The Vein of Bkk, Chao Phraya River~

Right, so after waiting for quite some time, our limo driver who was late arrived and asked him to pose for me. This is what i got.. XD and yes a lil word of advise, in thailand where tourist are abundant throught out the year, sprung another type of job, i call the the "be freind tour guide". So, youre lost, thinking of asking for directions, come this helpful thai, introduces himself, tells you that he is a professional or eiher some well known profession, directs you, u nod nod nod and nod.. yada yada yada here comes the tuk tuk.. thats it.. you just got cheated for some cheapass tour around BKK which eventually you will have to visit dodgy jewellery shops who obviously sells fake items.

So me countless times in BKK, i always do not miss my chance of being cheated too.. this time thanks to our limo driver jack, well hotel limo (which i thought should be reputed) is jst like the tuks tuks, but u get more comfort and more say in where u wanna go.. it will cost you but its the most comforting way to travel around.. :)

We headed down to the ____________ i forgot.. jeez.. is some wat(temple).. here there is a golden buddha statute which my friend told me that it used to be covered with mud to hide it from being stolen during the war. It wasnt till recently the mud fell off and discovered that it was actually pure gold.. above is a HDR pic and it really shows u the colour of the statute.. its just awesome.

The 3 trios.. Nxt we headed down to the pier for the Chao Phraya River cruise. Now there are 2 kinds of cruise.. one for sights one for dinner.. we thought the dinner would cost a whopping 800 bath p/p so we decided to take the cruise for the sights..and we thought it was cheap it costs us 750 bath p/p for the ride. Now this is where bargaining skills really come in handy, where ever u go in BKK where tourist always end up, BARGAIN~!!.. the whites next to us bargained and got themselves 50 bath per person.. DAMMIT~!!

The cruise wasnt bad, well i wouldnt really call it a cruise, it more like a row boat with a huge ass engine. In the morning, people who like along the river takes these kinds of boats to diff piers along the river to get to work. Now houses in BKK along the river used to be some what liek this but today its all diff with brick houses and satelite dishes poking out of their front porch.

Just shows u how much BKK boomed in a short time.

Basically people who live around here are often stuck in the line of poverty and you will be suprised how much they actually spend a day. I would say roughly around 3 USD.. now thats poverty.

The 1 hour cruise was getting a lil' boring so i started to snap some pics depicting life around the river. We heard of rumours of the fake water market in BKK, now here is it. This guy was paddling towards us the moment he sees us coming and yells " yes? yes? buy buy? water market.." (yea rite)

Afternoon nap.

Babysittin'

I really have no idea.

Then i turned back to my friends they were bored to the bones.

He looks unfulfilled, she looks unsatisfied. ;P

( i dont know why the colour of the picture changes when i upload my photos to Blogspot.. anyone? )

Pat Phong~

Continuing on, after our stuffing our stomach with yummy yummy food we proceeded to Pat phong, well known as the Red light district in BKK. Now, there are many shows (as they call it) that involves both sexes performing really eye opening stunts. Above is one of the streets for male performances just costs bout 250 bath and you will have an eye opener.

Now besides shows or performances truth be told that there is always sex for hire. A street for males and one for females. I didnt feel comfortable photographing the females so i simply took a shot for the sake of it. Of course, no photography for the shows and as you walk by Pat Phong, locals would never fail to say to you "lookie, lookie, cheap cheap XXX show..." haha.. i find it rather amusing with their term 'Lookie Lookie ' which shows how much they try to attract foreign tourist into their shows.

But in Pat Phong is no different than a stip dance I saw in Newcastle, but there are shows which some perceive as disgusts or amusing. Personally, i just think thou the sex industry is one of the main underground tourist attraction for BKK but poverty is just everywhere and it just pushes them to the corner no choice but to fall in the industry which is hard to quit. I read a book once which i recall 'sex slave' which wrote that the statistic for people to fall into this industry cause of poverty is as high as 80%. 10% which go for the money and other 10% i forgot for what reasons. Please tell me is i have misquoted the statistics.

Returning from our tiring first day we collected our keys from the front desk and i just decided to cam whore through the night..;)

As we woke up the next morning, i didnt notice that my friend actually got a pamphlet for massage.. and yes, its by men for men. Hmm i wonder why did he ever got that... ahhaha

Had breakfast, too much energy, too bored waiting for our Limo (yes we travelled by the hotel Limousine) i decided to cam whore again, well its not always the sights that matters eh? ;)
Me and my Bro, travellers, sadly always last minute and always a pleasure to travel with him.. lets Taiwan nxt year~!!

The entourage to BKK with a new addition (one in yellow).. used UWA lens for the fun of it.. looks nice to me thou.. :)

Ever so Selamba (Chillin') during trips...

Our latest addition Datin Jas to the entourage..

