Its a good job the hostel hostess is nice and happy to share her lychee with us. The fruit vendor down the street sold me rancid pineapple for breakfast. Clearly I’m not tanned enough to pass as a local yet. Aimi had more luck with these sweet rice cake things, we will be having them again.
Today we found our way to the Siam Centre shopping mall, and Paragon centre. These two huge shopping centres redefine the shopping experience in my eyes. They are huge, have some incredibly high end shops, quirky shops and a vast array of food vendors. It was incredible just walking around. Aimi found the special sandals she wanted and then spotted an anime classic, grilled squid on stick. It was more chewy than crispy and as the second squid in 2 days, I went and got something else.
Across the road in the centre spans a huge, dystopian concrete structure supporting the sky train. Its a wonder of engineering and sort of looks like a giant multi-headed concrete millipede worming its way down the street. Its legs stick straight out from its body and then down to the ground in the same way. I can’t help but admire these feats of civil engineering.
We are making great use of the trains, but we got a bus here ( again, excellently air-conditioned, take note TFL ) Thanks to a helpful lady near the stop, we found our way around without too much difficulty. I wish there was a map of the routes somewhere, but we didn’t find one.
The last bit of shopping Aimi wanted to do (to help achieve full travel cliché status) was a patterned cotton dress. I can see why so many people buy them. She looked stunning in it later.
We got a little dressed up to go out this evening to Asiatique. This is a shopping and dining centre, but built among the warehouse of an old riverside wharf. Everything here has a shabby chic vibe. There was also a Disney Princesses theme going on with displays and memorabilia dotted around, and of course merchandise. We had a good look around before getting our feet nibbled at by little fish. I’ve always wondered about this, and now I know. I can’t stand it. It’s not painful, it’s just incredibly tickly. It sort of feels like tiny bubbles, but a lot more forceful. I had a hard time not laughing my head off. Aimi managed to stick it out but I got out early.
We had come here to see the Calypso Cabaret of Bangkok. A colourful and energetic show of Western and Asian songs performed while flashing plenty of skin. It was very enjoyable and I got into it, sort of trying to drag the crowd with me. I’m not sure the Asian community know what to make of Caberet. Very few people took the cues to clap along or applaud when expected. It must be an American/British thing. It was great but I wish I had know it was lip synced before going in. However almost flawlessly it was done, part of me sort of expected it to be sung live. In any case, it was fun, especially the horrendously tongue in cheek chubby, hairy, bald drag queen. He was the best.
After a spicy dinner where we had another anime classic, tofu, and I managed to get green curry in my eye (not recommended) we head home. Oh, and Aimi wanted to eat bugs… I had one too. It was meh.
To get here, we had gotten a boat from very close to our hostel, all the way down the river. But this was now closed, so we took a short boat up to a sky train station. Then we got an under ground metro and then a tuk tuk ride back to the hostel. It was a long circuitous route where the boat had been so direct. The boat had also given us a great view of the city, the Royal Palace, Wat Arun and the many fabulous skyscrapers. It would have been nice to see them at night on a return trip.
