Christmas in Bangkok

The trip began with an early morning flight from
Busan, South Korea to Bangkok, Thailand on Christmas day.

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The increased security measures for Thai Air
really hit home when they forced us to check our
bowling balls, bowling pins, tent stakes and power tools!

Christmas breakfast at the airport:
Spicy beef soup for Judy and Kimchi Jjigae for Andrew

Excuse me, can you tell me which way to the waiting room for monks?

They drive on the opposite side in Thailand, who knew?

This is just a taste of the finger-painted
art that filled the inside of our taxi.

The Immfusion - Sukhumvit
Our home while in Bangkok

Through the front door, looking at the front desk

Looking back from the front desk

A fleet of Thai motorcycle taxis

A Buddhist shrine in the parking lot of a Tesco

Judy posing with the bizarre Christmas decorations
at the Siam Paragon shopping center

Yes, behind the cowboy and cowgirl,
that Mexican fir tree is playing the guitar for those African children...

It looks like this Mexican fir tree prefers Europeans

The Christmas lollipop/snowflake display at Siam Center

A tree made of toys hanging in Ziploc bags

Views of the complex system of Skytrain rails,
pedestrian bridges, and elevated sidewalks and roads
that fill the sky in the Siam area of Bangkok.

This picture would have been much better
had the bald jerk kept his dumb bald head out of the frame.

Street Food!
Crispy pancakes filled with fruit and/or meat (maybe?)

This was rice with pork, sausage, shrimp,
onion, egg and chili peppers

Judy's meat on a stick

Thai school boys in their uniforms

A Tuk Tuk taxi

MBK Center
Basically an indoor designer knockoff market

Since it was Christmas, we stopped and split
a crispy chicken burger made by the jolly old man himself.

Santa's chicken burger was good, but not quite enough,
so we headed to Food Avenue.
Our next Christmas day snack was falafel and a lamb and lentil soup.

The Lonely Planet recommended that
tourists avoid the public buses. Their reasoning
was immediately obvious once we saw one.

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On Day 2, we got up early and headed for the
Chatuchak Weekend Market on the other side of town.
This market, only open Fri-Sun, is the largest market in the world.


Views of the hotel in the early morning light

The swimming pool

Not sure what this bed in the lobby is used for...

The Chatuchak Weekend Market

There is pretty much a knockoff of
everything ever made being sold here

The crappy magnet booth!

Those are not weird glazed doughnuts on the left,
those are one of many crazy Thai fruits.

And another fruit we've never seen before

sexy soup mama

The soup lady we finally went with

Don't remember the name of this one, but it was delicious.
The floating balls were pork and we never had a clue
what the small, grapenut-looking things were.

Phad Thai

Some sweet old cruisers

Of all the businesses Rod could have combined,
he finally settled on these...

Creepy

A Thai Throne

Even though it was the world's largest market,
we didn't take too many photos because it was
crowded, a little scary, and extremely hot.


The heat was so bad in Bangkok that we'd have to
be somewhere with A/C by 11:30 or 12 each day.

About the only things with air conditioning in the
city were shopping malls, so shopping we did!

Back at the Siam Paragon

Tributes like this to the King are everywhere in the city

Some more Christmas decorations


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That evening, on a friend's recommendation, we headed to
Moon Bar at Vertigo, atop the Banyan Tree Hotel
to sip on some cocktails and take in the Bangkok sunset.

Bangkok is freaking huge!

And smoggy as hell!

Deciding on a cocktail

Smog and the skyline

Self timer pic

We also had the waitress snap a pic

There's that sunset

Once the sun went down, we hurried out of the Banyan
Tree in search of linen pants before the stores closed.

(To set the record straight, we did not want the linen pants,
they were a necessity. All temples and Buddhist sites require
visitors to wear pants, and even in the 'cool' Thai
mornings it's still far too hot for jeans.)

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The next morning (donning our new linen) we boarded the
Chao Praya Express bound for the Grand Palace,
the Emerald Buddha and the Reclining Buddha.

The long boats that are available for hire

Aboard the Express


The banks of the Chao Praya,
which snakes it's way through much of the city.

The boat dropped us off on a dock connected
to a small meat and produce market.

Yummy

This looks like a trustworthy chef

We came across these food vendors just in time for breakfast

Two Tom Yums before 10 AM!

Tom Yum was the majority of Andrew's diet while in Thailand.
It is a shrimp and mushroom soup flavored
with lemongrass, lime and chilies.
Dee-licious!

A Thai pigeon lady

The Grand Palace

This entire compound was unreal

The incredibly intricate details and the copious amounts of gold leafing
made it seem fake, like something created by Walt Disney.

The gold thing is Phra Si Rattana Chedi.

It is considered the most sacred Stupa on the
compound, containing the most sacred Buddha relics.

And it's not solid gold either, it's covered with tiny golden tiles

Two sexy chicken ladies

Prasat Phra Thap Bidon
(The Royal Pantheon)

Warriors bearing the weight of the monument

Heeeey...
(Wat Phra Kaew in the background)

Prasat Phra Thap Bidon again

So much gold, so little time

Any surface not leafed in gold was covered with mosaic

Warriors protecting the perimeter of the temple

Us, in our linen pants, outside Wat Phra Kaew,
the temple containing the Emerald Buddha.

