surprisingly gentlemanly about it, and didn't retaliate.....


Got back at 3.30am!!! (not before L brought us around to see if there were any other spots opened...apparently Q bar has to shut at 2am coz they don't pay the police enough).

DAY 4 - Breakfast with hangover...... and back home!!!!