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BKK 2012
Day 2, Part 3 - 8th September - Nightlife
For dinner we decided to pick on street food. The taxi fare was 77B according to the meter, but when I accidentally passed the taxi driver 5 x 20B notes, the guy pretended and I had to ask for the extra note back. Bloody hell. In countries where people are honest, one does not need to ask. Of course one can always indulge in victim blaming (even if the drivers refuse to use meters), but that is frowned upon in one other context, which is allegedly the only one where it happens.
I was tempted to call the "Passenger Protection Center"
"buy 1 get 1 free" - in Russian
Sawadee Ronald
To start the evening off, I had a Samurai Pork Burger.
Inside. 68B (128B in a set). The patty was similar to the breakfast sausage (the real one, not the rubbish you find in Singapore).
Interestingly, there was both "tomato" and "American ketchup"
Tomato was lighter in both colour and taste than "American Ketchup". It tasted less processed, and a bit sweeter and nicer.
"What men ♂ really want" - a woman to drag them to a sale?
"It's not just fashion. It's your identity"
A monument to consumerism
Flower vendors for shrine
Idol at Thao Maha Brahma
Amusingly the sign at the front of the Vietnamese embassy was in neither Vietnamese nor Thai - but in English.
THAT'S A MAN, BABY
The size and arrangement of the shopping centres in this part of Bangkok were very vulgar, and to make things worse they were playing some music very loudly
Outdated French cultural festival sign (2007)
Herbal chicken noodles
The dark thing was congealed blood. It was like fresh tofu - fresh-tasting and wobbly.
Crepes with various sweet fillings
Mass Production Pad Thai
There was a ride from the late 90s with a trailer playing on a monitor:
Ymax. Before this there wa sa shot of 3 ladies all in masks
The CGI was more than a decade behind (ergo my dating it to the late 90s)
One course was called 'space hole'. It was a space dogfight. Right.
Banana margarine prata with egg and condensed milk, 40B. It wasn't that cheap.
Various fried stuff: 6B per half wing, and you could choose what you wanted
Pandemonium
Maneki-neko shop
Headache inducing array of Maneki-nekos
I hope the Lucky Cats boosted Kin's business
20B orange juice. The previous day's was better as it had been sweeter and more refreshing
On a shopping centre's screen, there was an amusing ad for Wacoal Must Haves, which I didn't manage to film as it went by quite quickly and the repetition schedule was uncertain. I think this is it:
I don't speak a word of Thai, but although lots of products feature in the ad, I'm quite the "must have" the ad refers to is a pushup bra, like the girl in the ad. Do note also this very suggestive part of the ad:
I checked, and this is NOT the Wacoal logo
When you gotta go you gotta go
Funny ad of people being knocked down. VRZO
His sausage is huge
Squid
I then made my way to Soi Cowboy, a "nightlife" district. I had one and only one aim for the night. I had considered going to Patpong, but apparently it was more dodgy. The compact size of Soi Cowboy (one alley) also helped.
Entrance
There was a dodgy place with 24 hour room rental.
There was a white guy smoking in front of a no smoking sign.
Sin street
"The Old Dutch Corner. The place for steak, burgers and BBQ. Thai menu available"
I had my doubts
"Inside: more ladies than you can handle"
"Family is your life. Drug is evil"
Presumably it's okay to fool around, just don't take drugs
"hotel going to Rise the price
Short time: 400 up to 450 bath
long time: 1300 up to 1400 bath"
Me love you short time?
Amusingly, someone tried to recreate the scene (with limited success):
A very "..." ad
Annoyingly what I had come for was only available at one place, Rawhide, and it was not available until 11pm. I asked another girl and she said it was the only place in the whole stretch that I could get what I wanted. I peeked in and at this time (just before 9) there were just girls doing bartop dancing (the proper sort - nude and in heels, not the crap version you have in Singapore). And they weren't very enthusiastic either, just making slight motions. So I had to kill 2 hours, and that wasn't enough time to look for Baron Sukumvit.
110B Thai Iced Tea. It was nice but Shaw Towers's Ah Loy Thai was as nice, at half the price. Ah well, at least I got Wifi.
Actually what was more annoying was that Asahi and Sangsom/Mea Kong whiskey were cheaper than the Thai Iced Tea.
Wine List. I had to commend the Sommelier (silently anyway) for the matching of alcohol to specific dishes and spiciness levels. Or maybe it was just random matching, since no one would be able to tell the difference.
Drinks menu
I had too much time to kill so I ordered cake. Which was served in an ashtray.
One of the spillover bars along the main road (not in the Soi Cowboy alley)
At 11pm when I returned to Cowhide, the crowd was a lot thicker. None of the girls solicited me, so I railed silently at being a victim of racism.
What I did at 11pm will be the subject of the next entry.
A sufficient condition for a Third World country: a dustbin in the toilet for your used toilet paper