Back to Bangkok - Patpong Road and Swensen's ice cream!

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Sadly enough, it was time to leave Hanoi. The happiest part of this, however, was knowing that we would soon be checking out of the cigarette-stenched Camellia Hotel -- for all eternity! Before doing this we hurried over to "Paris Deli" -- an early 19th century-styled French restaurant we noticed the night before (running away from the hideous-looking "breakfast" the Camellia lackeys were setting up in their "lobby"!) to sample some so-so pain au chocolat and ok French-press coffee. We then hunted down an ATM and went back to the hotel to pay our bill (which turned out to be less than we thought!). We weren't sure whether or not the taxi to the airport ride was included when we paid our hotel bill as there was a bit of a language barrier. To add to our anxiety was the fact that our taxi had not one but two uniformed dudes in the car -- maybe one was a "fare-enforcer"? No worries as the Hanoi drivers proved once again to be more honorable than their transit-counterparts to the south -- there was no arguing over fare, no lies uttered; the driver got us to the airport, helped us with our bags, wished us a good journey, smiled and left us intact.

Our flight to Bangkok on Air Asia was an interesting one. Laura scored cheap tickets and once we boarded the plane we could see why--it was a total cattle car! The flight had a seat configuration that we'd never seen before and there were print ads around the interior of the plane for a Thai period movie. Needless to say, Laura put her hands together and started praying!

We made it safely back to Bangkok alright but still had hotel arrangements to work out. We had left messages the night before at the "D&D Inn" -- a Khao San Road establishment that Shane (from the Halong Bay trip) had recommended but never heard back. We scoped out some other hotel options from one of our travel books and started making some calls once we got into the airport. We were able to make reservations at a place called the Boonsiri Place Hotel which was not only close to Khao San Road but was affordable and had nice looking rooms. We withdrew some Thai Baht for our last night's stay. Sadly we couldn't exchange any of our Vietnamese Dong which we discovered was worthless to the Thai people (the woman in the money exchange shop actually laughed when she saw these bills!).

We exited the calm of the baggage claim area to the maelstrom of chaos that was the entrance to the airport where all the taxis, limos, and transportation shysters hung out waiting for their prey. We had a plan to find the legitimate taxi stand but there were so many charlatans that it took us a while to figure out what to do. In the meantime, Laura discovered that she had left her ATM card in the ATM machine back by the baggage claim. Expecting the worst, Laura ran back only to find that her card was nowhere to be found. The helpful attendant at the money exchange window next to the ATM said that the card had probably been sucked back into the machine and cut up. Laura made some calls to our bank only to discover that nothing could be done because their computers were down! Thoroughly pissed, we decided there was nothing else to do but call back later as the bank advised. URGH!

We managed to find the legit taxi stand (not easy to find but worth the hassle) and gave the driver the address to our hotel. He didn't recognize the name and looked confused as to the address. It took him awhile to find it. Finally we got to our destination. Arriving at the Boonsiri was like giving food to a starving man -- actually, we felt like we were millionaire rockstars living it up in luxury compared to the barebones Camellia in Hanoi. No complaints here as we wandered about our large, incredibly clean, nicely-decorated, kingsized-bed, AC room! It just goes to show you the luck of the draw in not booking ahead -- sometimes you can be incredibly lucky, but sometimes you aren't. We will definitely keep this in mind for our next trip. See brochure photos on left for an idea of our room!

Once settled into our excellent space we decided to make the most of these last hours in Bangkok. We wanted to go to a famous jazz-club that we didn't have time to check out on our "first" time in town. The very accommodating lady at the front desk helped Laura call the club to make sure they were open before we paid for a taxi ride to that part of town. No answer. Then the desk clerk told us the bad news -- the Thai Monarch's sister had just died -- most, if not all - clubs would be closed for the rest of the weekend!

One bit of good luck -- Laura checked her bank balance on the hotel computers -- no bank mischief had occurred!

Since it looked like our clubbing night wasn't going to happen we decided to check out the action on nearby (and world-famous, see this link) Khao San Road. We were hoping that the passing of the King's sister didn't mean a temporary ban on alcohol but that would be consistent with our Thai luck!

We strolled over toward Khao San Road and realized just how close we were. In fact, we recognized the main drag that we had to cross to get to Khao San Road as being one we had
driven on during our previous stay in Bangkok. When we got to our destination, Charles decided to give his on-going contact lens solution quest one more try by going to a promising looking pharmacy/drug store called Boots (quite old and well-known in the UK). Laura was also in desperate need of lotion. Boots saved the day! Charles was shocked to finally find his solution after having searched for it in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Yes, it's the little things like this that seem significant when you're halfway around the world!

