Swamp eels and other highlights of Thailand.
April 6th, 2009
I have been quite slack on the blogging front, but I do have a very good excuse. I have been in Burma (or Myanmar if you want to get technical) for 10 days and just before I arrived in the country the government decided to close down the entire country’s internet for a few weeks so they could do some ‘maintenace’ work. I couldn’t update my blog or check my emails and, worst of all, I couldn’t check the football results (which actually worked out okay because both my football teams – Collingwood and Manchester United – lost!). So, I’ve got a bit of blogging to catch up on. I thought I’d start with Highlights from Thailand and then, in a few days time, I’ll do the Burma Highlights package.
I started my Thailand leg in Patong Beach. Back in 1975 there was only one place to stay. And that was the Patong Beach Restaurant, which offered you ‘a patch on the floor for 11 cents (and a mat to put on it for another 8 cents!). The 1975 Lonely Planet guide says: ‘The two sure signs of a freak centre have already gone up, the “no nude bathing” sign and fruit salad on the menu.’ Well, it sure is still a freak centre (and they still have fruit salad on the menus). The most freakish thing is the sleazy men who watch Thai girls perform tricks with intinate parts of their anatomy. My travelling partner Beth and I strolled down the street past lines of Go Go Girl bars and we were accosted every few metres by men holding up cards with the ‘entertainment’ provided by their prospective ‘club’. On the list were the usual ‘tricks’ involving ping pong balls, cigarettes and marker pens. But there were also ‘tricks’ involving catfish, swamp eels, mice and even ‘knitting’. I talked Beth into going to a show (we were both keen to see the swamp eels) , but she only lasted 8 seconds before we both ran out in disgust. Mind you, watching a woman ‘knitting’ would have been interesting.
After a few days on Phuket we headed to Bangkok where we stayed in two of the original hotels from the 1974 guidebook. The Malaysia Hotel was the No. 1 travellers hotel back in 74 although you had to ‘fight to get toilet paper and your sink may fall off the wall’. The sinks stayed firmly attached when we were there although most of the clientele would have liked to get hold off my pipes. It is now pretty much a ‘gay’ hotel. It was full of men with large moustaches wearing tight little shorts with deep brown tans. I got winked at quite a few times and I caught one guy checking out my bottom.
In Chiang Mai we went a restaurant that was listed in the original guidebook, but it seemed to have moved – and changed it’s name slightly. We asked a tuk tuk driver if he knew where Pat’s restaurant was and he didn’t know but called a friend on his mobile phone who did. The Pat’s from 1974 was ‘near the moat’. We drove over the moat and out of town past the airport and somewhere between Chiang Mai and the Laos border we stopped at a restaurant called ‘Pat Restaurant’. We were the only diners, but the food was nice (and nice and cheap). We did have a bit of trouble getting back into town, though. There were no taxis or tuk tuks in sight and we had to walk along the side of a dark freeway stepping over rubbish and dead dogs. When we stumbled across a taxi driver having a rest in a large supermarket carpark I almost hugged him I was so excited.
So, there are lots more stories from Thailand, but I can’t tell you all of them or you won’t need to buy the book!
On April 10th, 2009 Monique said:
On April 24th, 2009 Vicki said:
On January 30th, 2010 Alan said: