Seeing as we messed up our trip to Myanmar, we took our extra time in Bangkok to take in the sites and experiences with the city has to offer. This involved a ping pong show, walking through Pat Pong Market (red light district and awesome knockoff clothing and purses), saw the temples along the river and checked out Chatuchak Weekend market. As well as a bit of shopping :)
I knew that on this trip we would be celebrating my birthday somewhere, but wasn't quite sure where. I was hoping it would be on the beach, but Bangkok was still awesome as well. Joey and I spent most of the day lazying around, and then we went for a very fancy river cruise. We had to go all the way to the Marriot Hotel, which was absolutely stunning. After staying in guesthouses for the last two months, Joey and I were envious of the rich travelers who got to stay here. We were merely just visitors drinking their expensive wine.
The river cruise involved a 5 course dinner and various sight seeing along the river. The ambiance was very relaxed and the food was amazing. It was such a unique and great way to spend my birthday. I am so lucky Joey spoiled me. To top it off, he had arranged for them to bring me a cake. Everyone awkwardly sang me happy birthday on the boat (most ppl didn't know who they were singing for, or what my name was, so there was that awkward pause at happy birthday to (insert name) haha).
A couple days later we spent the day sightseeing along the river. We saw the Royal palace, a couple of wats, and then decided to search for some crazy shrine dedicated to fertility. We had heard that this shrine was located in the parking garage of a 5 star hotel on the other side of town. It is where Thai women come to pray to the god of fertility so that they become pregnant. When they become pregnant they come back to bring an offering. Sounds quite normal right? The peculiar thing about this shrine was there was penis phalluses' everywhere. Made of wood, stone, crystal, glass.. you name it. They were various shapes and sizes. Quite a strange shrine to be in a 5 star hotel.
That night we decided to do the North American thing and go to the movies. We watched the movie Pope Joan. Unless you really like epic/history/religious films, it wasn't our cup of tea. It was still decent though! We finished off our night with stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut. I've never had it before nor have I ever been to Pizza Hut, but it was pretty good. Not something I would order again though.
The next day Joey and went to Chatuchak market which is a market that happens every Saturday and Sunday. There are 15,000 stalls of everything you could imagine. We were mainly looking for clothes and maybe some weird souvenirs. It was quite overwhelming how much stuff there was. Our favourite part of the market was when we stumbled upon the pet section. There were baby bunnies that you could pick up and pet. Some of them were sooooooo tiny, and also, there were others wearing little dresses. One of the cutest things I have ever seen. There were also lots of puppies and kittens everywhere. Sometimes even in the same cage. One thing that we saw that was heartbreaking was the full grown adult husky in a small cage. Joey was heartbroken because the dog looked so unhappy being in that cage. Who knows how long he has to stay in there, or if he gets walked or properly fed.
On Monday our plan was to go to the Myanmar embassy, pick up our visa and get ready for our trip there. One thing about Myanmar is that they don't have atm's and nowhere accepts credit card. You must bring all the money you expect to spend for your stay with you. If you don't, you can potentially purchase US dollars from high end hotels who will charge up to 30% commision. It is simply more worth it to bring enough money with you and not worry about it.
We had a couple issues getting our money out because I couldn't remember my PIN and Joey had a limit on his cards. Eventually we got enough money to exchange into US. We went to the MBK (Mahboonkrung Mall) in Bangkok where there are lots of different exchange places. The thing about exchange places here is that they sometimes only have $100 US bills, which aren't usually accepted in Myanmar.
At one exchange place we ran into quite the situation. We were approached by a man with a thick accent (we're not sure where from, but more than likely he was middle eastern) who told us he was going to Toronto soon and wanted to see what our money looked like. He still asked if he could see it. He told us about how he had been living in Australia and that he plans to go to Canada for a while. Joey told him that we didn't have any Canadian money, only American. Joey said I don't know you, but the guy's rebuttal was that he had tons of money which he then showed us (a bunch of 100 USD bill in his wallet) and wouldn't want to steal from us. This is when it got weird. He also had a friend who kept on trying to talk to me while Joey was talking to the other guy. I completely ignored him and was intent on standing right behind the guy looking at our money. I was ready to punch him in the face if he started to run away. The adrenaline was pumping through my veins. I was ready to attack. A conversation that started out as "Do you know what time it is" had turned into a crime scene.
Being the trusting Canadians we are, Joey hands him over the money just to look at. When he went to grab the money back it felt considerably thinner. The guy was folding it and about to put it in his fanny pack. At this point his friend is trying really hard to get my attention, the split second he did, Joey had already grabbed the money back and had pushed the jerk away. They both ran away into the millions of cellphone stalls on the 4th floor of the mall.
We went to security and reported the incident. We weren't quite sure if he had gotten anything but we knew that the wad of cash was only $1's and $5's so it wouldn't have been much anyways. Apparently this kind of thing happens all the time, and the info ladies told us that the criminals are arabic and have tried it many times.
Both of us are embarrassed for being so trusting but also glad that the situation worked out in our favour. Like I said in the last blog post, we are still learning. Unfortunately most of the world isn't like Canada. People here are out to get you and take advantage of our kindness. It makes us more and more jaded. Especially when talking with locals who just want to talk and know about your life and practice their english. It sucks thinking that even cute old men or even monks are out to get you or rip you off. I know it is smart to be skeptical, but sometimes it would be nice to just have an interaction with someone without questioning if they are a good person or not. Unfortunately after this experience with the guy at the mall, Joey and I have our guards up even if it means turning down experiences with locals that mean no harm.
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