NYE 2011 (or 2012)

When we say new years eve, do we mean the year that just ended or the year that's just about to start? I think technically it means the one that just ended. I'd just like to be clear.

The most recent new year's eve, and the last one according to the Mayan Calendar, was an amazing one for this Mayan.  (For some reason the Mayan calendar has some sort of relevance now, although not important enough to know any other important dates on it...here's a website if you ever want to know what day today is on the Mayan Calendar  http://mayancalendar4u.com/page/10215  and happy "white HAND manik' ~ gather will branches" day!)

I had drinks with a buddy as we strolled to the city and watched  the early fireworks at The Rocks. Then I headed to a friend's place for a NYE party at Circular Quay right between the bridge and opera house. Most of my favorite people from school were there. At midnight we moseyed down to the viewing area and watched an amazing fireworks show. If you like fireworks, this a 'bucket list kind of show'. Who doesn't like fireworks??

Back at the party we drank our host dry and he kicked us out. I don't blame him. We caught a bus to the beach and waited till the world turned enough to reveal the sun. A swim, a nap, a quick packing job and 8 hours later was on a first class flight to BKK.

Pretty good start huh?

You Dirty Perverts (the one you've all been waiting for)

This story is not for Moms, Sunday school teachers, the judgemental or the repressed. Throwing that out there...


Whenever I say I'm going to Thailand people said "oh, watch out for the lady boys" "ohh, don't become a ladyboy" "wow, blah blah blah-bla-blah ladyboy" Funny. And oh so clever all of you. HOWEVER, we didn't see many in bangkok. We mostly were in the backpacker areas, and its really just the local vendors and tourists.

So the girls decide that after a day of travelling they're all beat and want to go to bed. Pat and I decided we wanted to drink, so we'd hit the night market in Bangkok. So two guys walking down the street in drinking Chang and the first Tuk Tuk driver calls out "Ping Pong?!"  Thats the universal language for Thai sex show. Now I know that those are close the market. "Patpong?" thats the area I want to be in.
"Yeah"
So I say "How much?"
"Fifty baht!"
Now thats cheap, ok we're in. "
We get driven around for 10 mins and finally get driven through a back alley where we get out. This sleazy little dude runs up..."Ping Pong show! Best in city, you like!!"
"How much?"
 "600"
"Each?" thats expensive...no wonder the cab was cheap...all part of the hustle. So I ask where the night market is.
 "Oh, closed, not open yet, good show show, 500"
"Ok, which way? For when it opens?"
 "That way, but closed, not open"
Ok, we'll go this way. Everyone protests, they're yelling from behind, blah blah blah, the driver's mad cause he brought us in cheap and isn't getting his kickback now.
We wander around and see a ton of strip joints, thai restaurants, internet places, market stalls, and guys running around with drink menus. One hits us up.
 "Cheap drink, Chang 100 baht"
"Too much!"
"For large for large"
We shrug, ok. We're in. So now we get lead through the streets of downtown bangkok, this guy is rushing. Hard. He's waving us on, at one point the fucker grabs my arm and pulls me, I must have given him a hard look because he took his hand off me like I was on fire. We get to this place and he takes us upstairs and goes to leave. Pat yells, "Hey, no cover right?"
"Yeah yeah, good party"
We buy a couple of beers up front, they won't let us pay...thats a sign.  We turn the corner and the place is dingy, everything is black, hookers everywhere. Shit. We're in a bangkok sex show. Oh well, part of the tour right?? We get sat down in front of this other set of couples. Everyone's laughing. No lights on except these little white Christmas tree lights. And black lights. Things are painted with black light paint. Everything is glowing.

So, loyal readers, up till now, the conversation has been fairly bland. This is where it gets interesting. The language is about to change. Can't be helped.

The stage, has two brass poles. Standing at each pole is a topless Thai girl in black underwear. Early twenties. They are, ever so slightly, swinging their hips to the music. They look bored. They look out of shape. And bored. Then we realize that the show is actually going on as we speak.

