Happy Apocalypse!

 You can find out about this image if you keep reading

For most of the week starting December 16, I was still feeling a bit lousy. My fever and other symptoms had gone away but I was still experiencing stomach pain. So, I had planned to have a nice quiet weekend in Bangkok. Or so I thought...

Friday, December 21 was the infamous Apocalypse Day. Karima and her roommate were planning on finding an Apocalypse Party in Bangkok, and I thought it would be fun to join. So I made my way to their place, where we met Moses, another teacher from OEG and who was with us in Chiang Mai. We then piled into a taxi, bound for Sukhumvit Soi 11, and area with lots of bars whatnot. First, we went to a place called Q Bar that Karima and her roommate had read about. But it was really lame, and full of mostly older people.

From there, were decided to wander around looking for another place. After a bit of wandering, we picked a club at random to go into, so we had no idea what to expect. The first thing that happened was we were greeted by a little person dressed in a costume and with face paint on. He was the elevator operator apparently, and took us up in the glass elevator to the dance floor. There, we saw several people dressed in quite outrageous costumes. One had a clown wig and angel wings, several wore leather and body paint, a couple were dressed more like devils, and a few very scantily clad women. It was pretty nuts: we basically had no idea what was going on. At one point, they asked us to clear the floor for the show. This consisted of these people dancing, joined by a very tall drag queen and a random person with a didgeridoo. It was very odd... And hilarious. Every so often, they would also blow smoke from the smoke machine all over us. There was definitely confetti as well at some point. It was ridiculous in general. 

During the day on Saturday, we went to the Sai Tai Mai (or Southern) Bus Terminal to try to buy our tickets for our trip for New Year’s. We needed to take the bus there, as it’s quite out in the middle of nowhere. We ended up taking 3 different buses – Google maps gave us some bad travel advice, but some very friendly locals set us in the right direction. It took us about 2 hours to get there... Once we did get there, all the ticket vendors said all their tickets were sold out for the days we wanted to go south. This made us panic a little bit... We were sitting in an internet cafe, when Karima received a phone call from Tony, another OEG teacher. He said you could get government bus tickets by calling their call centre, and that he had gotten his earlier that day or something. So I called them, and we able to get out tickets without much difficulty. I was amazed it was so easy, especially since we had asked the people at the help desk several times what we should do. SIGH. So I ordered the tickets, paid for them at the 7-11 with our account number, and picked up the tickets at the Thai Ticket Major booth in the station. It was especially easy...

Originally, we had planned to head to my neighbourhood after the bus station. After the frazzling day, we decided we needed drinks. So we went to Khao San Road to meet with Tony, who was staying in the area. I have mentioned Khao San before: it’s where we went for Halloween. But, to summarise quickly, it is basically a road that caters to all the backpacker tourists to Bangkok. There are cheap hostels and hotels everywhere, as well as bars, insect vendors (you head me), various other vendors, and touts for ping-pong shows. 

We met with Tony, and then decided to go somewhere to eat. As we were looking at one place’s menu, we met a Californian named Elie who recommended we go to another restaurant. So all four us set off in its direction. Khao san basically consists of 2 parallel roads, one of which is a bit quieter and more picturesque. The restaurant was on the quieter road, which was quite nice. I had Som Tum, or spicy papaya salad. It’s delicious, and one of my favourite dishes here. Mmmm... It is normally made to be VERY spicy – the first time I had it, it nearly took off the roof of my mouth. Now, I know to always ask for “pet nitnoi”, which means a little spicy. 

After dinner, Elie had to go catch his flight back to California, so Tony, Karima and I went back to the main road of Khao San. We wandered in front of a McDonalds with an outdoor Shisha bar set up in front of it. We thought this was too hilarious to pass by, so we decided to stop here. While we were there, another group came in and sat beside us. We started talking to them, it turned out 2, Paige and Walter, were from Canada (Edmonton) and one was from Germany. I’ve met a lot of Canadians so far in Thailand, and it’s always good fun. We are pretty cool, what can I say? :P

After a bit, Tony, Karima, and I decided we wanted to go eat some scorpions and other bugs. Tony had been talking about how he buys bags of maggots in his town because they taste like pistachios but are cheaper. We found an insect stand, and bought a grab bag of various insects and a couple black scorpions. We took our bounty back to the Shisha bar to eat, starting with the scorpions. It didn’t really have a distinct flavour, but was mostly crunchy. The other bugs were alright – one was pretty gross though. Ick...

Next, we joined the other group in going to a rooftop bar that had live music. There was a great view of the carnival that is Khao San from the roof. The music was also pretty good – a couple of duos played. We sang and danced with several times. Was good times. 

On Sunday, a few friends of mine were coming into Bangkok so we planned to meet them for lunch at Cabbages and Condoms. Cabbages and Condoms is run by a non-profit organisation that works to promote family planning, as well as HIV/AIDS prevention through safe sex. The restaurant features several statues dressed in clothing made out of condoms, as well as a Christmas tree decorated with them. It was pretty amazing. And the food was pretty good too! We then went to a nearby mall and had blizzards from Dairy Queen. By the afternoon, I was exhausted so I made my way home. This weekend was supposed to be my relaxing weekend, but I am quickly learning that relaxing weekends in Bangkok do not exist. Oh well, I can relax when I go back to Canada I guess!