Bangkok weekend
Emma, Taylor, Katie and I at Route 66
This past weekend, December 15 and 16, I decided to stay in
Bangkok. I was exhausted from all the travelling, and still not feeling great.
On Wednesday, I had gone to the local hospital as I had had a fever for about 4
days. They took my temperature on arrival and I had a fever of about 101. I saw
a doctor who thought I might have dengue fever, so I had to have a blood test.
I was told to stay home from school the next day, and to come back for another
blood test. Thursday, I was feeling quite a bit better – sleeping for 12 hours
helped a lot. I went back to the hospital and after my second blood test, was
informed I didn’t have dengue but just some virus, and the best treatment was
to rest. By the time Friday rolled around, I was feeling a lot better, but
still had a stomach ache.
Saturday I had a nice lazy day around Phra Pradaeng. It was
really nice not to get up and have to race off somewhere to catch a bus or
whatnot. In the afternoon, I was also on a quest to buy shorts – I’ve lots a
bit of weight there and my shorts are starting to fall down. Unfortunately, it
seems that Thai people don’t have big bums, and the largest size I could find
was like a 4. It’s confusing because you DO see thai women with larger hips and
bums, but there must be a secret store they all go to... I wandered around the
market without avail, and eventually went home.
I took the bus into Bangkok to meet Karima – some friends of
mine were coming into town for a couple birthdays, so we were going to meet
with them later. We decided to walk around her neighbourhood a bit. We found a
stand that had a lot of shorts. The man working there measured my hips, and got
me to try on a pair (over the shorts I had on). I was size XXL and he had about
3 pairs that would fit me. I bought 2 of them! Hooray! I also bought a clutch
for going out later on. We had dinner at the mall, Central Lapphrao, and we
shared Pad Thai and Som Tum (spicy papaya salad).
In the evening, we drank a bit at
Karima’s with her roommate, Grace. My drink of choice (when I’m not drinking
beer) has become Thai whiskey. I normally hate whiskey at home, but here, it’s
the cheapest thing by far. The plan was to go to RCA, a big club district
downtown.
We arrived at RCA around 11 –
basically it’s this road lined by different mega clubs. Was insane. We met up
with Jake from OEG, and also saw Phillip, the OEG staff member who led our
orientation. We decided to go to Route 66, the biggest club (as far as we could
tell) on the road. The club consisted of 3 sub-clubs – it was gigantic. Cover
was 300B, but this included almost 2 drinks worth of drink coupons. So not the
worst thing in the world. My stomach was bothering me still, so I was taking it.
We met up with Katie, Emma, Taylor, Laurence and some others from my
orientation. The club was ludicrously crowded – you barely had room to dance.
But it was still a fun/interesting experience.
The next day, Karima and I went
for our first Thai massage at a place in her neighbourhood. The place we went
to was very nice, although no one spoke English really. I feel bad about
expecting everyone to know English all the time, especially when I am the
visitor to the country. I want to learn more Thai, and I think I need to just
sit down and learn a bit every night, as well as practice when I can. ANYWAY we
decided to get a 1 hour massage. It was SO NICE. They took us up to a room with
dimmer lights – similar to a spa back home. They also gave us these loose
linen/cotton shirts and pants to wear. Our masseuses also didn’t speak much
English, so that was fun. Every once in a while, they would as us “Jep?” and we
had no idea what they meant. Eventually, we figured out that it meant “pain/hurt”.
Tee he... Thai massage, as far as I can tell, focuses more on large muscles,
stretching and joints, instead of working out knots etc, like back home. It
felt really nice. We received an entire body massage, which included them standing
on our feet, cracking our backs, and a head massage. I think I even fell asleep
for a bit at one point. Ahhhh... It cost us about 250B, which I think is pretty
standard. Well worth it.
After the massages, we had lunch
at a restaurant near Karima, then I decided to head home – I was exhausted. But it was really nice just to spend the
weekend in town, especially with our big trip planned for new years/Christmas.
And I definitely need to get more massages...
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