A woman in black lingerie is crab walking across the stage. What we realize is that she's got a straw stuck in her pussy. Suddenly a balloon above and just behind me pops. WTF mate? She has rolled up sheets of paper and is firing them like darts at balloons around the room through the straw. Thats funny. Fucked up, but funny. I wonder how many rounds that magazine holds...

She wanders off. Another woman, who looks to be in her fifties, 5 or 8 kids, maybe one on the way, who knows, is wearing nothing but a strange hat of some sort, neon knee high socks, and volleyball knee pads. She's built kind of like Grimmace from the MacDonaldland  Gang. Shes got a great little landing strip going on I might add. She get up and starts sort of dancing on the spot. Then, unceremoniously, she begins to pull, the only way I can think to describe it, is a neon skipping rope out of her VJJ. Its like a plastic contraption that has several parts, each a different colour glowing in the black light. When she gets enough of it out, she starts snapping it on the floor like a whip, all the while, pulling more out. Its like a rappelling bag in there or  something. We're seriously and literally shaking our heads.

Now, while this is going on, these really friendly local women, who really took some time getting ready for clubbing, in their best lingerie, are paying us some attention. A couple come over and leave drinks on our table. I'm like, fuck that, I"m not getting charged for drinks I didn't order. And who knows whats in em. I'm wildly waving my hands. No! WE DON"T WANT THESE! I'm putting them on a different table. The drinks are also flat looking, and probably 1/3 empty.

Stole this image off the net, then read the guy's blog.
Could have been my story to the letter.

First lady is back on stage and someone has put a cake on the stage and lit several candles. She begins blowing them out with here snatch snorkle. Meanwhile a particularly friendly looking lady looks at me( because pat is ignoring her like she's got lepracy and trying to sell him a kiss, and he's not far off) she bangs the heal of her hand against the back of her hand and says "Boom boom?" Me, a relative novice in these situations, more baffled than deaf says "Whaaa?"  She makes the OK sign with one hand and starts driving her forefinger in and out with the other "Boom boom?"

Luke shakes head. Not only am I saying the word but I'm mouthing it as if to allow someone on the other side of a loud party to understand me. "NO" Stubby Thai-Grimmace is back on stage pulling what looks like a clothes line, complete with plastic glowing clothes pin out of her boom boom hole. She waddling around and laughing, loose skin swaying in time with the bad dance music.

Pat and I say together, "We need to get the fuck out of here"

We tell the waitress we want the bill and she directs us to a table by the stage. Fucking hell, here we go. We wander over. This short woman in a business suit hands us a slip of paper as we walk up. 4,800 baht. Roughly translated, based on global economic performance and market conditions, thats about $150 CAD. I started to laugh. Lady is stern as hell, face like a toad "you pay"
Pat says "No, two change, 200 baht"
She says, no "YOU PAY, LADY DRINKS and LOOK FEE"

Pat says, "No, 2 Chang" and we each pull out 100. She gets up and begins screeching. If you've ever seen a war movie where a bunch of villager women are screaming at the GIs after they've committed some atrocity...this is the live version of that.

She's screaming that we have to pay, we say no, she grabs a pad of paper and writes down 1600. I laugh. Pat snatches her pen and writes 200, before he scrawls the 2nd 0 shes torn the paper away and crumped it up. She stomps her foot, I though she kicked him. Her twin sister approaches from the shadows and takes me on. I say "We had 2 beer, 200" she says, "You pay or YOU dance" points at the stage and starts pulling up my shirt. I can only laugh. It infuriates her. She stomps and fake kicks me.
The original thai toad woman tells Pat we can't leave. He says something along the lines of "you can't stop us.
She says "I get bouncer" and points to this 16 year old looking bus boy who might be 120 lbs. We both laugh and the women relent. We set down the money and walk. On stage a woman is opening shaken up beer bottles. Look mom no hands.