Both the last photos are in HDR (tried some portrait HDRs, never knew how`d they look like)

Erawan Shrine~

Right, let me introduce to you. This is the Erawan shrine which is probably the most visited place for locals and for believers. Worshipers flock in to the busy heart of BKK and pay their homage to the 'Four faced god' (dont know the actual name). Probably i have post up the same pictures again and again in my previous post and visits to BKK but i never fail to end up here. The shrine is smack in the middle of BKK where the traffic is the worst, but a simple Tuk Tuk ride for bout 20 bath will get you here in a jiffy. Seen the Bond advert with the Tuk Tuk? yea.. u can actually req them so speed up and you`ll eventually have a Tuk Tuk racing competition.. haaha.. well i`ll skip this cause i have posted bout the shirne previously, just wanted to post new pictures up for completeness sake.

Ahh, some love it some hate it some are used to it. This time i went for the Foot Spa (which actually arent that good) which cost a whopping 800 bath. Clean yea, not so much massage. A short walk outside on the pavement i steped into a puddle of god knows what and there goes my 800 bath and a clean foot. ;(

But it was somethign different this time compare to other traditional massages. Its more spa minus the jacuzzi and lady massues(??). I`ve tried that in Chiang mai and it costs bout 6000 bath and its really somethign to try for when youre on trips. (no i`m not gonna post photos of that)
There are ranges of massages in BKK and make sure you dont pay for the dodgy ones or you`ll end up paying for sex for hire. I dont advise that, but hey BKK is world famous for their sex industries and i`ll come to elaborate more on that later. So a lil' advice, go for the massages in the Wats (temple) and you`ll experience some proper massages. Close to ayurvedic massages, minus the oil therapy.

Next is a lil tummy treat and its always the Tom Yum Gong that we go for. Basically food in BKK you will have to be cautios if you have a weak stomach. Its hard to notice whether the food is prepare hygenically, but its always good to exercise discretion of where you eat. For the first time on the many many times i went BKK i manage to get my stomach upset which is a nono for vacation. (i ate some noodles round the pier, which i dont think noodles are clean as flies always hang around them)

But for Tom yum gong, I always go to this tiny restaurant or more like stall just right behind the alley. Its clean ate it many times and i`m still alive.. ;) to get there take the BTS or skytrain to sala deang. You`ll find it round the corner just underneath the exit. If u cant find it, follow your nose.. :)

[Pic removed on request] ;P

Tom Yum Gong, always the best. But my poor friend ended up with some sore throat or soem sort. ahha will show you our short excursion to the Thai doctors.. haha
(Good expression means good food?) :)

Next we headed to Pat pong, but before that i`ll post some MUG shots of my fellow companions which i missed to put on the net.

Right, so next post, Pat Pong Soi, which means Pat Pong street/road. :)

Chak Tuk Chak Market~

Right, lets continue shall we? Landed, Checked in, stomach growling. We headed down to Chak Tuk Chak Market which is this amazing weekend market where there are more than 1000 stalls around selling food and many many many many cheapo stuffs around. We couldn't wait and the first thing we dump into our stomach is some fun fried stuff all oily and way delicious.

God knows how many time have i been to BKK and the 'pork rice' there just could escape from the list of food i want to eat. Eventually i saved my stomach from the Finger lickin fried food and settled down for this. However, eating in the market really takes a toll on your hygene tollerance because what u dont see is that we had our lunch next to the dump (yes the table is located there). But anything for good food and trust me i can eat this even if i have to stand. :)

After filling our lil tummies (which eventually became really big after the trip) we headed down to the stalls for some shopping. We werent that eager to shop here ( call me a snob) but i just cant take the quality of the goods. On the other hand, there are always cheap handicraft items and whatever nots which you can buy at an alarming cheap price provided you are ready to bargain with the owners.

Toulai= How much, Peng Nai=expensive, and others just comes down to yes yes no no..expenchip expenchip..hahaha

Bargaining in places like this or, Thailand is a must. If you are a local, you dont shop in places like these, which is why prices are always hiked up. But sadly my skills are limited to asking tou lai (how much) and reverted with thai placing me in a confused manner (so much for wanna speak thai. But believe you me, stall owners there are quite fluent with English and will have no problem bargaining with u in English.

Its really hard to take photos in such hot conditions and not to forget to mention that its cramped like sardines inside the alleys. One of the 'whites' actually fainted inside due to the heat and ended up us rescuing her by giving her of whts left of our water.. but i did come across someone, JOhnnY Depp~!!! yea.. at least the thai version.. ahha.. there was performances around the open area but it looked like it was going to rain and CTC has nothign much for us to see so we decided to call it quit and headed for our next destination.

Tau lai=how much

peng nai=expensive

mai dai= no

dai=yes

MCB if no discount given.. hahaha

Backpack Bangkok~

Finally exams are over and Books aside~ 3 of us decided to travel to Bangkok on the very last minute and we flew to Thailand via airasia the next following sunday. It was a 5 days backpack trip to Bangkok, however we ended up spending more and travelled in a rather expensive/posh way. Well i`ll come to that later.

Above is me in the white shirt, and the other 2 are my close buddies who decided to go a trip last minute with me as well.. i took 12 gb of photos for the whole duration of the trip which will cost me some time to process from RAW and to post it up here. The sad news is that work starts on monday and hopefully i will have time to post some pictures up here. :)