bangkok
February 28th, 2005 stevel
is it sad that everytime i think of Bangkok, the first thing that comes to mind is Tom Shane (of the Shane Company commercials we hear on the radio all the time here in the SF Bay Area) talking about how he goes to Bangkok every 3 months to purchase rubies and sapphires?
sad isn’t it?
anyway. so this is the conclusion to my travelog of my month in Taiwan/Southeast Asia. we spent the last 3 days of our travels in Bangkok, Thailand - doing… well, a lot of shopping. Ah Bangkok, home of the 95 degree heat and humidity. home of the wonderful air conditioned shopping malls. home of the INSANELY huge Chaktoochak (I’m sure I misspelled that somehow) open air market. home of countless night markets. home of strangely attractive transvestites.
we didn’t visit a single palace or temple or museum. National Palace? nope. skipped it. Temple of Dawn? nope. skipped it. Lucky Buddha temple? nope. skipped it. seriously, all we did was shop.
we stayed at this great little place called La Residence. what a wonderful place! it was a really cute little hotel with great clean rooms (it’s small, only 24 rooms). it’s run by some great ladies, with some really helpful staff. everyone spoke great English and were really really helpful with lots of local info, and tons of guidebooks/maps to give to us. definitely highly recommended. it’s really close to the Patpong area, 5 min. walk to a BTS station, and is just overall a great place.
upon arriving we went out in search of glasses. 
i finally bought a pair of wrap-around prescription sunglasses (can’t get them in the states w/ my prescription due to optometrists being scared of the liability). and wendy got a pair of eyeglasses.
then we started hardcore shopping. bought lots of great little wooden trays for our house, a gorgeous (and big) wooden vase. we of course bought lots of clothes, and wendy went shoe-crazy. anyway, i won’t dive into it - but suffice it to say Bangkok has some great shopping, and some awesome night markets. bargaining was fun as always, though i think not as fun as in China.
in China, the vendors treat it like a game. they size you up, and then basically throw out a ridiculous #. the Thai do this as well, but they seem to be more serious about it. they really ARE trying to rip you off. whereas the Chinese vendors throw it out and almost have a grin on their face because they know that you know that it’s ridiculous (like the woman who tried to sell Poorna a pair of sandals for 1200 yuan!). anyway, it’s just a vague feeling, but i feel like the Chinese vendors are more fun to bargain with.
my only real negative impression of Thailand is really just that i felt like everyone was out to try and rip me off. i realise i’m an American tourist travelling, and that i will get charged higher than locals - but don’t treat me like i’m stupid. i know that taxis are supposed to start at 35baht, so don’t try and charge me 200 baht to go 2 blocks. really, come on. i would say Thailand is certainly more developed and modernised as a whole than China. Bangkok is by far a more international city than Beijing - but i would have to say that in Beijing, i never felt like i was getting cheated. i don’t mind paying more - it’s natural that i’ll inevitably get ripped off as compared to the locals. it’s no big deal if i’m willing to do it, but what gets me is when people really try to cheat you - and i felt like this happened a LOT in Bangkok.
all in all, would i go back to Bangkok? eh. maybe for a day or two to do some shopping while en route to somewhere else. Thailand was fun, but a little too hot for me. nice beaches, nice resorts - but i think i’d like to go somewhere else next time. more countries to explore!
[tags: Vacation]
1 Comment Add your own
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Steve Owens | November 15th, 2005 at 21:28
Stumbled upon your blog with a Google on “Tom Shane in Bangkok”. They play his goddamned commercials here in Seattle too. !50 times a day. So, I started thinkin’ about how Tom Shane must look (and what is he REALLY lookin’ for) when he stops off that plane in Bangkok.
Now I wanna go there after seeing La Residence. I feel sad that I now envy Tom Shane…
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