One Night In Bangkok...

Ayutthaya is an enormous complex of red-brick temples and stupas that are the remains of an ancient capitol of Thailand. After leaving Thailand in 2006 I read about Ayutthaya and wished that I could have seen the ruins. Before my Air Asia flight from Rangoon was cancelled I thought that I'd only have a half day in Bangkok and would have to save Ayutthaya for another trip. Getting to Bangkok last night, though, meant that I'd have a full day here and plenty of time for a tour of the ancient city - not a bad consolation for paying a hundred bucks for an early flight out of Rangoon. After landing in Bangkok last night I headed straight for Khao San Road. Eleven-thirty at night might as well be eleven-thirty in the morning on Khao San, and it took me all of five minutes to find a discount travel agency and book a tour of Ayutthaya leaving early this morning. A minivan picked me up at 7:00 and I was off to the ruins with two Indonesian girls, two Taiwanese girls, two Japanese girls, and a Mexican kid named Andrei.

Originally I thought that Ayutthaya was one giant city, isolated from the rest of the Bangkok suburbs. It turns out that the ancient complex is spread over an entire island between three rivers, with new developments sprouting up between the existing temples and stupas. Our tour group visited five temples in all. Unfortunately I don't remember the names of any of the temples and I don't have a guide book to help me out, but I enjoyed wandering through massive brick structures and past ancient, plaster-covered stupas. One of my favorite parts of traveling is meeting other travelers from all different parts of the world. I was really excited to book a day trip with a travel agency on Khao San Road because I knew that people from all kinds of different countries would be on the tour, and I wasn't disappointed. I spent most of my time talking with Andrei, the kid from Mexico. Andrei is 22 years old and spent two years living in Los Angeles, so his English is nearly perfect. Andrei is a drummer for a Mexican electronic rock band called Dhurva, which opens up for famous bands all over Mexico and has played for crowds as large as 20,000 people. It was a blast to talk with Andrei about studying music in the United States and playing the drums for bands in Mexico. Towards the end of the tour he handed me his iPod and let me listen to some of Dhurva's music. The stuff isn't quite the same as what I listen to back home, but the music was really professional and I wouldn't be surprised to hear something like it on the radio in the US. Andrei said that Dhurva is on iTunes, so maybe I'll download a few of their songs when I get back.

I also talked a lot with one of the Taiwanese girls and one of the Japanese girls. We talked about Japan, China, Taiwan, and the United States, and what the differences and similarities are between them. I was surprised to hear from Meg, the Japanese girl, that a lot of people in Japan view American products as superior to their own. I've always thought Japanese products were much better than those made in the US. After discussing it with her though, I think that we were talking about different kinds of products. Japanese people like American cosmetics, American music, American movies, and American fashion. Americans, of course, like Japanese cars and Japanese technology products.

After returning from the tour I mailed home the box of Burmese laquerware that I bought yesterday and then headed to Bangkok's massive MBK shopping center to resolve some issues with my camera. I noticed today that there is a small spot on the corner of all my photos and I figure that the CCD sensor of my camera must have gotten a fleck of dust stuck to it sometime during the last few days. Also, the auto-focus on one of my lenses broke. I really don't want all my shots to be either extreme close-ups taken with my telephoto lens or out-of-focus shots taken with my busted one, so I had to buy another lens. Fortunately I found out that there are six camera stores at MBK, as well as an official Canon service center. It stinks to have to blow more money on unexpected expenses, but it wouldn't make any sense to go the rest of my trip with a busted camera. I dropped $170 on a new lens and the service for my camera, but it had to be done, there's no use being upset about it.

On previous trips I've gotten used to spending every one of my nights in ultra-cheap hotels, but I've often wished that I had just one or two nights at a place that's really nice. With a little help, I was able to work that in for this trip. I found out that by signing up for a couple of credit cards back home, I could get five free nights in luxury hotels as an incentive. I don't plan on using the cards, but credit card companies lure enough people into interest-paying financial trickery that every once in a while someone should just milk them for all they're worth. I'm more than happy to be that person.

I signed up for six different cards back home, bought a few fish tacos and a sandwich, paid off the bills, and collected all the incentives that come after making the first purchase. Along with five free nights at four-star hotels anywhere in the world, I got $30 off a purchase at Amazon.com, 35,000 Skymiles (enough to get to South America and back for free), and a couple of $100 gift cards to pretty much anywhere I want. Tonight was the first of my five free nights and I wasn't disappointed with the place. I stayed at the Unico Grande Sukhumvit, a boutique hotel in downtown Bangkok. The room I booked was full, so the staff upgraded me to a bigger, more lavish one. Walking in to a huge room with a lavish rug and couch and a king-size bed with fluffy white pillows was a huge treat after spending the last nine nights in twelve-dollar haunts. As I walked through the lobby of the Unico Grande with my dingy backpack hanging from my shoulders the staff glared at me, wondering, I'm sure, what in the world a backpacker was doing in a four-star boutique hotel.
One of my favorite parts of my 2006 trip to Southeast Asia was sitting ringside at a Thai kickboxing match just hours after arriving from the US. Even though I had already blown my Bangkok budget to smitherines tonight, I couldn't just sit in my hotel room with a fight at Lumpinee Stadium going on less than a mile down the road. Sixty bucks put me ringside for one more brutal night of Muay Thai. I watched four matches tonight at Lumpinee in the company of thousands of raging, screaming Thai fans. Just sitting and yelling with the crowd and taking a few pictures was worthwhile, but tonight one of the boxers had a treat for everyone lucky enough to be there. Early in the fourth match one fighter caught his opponent off guard and leapt four feet into the air to introduce his face to a merciless flying knee. The unlucky boxer flew backwards onto the canvas, bouncing a couple of times before coming to a rest completely unconscious. The stadium erupted. A deafening roar of screaming and excitement continued long after the recipient of the blow was carried out of the ring on a stretcher. Boxing in the US is entertaining enough, but unless Mike Tyson bites someone's ear off, nothing quite matches the intensity of a Thai flying knee.