Bangkok Dangerous

I have this love/hate relationship with Bangkok. I won't go into details so as usual I'll just let the photos do most of the talking for me.

Everyone finds these McDonalds statues creepy but I kinda like them.
This popular shrine I thought was kind of ironic since I sincerely doubt many people at it could afford anything in the Burberry store behind it.

Our new friend Rossawon's Mom who was not only nice enough to let us stay at her place a couple of nights but also got her neighbor to get some fresh coconut drinks.

The Grand Palace...

...which also features the emerald buddah.

Finally, the infamous Khaosan Road. Ahh the things I can't tell you about that place haha.

Kanchanaburi...a name I can't pronounce but still love

As Tim mentioned this is a great place to go. Not too many tourists which means not too many prostitutes...which means barely any hassle.

Seeing the bridge over the river Kwai was a nice to piece of history to experience...
Also sitting out on the floating pier behind our hotel (which cost about $15/night total) having a drink wasn't bad either.

Backdating is a beach

Ok, so I'm not in Asia anymore but I thought I'd throw some additional pictures up in case anyone is interested. These ones were our days on the beach after the Muay Thai fighting. To be honest we did a lot so there were many pictures so I've tried to narrow it down to just a select few...

The first day at krabi we went to Railay beach...beautiful.

The next day we head off on a tour to James Bond Island (where parts of "The Man With the Golden Gun" were filmed).

Our final two days were spent around Koh Pi Pi. We had a hillarious guide "Nicky" that toured us around on a jet boat for 8 hours. This is what he had to say:

"This where the movie "The Beach" was filmed...just don't go looking for any marijuana...there isn't any...trust me."

We went snorkling at a beautiful ocean spot...

Saw a Bollywood music video being shot...

"We're #1". He literally made the boat driver go faster so that we could pass 2 other boats to get there first haha.

I stubbed my toe on the bridge over the river kwai

Dammit. I walked across that crazy bridge I've heard about for some time. As I walked, I jammed my little toe on a steel bolt. My toe immediately bled. It was odd thinking about how the bridge just took my blood, just as it took the blood and lives of thousands of P.O.W.'s in its contruction. My grandfather was there as a POW as well. He was one of the lucky ones to survive. But maybe it wasn't lucky...for the first time I learned of the horrific conditions faced by the POWs in detail, lots of drawings by the POW's themselves and some photos. I believe my granfather was haunted by these memories for the rest of his life. I barely knew him, as he died when i was very young. But I heard he resisted any talk about those times.

I'll put up pics a little later. Another emotional day. This town is very nice though, great night market and no one really hassles you since its much less touristy than the rest of the places in Thailand. We'll head back to Bangkok for our final days tomorrow.

Tim

Thai Boxing - Tonight Tonight! Main Event

We took in some Thai Boxing last night. Very cool, and just like Sumo wrestling, there's alot of ceremony and tradition before the fight starts. They do some really cool dances and what looks like praying at each corner. It lasts for about what seems like 5-10 minutes, each fighters dance is slightly different and all done to crazy thai music that sounds like a drum and an off tune clarinet. Similar music plays while they are fighting, which they bob and weave to. I've uploaded one movie and pasted below, it was the first bout of the night between 2 six year olds..very entertaining, but it also felt a bit wrong.

I have a couple more movies of the big guys fighting, which got pretty bloody, but very entertaining. The internet here is a bit slow for uploads, so I'll have to get it on some other time. Very entertaining night though. Off to Krabi tomorrow.

T

Life is beachy

We shot around the island on our scooters today and checked out the northwest corner. At this point there is a smaller island connected to Ko Paneng by a narrow sandspit..it was pretty cool..except for the trash that washed up along the spit..lots of empty red bull bottles likely from the full moon/half moon/moon set parties that keep going on here.

We jumped in the water and did a little snorkelling as well. Not too bad. Saw some bright colourful fish, even a "nemo" clown fish. A local told us we missed the best part that was over by the point. Maybe we'll hit it again sometime.

Off to a moon set party..maybe a lil Thai Boxing.

Full Moon Party - and I didn't show my ass once.

Here's some Full Moon Party pics - we made it all night until the sun came up due to our lengthy training sessions back in Vancouver. With our special "layering" technique we suvived the night without becoming one of the fodder and carnage you see in one the pics below!

Here's the official Full Moon lights at one end of the beach.

From that end, it was jammed with people all the way to the other end of the beach.

This is just one of the clubs..one of probably 10 lined along the beach all blasting thier own music.

They lit this up at around 2:30 am. They like thier Kerosene, seems like they lit whatever they could on fire.

Here's the fodder i was talking about...they littered the beach along with missing flip flops...one pair was eric's... i wonder where they are now.

Here's the sunshine, we made it.