It took 2 full hours for the adrenaline to wear off. A runner with a menu came up and asked if we wanted to go to a show. I told him to fuck off. He didn't seem surprised. We hit an irish pub and sat on the patio and drank Singha. Thats when we thought it would be funny to go down the gay street. That story will have to wait. I'm going on a day long excursion tomorrow. Elephants, waterfalls, hiking, visiting a hill tribe...should be great.
Talk soon
L

Blessed by a monk

 I got conned/invited to visit a monk in his home beside the temple. While there he blessed me by shaking reeds full of water on me. He the gave me a beaded bracelet for luck. Then he tried to sell me an authentic stone amulet for 2000 baht.  I lied and said I only had 400 on me but gave him 100 as a donation to the temple.  He thanked me and gave me a picture of a one eyed cat. That's going up on the fridge.





Here's the one eyed cat:

Wat pho, birthplace of Thai massage and giant buddhas

i look rediculous in these pics

The architecture in the temple is amazing. Everything covered in tiles of every colour imaginable. Spires several stories high have strained for centuries to touch the sky.  Creatures and warriors of all types man both sides of every walkway and staircase. Gold adorns every effigy of Buddha, every door and every archway.

The reclining Buddha is massive. Its really unimaginable how big this thing is until you see it.
 I finally got my massage. If you've never had a Thai massage it's not like the standard local massage. There's no long luxurious kneading of any particular muscle. It's starts with me trading me pants in for a pair that are like doctors scrubs. I put them on backwards and had to go back. She had me lay down and commenced jamming her thumbs into various nerve bundles around my body. It actually felt really good, but every once in a while she'd dug into one of those spots that douche bag martial artists will tell you, unprovoked, that they can use to disable an attacker. I know cause I was one of those guys back when I was taking ju jitsu.  I grew out of it. Not ju jitsu, being a douche...

At one point she had one foot inside my thigh, pulled on my arms for leverage and drove her heal into my hamstring. Another time she was behind me with my arm over her leg using her elbow to grind my tricep into my humorous, and down wards.  I almost tapped.

Feel like a million bucks now. Relaxed, loose, ready for a night on the town .

Different approach to traffic and stress

I'm sitting on a bus waiting to go on a day trip. Were at a red light so the driver got out for a smoke. Long light I guess. Things are more laid back here.  Long line up at s light, traffic backed up, no prob, just gothe wrong way down a oneway street a few hundred feet until you find a way through. I'm writing this on my iPhone... Light's still red

Muay Thai

Muay Thai is well respected here. I went to a championship match last night. There are two stadiums in Bangkok and they have fights on opposite nights. The night I wanted to go the staium was within walking distance.
The stadium seats a few thousand at the most. The upper tiers, where 90% of fans sat is behind chainlink fence. Those seats are 1000 baht, or roughly 30$. Mine were front row, 2000 baht. Its best just to buy tickets at the gate. You can buy from the tourist bureaus as well, but its the same price at the door.

The stadium is ancient. Thais don't replace anything ever, unless its completely lost its usefulness. The judges tables look like they were bought at a yard sale. Guys with flowered shirts come and bring you chips and beer. The chips are a rip off, tiny bags with only 5 or 6 chips in them.

The first few fights are boring. Young lightweights, 92 lbs for the first fight, who are very reactive and end up throwing the same kicks at each other at the same time, and bouncing off each other. As the fights so on and  the weight classes go up, it gets more interesting. The championship fights was super heavy weights, Thai Style, 148lbs.

The first two rounds of any fight typically suck. Its a feeling out process. The crowd hasn't started betting yet. The last three rounds are fun. Usually by then the crowd has taken a side. When the favorite lands a strike they all cheer "aaaaaayyyyy" when the other guy lands a smaller group cheers a full octave lower "ooooooohhhh" The corners get incredibly animated, 4 or 5 guys all jumping around, yelling instructions. When the fighters end up in a clinch too long the ref separates them. He has to pull them apart physically, like two sides of a grilled cheese sandwich. Sometimes he'll throw his leg in between them to prevent kicks while he pushes back on their faces.

The fighters are extremely respectful of each other, cheapshots are rare but they happen. I only saw it from one fighter. He threw two illegal knees while the ref was pulling them apart, then threw a cross after the bell. He was rewarded with a hard groin shot a round later. He signalled to the ref who ignored him, I'm guessing because of the cheap shots earlier.

I saw a new champ get crowned that night! Here's a vid of the last half of the final round.