We bought our linen pants from a booth in a market,
so they were actually more like linen scrubs.
Yep, really nice...

Could not figure out what was housed in this building

Killer hats, ladies! An excellent choice for sightseeing.

Judy made a friend

Chakri Maha Prasat Hall and Dusit Hall

Andrew & Dusit Hall

Don't these skinny men look intimidating?

After the Grand Palace, we headed to Wat Pho
to take a gander at the Reclining Buddha.

This thing is huge! 46 meters long and 15 meters high.

Wat Pho is also home to more than
1,000 golden Buddha statues like these.

The largest Stupa (structure containing
Buddhist relics) within the grounds.

Decorated with an amazing floral mosaic.

These things are crazy

A close-up of the floral pattern

A couple of monks playing in the bushes

Sweet pose, Judy!


After a walk around Wat Pho, we were too hot,
so we headed back to the Chao Praya Express.

Another temple compound

And another...

A golden pagoda

Once we got off the Express, we hired this
Tuk Tuk to take us back to the Skytrain station.

All the taxis in Bangkok are brightly colored Toyota Corollas.
It was awesome!

In search of a French restaurant,
we ended up in the Patpong neighborhood.

Luckily, it was during the day, because the Patpong area becomes
the heart of the Bangkok flesh trade once the sun goes down...

No hustle and no hassle at Gold Finger's!

The glare from the sun makes this one
hard to read,but this bar is named:
Pussy Collection

Super Pussy!!!

Super Scary

Nothing says 'sanitary' like a stray cat living on
a street full of strip clubs and prostitute bars...

Does this mean that in the Thai translation of Pinocchio,
he becomes a ladyboy instead of a real boy?

A health drink made of "100% cave nest"

Andrew shooting his bird nest drink outside Super Pussy.

The company's other health drink was called,
"Essence of Chicken."

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That evening, we had the pleasure of witnessing Calypso Cabaret,
an all ladyboy cabaret show at the Asia Hotel.

The show was pretty incredible. It ended with an amazing
rendition of Mariah Carey's, "All I Want For Christmas Is You."

A Judy sandwich on two hot slices of ladyboy

Andrew got to pose with one of the scariest ones in the show...

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We spent our last day in Bangkok with a hired driver.
He drove us outside the city to the Damnernsaduak Floating Market,
the Cobra Show and the Samphran Elephant Ground & Zoo.

In route to the floating market in our hired long boat

We were flying through these narrow, cement lined canals

On the way to the market,
we made a pitstop at coconut sugar farm.

If you're curious, this tells you 'How to do' and 'How to made' it.

A badass Honda

The view from our seat aboard long boat T 21

The spice dealer

Tourist crap dealers

The hat boat

The spring roll boat

And the meat on a stick boat

We think this woman selling fried noodles has
whitening cream smeared on her face, but we're not certain.

Proud Captain

Another booth selling tourist crap. Sadly,
the market has become more a tourist trap than
an actual market, but it was still cool.

Traffic Jam

That woman wearing the lamp shade is selling fruit

These outboards are insane

Lookin' Good!

So many tourists and so many boats

Heading back

A water monitor sunning itself on someone's dock.

Repairing the restraint wall

These two pictures would be good ones if it
weren't for Andrew's leg sticking out like that.

Our driver offered to take us to ride elephants,
but it ended up being a circle around this parking lot on
these poor, sad elephants, so we decided against it.

With the elephant ride crossed off the itinerary,
it meant straight to the Cobra Show!
(another attraction we should have avoided)

A sad pit filled with far too many snakes that
hasn't been cleaned in God knows how long

Poor Guy...

All the cages were dirty and inadequate. It was really sad.

Let the show begin!

The cobra wrestling was just as sad and uncomfortable as the cages.

The saddest part of the Cobra Show was that we
seemed to be the only ones to notice how terrible it was.



After the Cobra Show, we headed to the Samphran
Elephant Ground & Zoo to catch the Elephant Theme Show....

An ancient Thai battle depicted in pewter

Elephant theme show, crocodile wrestling
and a ghost castle all to the right?

Seems too good to be true...

Raingirl finally got to ride an elephant!

Sweet paint job on this BMW

She means business

A preview of the Elephant Theme Show
painted on a T-shirt at the gift shop.

A full crowd

A family of three all in Simpsons shirts!

Let the show begin!

You know you've made it as a footballer
when an elephant impersonates you.

Fernando Torres, of the Spanish national team,
is seen here spinning his trunk.

He shoots...

And he scores!

Nothing is more adorable than a line of elephants walking tail in trunk.

After the soccer match, the elephants changed outfits
and reenacted the art of ancient Thai warfare.

After the Elephant Theme Show, we headed to another arena
to watch some crocodile wrestling...

Two sleazy Eastern Europeans!

It was about as sad as the Cobra Show

This part was pretty sweet though...
It was the Crocodile Mile Slip-N-Slide, but for real.

Self Timer

Didn't have the timer quite right

That's better

Coolest paddle boats EVER!

Our driver

Each night in Bangkok we passed this street meat
cart outside the hotel that sold frogs, and Andrew
said he was going to try it everyday, so the last night, he had to.
It tasted great, but the woman just hacked it up and left
all the bones, so it was more work than it was worth.

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The next morning, we headed back to the airport to go south
and spend the rest of our vacation on the beaches of Phuket...