These small yet necessary items taken care of, we walked down the crowded street. There are street vendors selling everything imaginable from bootleg CDs to fake I.D.s (any occupation you want!) to knock-off designer clothing to women dressed up in Hmong garb (or were they really Hmong???) selling sculptural objects that made frog sounds--all of this surrounded by loud music, tons of tourists and locals watching tourists, neon lights, and tons of bars, bars, bars, restaurants, internet cafes and more bars. Imagine the Venice boardwalk times 1 million to get an idea of the insanity. We made our way through the crowds and touristy tchotchke stalls to an outdoor restaurant Charles had noticed the first time around that looked intriguing. We started walking up the steps to the hostess' station when some guy yelled to us, in a commanding voice, "I'm sorry, your kind just can't be served here!"

Ha! It turned out to be SHANE -- the smoke jumper/firefighter from our Halong Bay trip! It was a shock to see him but apparently he had flown in a few hours earlier. After inviting Shane to sit with us, we grabbed a table and quickly ordered since we were starving. While hoisting a few beers (and Laura sinking her teeth into some much-desired Thai curry), Shane told us about his time in Vietnam prior to meeting up with us in Halong Bay. Much of it was similar to our experience in the south with the terrible customer service and dishonest vendors. "Don't these people realize," Shane asked, "that if they continue to treat tourists like this eventually people are going to go elsewhere?" He went on to tell us some horror stories about his treatment with some hotel operators south of Hanoi. Did not sound fun.
Much more entertaining was our discussion of how we would spend the next few hours. Shane thought it would be his duty to show us around the legendary Patpong Road since we had not been there and he was familiar with it. To everyone's surprise, Laura seemed most keen on checking this out. If you have not heard of what happens on this road, go here. Basically this is the "Tijuana" part of Bangkok -- lots of vendors selling anything from bootleg copies of films that had just been released in theaters (somehow "I Am Legend" made it to DVD here while still playing in theaters everywhere else!), the obligatory t-shirts (damn, why didn't we get any??), jewelry, leather goods, textiles, food and, of course the, ahem, "strip clubs." We walked around the chaotic streets as every type of vendor tried to get us to buy their wares or enter their club. Finally, we entered one which Shane selected as being "less of a ripoff" than the others. After negotiating a price we entered.

And what bizarre sights greeted us indeed... Nothing like "Showgirls" type of women gyrating to upbeat disco music -- this was more like listless zombie-women half-heartedly moving in slo-mo to some ghastly Thai-pop. As soon as we sat down a crew of half a dozen women swarmed us. They were workers at the club who wanted to see what "services" they could "offer." Even Laura did not escape their attention as they complimented her Western-looks and asked if she "needed anything." Alas, she didn't, and, after seeing that Laura and Charles were an item they turned their attentions to single-man Shane who had a good time rebuffing their advances.

The "Lady-boys" went on stage next -- a bunch of pre-op tranny dudes who looked pretty lady-like to the untrained eye. Charles had to use the restroom at this point which was near the dressing room of the dancers but luckily everyone was either on stage or getting their makeup ready!

Having had enough of the show (and especially after Shane made an unfortunate gesture at one of the ladyboys on stage) we decided to make an exit. We were all pretty exhausted from our respective journeys and wondered how to end the evening. To our shock we spotted something we haven't seen in a good 5 years -- a Swensen's ice cream parlor! Who would have guessed that such a symbol of a kinder, innocent time would be stuck in such a corrupt, decadent area? Ah, the contradictions of capitalism... Laura was in her delight as she ordered her old fave... the Chocolate Ring-a-Ding (could it get any better than this?!). The interior of the Bangkok Swenson's looked EXACTLY like the interiors of the ones that used to be in Los Angeles. Interestingly enough, none of the ones we used to frequent exist anymore, so who would have thought that we'd find one halfway around the world? Laura is considering moving to Bangkok for this reason alone!
But the night's seedy adventures were not quite over. After saying our goodbyes and bon voyages to Shane, we walked back to our hotel. The street leading to the Boonsiri Place was pretty empty and dark but did not feel dangerous. We started seeing a solitary woman here and there, and gradually the closer we got to our hotel the more scantily-clad the women started appearing along with tuk-tuks and cabs driving around, so we came to the realization that the area around our hotel was a hooker hang out! Nothing like ending our stay in Thailand with a Sunday night of sluts, strippers, souvenirs and Swenson's!