Pictures Courtesy Bangkok Snow Removal

Better in Bangkok

So, maybe there hasn’t been any snow but I’ll be damned if it didn’t feel like it could snow at any time last night in Bangkok.

I decided to get away for a few days and what could be better than heading to Bangkok and spending some quality time with good friends. When I arrived on Wednesday it was overcast and it looked like rain was in the immediate future, and it was cool; not just cool but very cool for Bangkok. I booked in at a great little boutique hotel in the Saphan Kwai area named Mystic Place and started making some phone calls.

Mystic Place is a funky little hotel where every room has been decorated by a different designer, very trendy and hip if you ask me and definitely put a smile on my face when I got the keys to my room which is appropriately named the “Fitting Room”. More on this next week as this hotel definitely deserves a write up on it’s own including pictures that will speak volumes.

After I settled in I phone two of the nicest people in Bangkok and started making plans. I met both Catherine, who writes the wonderful Thai language resource, “Women Learning Thai…and some men too”, and Rick, who extols the virtues of Thailand in “Behind the Noodle Curtain” some time ago through writing TLOS and as we like to say in my neck of the woods ” they be good people”.

One of the biggest benefits of blogging for me have been the friendships that have formed over the years with other bloggers and readers alike. Cat and Rick are right there at the top when it comes to people I look forward to hearing from and hanging out with. Fortunately, Rick and I have had the chance to get together quite a few times since we both moved to Thailand but Cat has been very elusive, and while we have talked and emailed several times a week over the last year or two we had yet to actually meet until now.

With plans made I showered up and headed out to the BTS skytrain and my trip to Nana station and ultimately Soi 8 and the Soi 8 Pub to have dinner and drinks with Rick. I realized as I was halfway to my destination that the man sitting across the train from me, who was smartly dressed I might add, and had a big smile on his face was actually my own reflection…it seems getting away from the madness of Pattaya was just what the doctor ordered.

As if there could be any doubt, Rick and I had a good meal washed down with refreshing Bangkok beer ( the beer in Bangkok is far superior to Pattaya beer )  and wonderful conversation; it must be noted at this point that Rick gives great conversation and he’s Canadian which is practically the same thing as being an American…what more could you ask for. And, he’s just a damn nice guy that will forgive the aforementioned slight to his nationality, in time.

After a few hours it was time for me to call it a night and head back to Saphan Kwai and my hotel, most importantly my bed. The last few days in Pattaya left me with very little sleep and the feeling that my candle was not only lit at both ends but being set on by a blow torch. Besides, I had a date early in the morning with the wonderfully elusive Cat women to explore Bangkok with her and her faithful driver Khun Pissout and, I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to be rested for that. I was in bed at 8pm, a true Thailand miracle.

Bangkok Excursions

Waking up bright eyed and bushy tailed I greeted the breaking Bangkok day with arms outstretched, okay, maybe it was more bleary eyed and bedraggled with a serious need for nicotine and caffeine that I fell out of bed and stumbled onto the balcony for a smoke and a coke. It was freaking freezing, I’m not talking chilly but downright cold and I seriously wondered if my hotel room accidentally got caught up in a tornado and magically transported me back to America. When I opened my hotel room door everything was in technicolor and midgets were singing to me but I chalked that one up to lack of sleep, nicotine and caffeine.

After I finished my breakfast of Marlboro lights and coke, the most important meal of the day don’t ya know, I showered and eagerly awaited a phone call from Cat letting me know she had arrived to pick me up. As I walked downstairs and across the lane to Khun Pissout’s taxi there was a noticeable pep in my step and a smile on my face…the nicotine and caffeine finally kicked in, no, I was finally meeting a dear friend and I was cold.

Cat and her cohort/driver Khun Pissout were exactly as I imagined them in all of their wonderfullness, I have to note here that I am bound by contractual obligation concerning my soul not to divulge too much information about the mysterious and elusive Catherine and Khun Pissout. While Catherine may be a mild mannered Thai language blogger by day her details are sketchy at best. I believe she is some kind of superhero and Khun Pissout is her sidekick. I imagine her wearing a form fitting red  leather suit emblazoned with a flaming C  and fighting crime from the back of Khun Pissout’s neon green terror taxi with only her Thai language resources and a bullwhip…or maybe not, I told you the nicotine and caffeine kicked in.

Cat and I were off for a day of Wat hopping and great conversation. Our first stop was Wat Bang Phra which was being readied for the Tattoo festival on Saturday. After some time spent at the Wat it started to rain and freakishly get even colder, I swear I saw snow but that was after one of the Thai tattoo faithful, who had come to get his Sak Yant tattoo re-charged, asked me to drink water from a small bowl that apparently had wax drippings in it. He told me it was for good luck and Cat gave me a look as if to say ” you probably just drank something that will kill you”. Cat will have more on that later.

With it raining and becoming considerably colder we decided lunch would be a good idea and before I knew it Khun Pissout had us back on the road and heading to the batcave…another reason I believe Cat is a superhero. After a wonderful lunch of Calamari, minced meat pie and an amazing Sticky Toffee Pudding, Yes, Cat, I loved the pudding but I still think that an English Breakfast is the ugliest meal on the planet, we headed out again for more Wattage.

Now, I love Cat, she is an awesome person and another that gives great conversation but she tends to say the word “PENIS” a bit more than I am used to hearing, it actually got almost unsettling at one point. I kindly suggested she use a more appropriate word such as COCK but she would have none of it. She also has a habit of telling me one thing and then doing something completely opposite. She swore she was going to show me this Indian woman’s vagina but instead showed me this stone bowl type thing and said “see, vagina”. I didn’t have the heart to tell here it was a stone jug/bowl.

Seriously though I had a great day with Catherine exploring Bangkok, which will all be detailed in upcoming posts,  and all I can really say is she is one top Lady who I hope to have many more excursions with exploring this wonderful city, Bangkok.

The evening was spent again in the good company of Rick enjoying a good meal and having a few drinks of the alcoholic nature among the many outdoor bars of Bangkok. At 2am it was 18ºC and buckets of charcoal were lit to keep us warm, Thai women were running about in ski parkas and snow boots and the gods of snow were pushing the cold artic air through the small Sois so fast we felt like we were in a wind tunnel.

As I said my good nights and jumped into the back of a taxi along Sukhumvit I swear I saw a snow flake, it might have been a chunk of solidified smog, but I will remember it as the first snow in Bangkok.

Bangkok is speaking to me and I have a feeling I might be listening more intently than I thought I could.