Bangkok – Day One
Ok, it's going to take a little bit of time, but we'll get a bunch of pictures and commentary up here about our little trip to Thailand. So um, here comes "Bangkok - Day One".
We jumped on the MRT (train) to the Airport in Singapore and had an uneventful flight from Singapore to Bangkok. Getting through customs at Bangkok was breezy, albeit time-consuming. Long lineups, but once you were up at the front, it was "smile, stamp stamp, smile some more, enjoy Thailand, bye".
From there, we took a piece of advice that we got from the proprietor of the hostel we were staying at in Bangkok, and went OUTSIDE of the airport before trying to catch a taxi. Drops the prices from around 800 Baht (S$32.00) to about 200 Baht (S$8.00). Trying to communicate with the Taxi driver was almost completely useless. When you see "Thai words" written using our English alphabet, it doesn't tend to do you much good, because the Thai's have their own alphabet, so English symbols and letters mean nothing to many of them. On top of that, the phonetic sounds made by our language does not tend to even remotely capture what the words are supposed to sound like when spoken in Thai. Nonetheless, our Taxi driver pulled through, and we arrived at the Asha Guest House without any problems, I just had to keep pronouncing the English version of the address over and over in different ways until the driver figured out what I was saying. He was a good sport.
The guest house was great, pretty cheap (~USD$9/night), clean rooms with shared bathrooms. The owners and employees were fabulous and absolutely full of useful information and tips on what to do, where to go, how to get around, and how not to get ripped off.
After throwing down our bags and getting organized, we were out the door on a walk to Saphan Kwai SkyTrain station which was about a 10 minute walk from where we were staying. Our guest house is located in a very Thai area of town, and so if you ever had a desire to try stuffed pigs intestines from a hawker on the side of the road, look no further. Getting used to the many different cultural things and many strange smells of Bangkok is just part of the fun I suppose 
We noticed that a lot of Thai words translated into their pseudo-phonetic-English are really quite funny. With SkyTrain stations like "On Nut" and "Mo Chit", and about 200 other funny examples we found while in Thailand, it made for a good chuckle now and again.
So, we got off the train and happened to pass a Starbucks, so we treated ourselves to Espresso Frappucino's to accompany ourselves on our walk. One thing that we noticed here while we had to cross a Very Large Intersection™ to carry on to our destination, is that traffic lights seem to have a mind of their own here. Either that, or something is just Really Messed Up. The little flashy green light that in North America (and Singapore for that matter) means that you as a pedestrian are safe to walk across the street - well - in Bangkok - if you listen to the little flashy green man, you're dead. DEAD. We almost started to walk, and subsequently almost got hit by 78 motorcycles, 45 cars, and 18 buses. Caution was the word of the day.
At any rate, we continued to walk towards the Joe Louis Puppet Theater and the Night Bazaar where we wandered around some of the shops and also grabbed a bite to eat for dinner. We must have been feeling a bit Nostalgic, because I had a hamburger, and Carly had a club sandwich. All good - we would get our fix of Thai food yet. Following dinner, we walked past what I am pretty sure was the Rama V statue, and then Lumphini Park (quite a nice looking little park) and on to Lumphini Boxing Stadium. If we were in Bangkok - I was going to see some Muay Thai.
Next time, if there is a next time, I think we'll try to get a local to buy our entrance tickets, because I think the tourists get ripped off on the entrance fees to see the boxing. We paid 1500 Baht each, and that just isn't an amount that makes sense. It's also significantly more than what any of the guidebooks (Rough Guide, Lonely Planet, etc.) have laid out as the prices (although they could be out of date).
Here is a good picture of some extremely good translated English. It's still probably gooder than my English. Not sure if you can quite read it in the picture, so to quench your curiosity it reads "Any can and bottle does not allow to bring inside the stadium."
The boxing was not quite what we expected. The fighters were young, REALLY young. Probably anywhere from 13-18 years old, and weighing in somewhere between 105-116 lbs. We did notice that there is a certain amount of ceremonial reverence in Muay Thai for the Thai people. Flowers around the necks of all fighters, and a bit of ceremonial dance before each fight. The music accompanying the fight was in a traditional Thai style by a small band, and is NOT what we would consider to be pump-you-up fight music. It was more like when-is-this-music-going-to-stop-because-it-is-making-my-ears-bleed type music (in our opinion, anyway).
The sportsmanship demonstrated between competitors was also fabulous, and when one kid got kicked in the head and carried out on a stretcher, his opponent was genuinely concerned about his well being. All-in-all, a good experience, and not quite as brutal as we had expected it to be. We did notice, however, that after training in mixed-martial-arts for a couple years (kickboxing/jiu-jitsu/boxing/muay thai) - that Muay Thai by itself seems to become a bit repetitive. A good experience nonetheless.
We bailed after the 7th fight (there were 8 scheduled) and headed to our hostel to bed. Tomorrow would come quickly - and there was still plenty to see.
