After Terry and Rita had departed for the UK, we took the Skytrain to the east of the city to Lumphini stadium, one of 2 big Muay Thai stadiums in the city, and tonight was a big fight night. Westerners pay 5 times as much for entrance than locals, which is to be expected I suppose, but the locals spend their cash betting large amounts and the atmosphere is incredible as the fights heat up. There were 10 fights on the night, and this seemed to be the one place in Thailand that isn't on 'Thai-time' because as soon as the winner of the last fight had cleared the stage, the next fighters were on stage going through their routines and spiritual dances. The fights can be brutal; fighters score more points the higher up their opponent's body they can hit with their knees and legs. In 3rd class seating, we met a local Thai man who supported Man Utd and had apparently been told by his wife to stop gambling and come home with his winnings! The last fight of the night was between two children they looked about 12 but still could pack a punch.
Now normally I would abide by the 'what goes on in Bangkok, stays in Bangkok' rule. But in the spirit of writing this blog, I think you need to know what happened next! But don't read the next 2 paragraphs if you don't want to...
On the way back we walked through Patong, intrigued by the main sex district in Bangkok - we hadn't even entered the area and we were being shown menu cards with 'Ping pong show' as the top item! And the girls (and boys) 'representing' the main bars were all dressed in the same uniform of the colour of their bar. I guess it makes it easier to pick your favourite type for the night by the colour of their outfit.
To cut to the chase, we thought we'd see what all the fuss was about and put it this way, if you've heard what they do with ping pong balls, consider what they could do if the ping pong ball was swapped for razor blades... and then said woman proceeded to cut out a man and woman out of paper with said blades! And she was 50! And it didn't stop there... there was a whistle, a cigarette, a glass coke bottle and birthday candles on a cake! You don't need to see ping pong balls when you've seen all of that. Needless to say we scarpered before anything worse happened.
On Wednesday Wat Pho was our first destination, as we each nursed slight hangovers, aiming to even out the balance of different 'cultural' experiences! This temple is pretty impressive, especially the 46m long gold reclining bhudda, the world's largest apparently. On our way back to the hotel, we strolled through China town, a maze of streets with every kind of stall you could need- everything from clothes and shoes to piles and piles of wedding favours to speakers and stereos for your tuk-tuk to guns and gun sights. On one road, the locals (both men and women) were having their whole faces 'threaded'. Through out the area men were selling seemingly precious lockets. It really was like being back in China, and thankfully didn't feel too much like a well trodden tourist path.
Last night we got dressed up, out of our flip flops for the first time in a while, and went to the rooftop bar at the Banyan Tree hotel for some cocktails overlooking the city - another one of our wedding presents.
By the way, we've been told that if you wish to comment on our blog, sign up requires you to have a google mail account, as blogspot is owned by Google. Hope that helps!
No comments:
Post a Comment