Wetter 'n' wilder
Just 
north of Kanchanaburi is the Erawan waterfall. It is about a mile long, falls over seven tiers and is beautiful. It is a serene and peaceful place where monks came to pray and tourists come to walk/swim/gawp. We went with some friends we'd made in Kanchanaburi and the five of us walked up and decided to have a swim somewhere around tier five. It was here that nature turned against us. Claire was first in the pool and after a minute or so she started to scream and thrash abo
ut in the water - it was like a scene from Jaws. What was happening below the surface was that hundreds of little fish were nipping away at her feet. It was basically a free version of those fish foot spas and the little blighters were feasting on our dead skin and bacteria - only it felt like these fish had teeth and a grudge. I suppose after weeks of eating odd creatures myself, this was some sort of payback. Then I got into a fight with a monkey. It was trying to go through our bags to get at the picnic we'd
brought along so I ran at it shouting. It then ran at me snarling and bearing its teeth. I picked up a flip flop and waved it above my head like a man who is slightly scared of snarling monkeys. The monkey seemed confused by this gesture, snarled at me again and then walked off with what I am convinced was a swagger.
The scooter ride back from the waterfall was also eventful. We were in the throws of overtaking a lorry when one of its back tyres suffered a massive blow out. The explosion caused me to be consumed by a cloud of dust and what felt like the beginnings of a heart attack. I managed to somehow brake and not fall off but it was a close call. Then, just as my heart had slowed to something nearer its normal rate, we suffer
ed our own (albeit not as dramatic) puncture. Claire had to get on the back of one of our friend's scooters while I slowly limped and bobbled along the verge to the next village. We managed to find a man who could fix it quicker than I could finish the beer his wife had just sold us - and all for 120 baht. That's about £2.40!
After
leaving Kanchanaburi we returned to Bangkok to meet up with our friend James who was on a stopover on his way back to Sydney from London. The next few days were a bit of a blur. He, and his Qantas crew friends who joined us, are old hands at "doing Bangkok" so we let them take us out on the town and show us the sights. These "sights" all seemed to take place at night and in the areas of the city that are mostly illuminated by lots of neon. It's difficult to remember the order in which we did the following, but it all took place over about three (or possibly four) nights...
The first thing I remember is going to a show where some naked, but not very attractive, girls on stage took turns in showing off their talents. I won't go into graphic detail but we saw various random objects disappear and reappear before our eyes, while one talented artist drew us a picture without needing to hold the pen in her hand. It wasn't very pleasant so we decided to go somewhere else and, upon trying to leave, were presented with a bill for 4,800 baht - that's nearly £100! We'd been there less than ten minutes, only had one drink each and the girl who served us swore they were 100 baht each. Obviously we disputed this bill and that's when it all got a bit heated. There was lots of
shouting, waving of arms and brandishing of fictional pricelists while at one point I considered using my tried-and-tested flip flop technique. In the end we flung 300 baht on the table and stormed off indignantly. Once outside we fled like giggling schoolgirls. Unsatisfied by what we'd seen, we decided to sample another one of these shows, this time making sure we set out how much we would be paying from the outset. This was much more fun and much more friendly. After dodging some projectile frozen sausages and watching a girl fail to pop some balloons with a dart (sadly her aim was less impressive than her range) I was invited to play table tennis with one of the girls. Only there was no table. Instead I was handed a ping-pong paddle and spent the next couple of minutes deflecting a volley of balls. After a while I found my aim and was almost able to return them from whence they came. That's when she stopped playing.
Another night we sampled the delights of a cabaret show, where drag acts of varying quality come on sta
ge and mime to hits by their favourite divas. It was very entertaining and lots of fun - until Claire and I somehow got cajoled into joining them on stage that is. Luckily for us, but sadly for you dear reader, cameras are banned from such places so there is no visual record of the humiliation that followed. Claire did, however, manage to take a sneaky shot on her phone of the big one who forcibly kissed me before ejecting me from the stage. She looked marginally better than the girls in that first club.
We also visited a "Go Go Bar" where a gaggle of very attractive girls dance self-consciously on stage with numbers attached to their bikinis. Men sit around the stage drinking and, once they've seen a girl they like, give the number to a woman with a clipboard. She then charges them
about 3000 baht and the girl goes back to their hotel with them for a couple of hours. It was like being in a sexy Argos. Afterwards we went dancing and didn't get home until around 6am. The next day, Claire was emptying my pockets when she found a sort of time capsule of the night before: a heart-shaped keyring, a lighter (I've not smoked for 6 years), someone's email address, a condom and a sachet of 7 Eleven ketchup. Neither of us have any idea how I came by these items.
After James ha
d flown home to Sydney, Claire and I decided to go see some Thai kick-boxing. We went to the Lumpini Stadium (though it was more like a shed than a stadium) and spent the next three hours in a state of confusion. Before each fight the two combatants enter the ring and do a sort of slow, posturing, ritualistic dance. It's like a cross between a Morris Dance and the Hakka.
Then they have their garlands and headbands removed and the fight begins. During each three-minute round a house band plays some mesmerising music on pipes, drums and cymbals that sounds like they're trying to charm a snake from a basket. Then, while the two lads in the ring go at it, the men i
n the crowd signal every punch or kick with a low groan of "Eeeeeh!" no matter who did the punching or the kicking. There's also some mad gambling, which involves lots of men giving secret signals to each other, shouting angrily and waving their arms in the air like
John McCririck at a rave. We saw eight matches and chose a boxer each to follow. Claire beat me 7-1. On the way out of the venue, in consolation, she bought me some silk shorts like the boxers wore. I think they suit me!
north of Kanchanaburi is the Erawan waterfall. It is about a mile long, falls over seven tiers and is beautiful. It is a serene and peaceful place where monks came to pray and tourists come to walk/swim/gawp. We went with some friends we'd made in Kanchanaburi and the five of us walked up and decided to have a swim somewhere around tier five. It was here that nature turned against us. Claire was first in the pool and after a minute or so she started to scream and thrash abo
ut in the water - it was like a scene from Jaws. What was happening below the surface was that hundreds of little fish were nipping away at her feet. It was basically a free version of those fish foot spas and the little blighters were feasting on our dead skin and bacteria - only it felt like these fish had teeth and a grudge. I suppose after weeks of eating odd creatures myself, this was some sort of payback. Then I got into a fight with a monkey. It was trying to go through our bags to get at the picnic we'd
brought along so I ran at it shouting. It then ran at me snarling and bearing its teeth. I picked up a flip flop and waved it above my head like a man who is slightly scared of snarling monkeys. The monkey seemed confused by this gesture, snarled at me again and then walked off with what I am convinced was a swagger.The scooter ride back from the waterfall was also eventful. We were in the throws of overtaking a lorry when one of its back tyres suffered a massive blow out. The explosion caused me to be consumed by a cloud of dust and what felt like the beginnings of a heart attack. I managed to somehow brake and not fall off but it was a close call. Then, just as my heart had slowed to something nearer its normal rate, we suffer
ed our own (albeit not as dramatic) puncture. Claire had to get on the back of one of our friend's scooters while I slowly limped and bobbled along the verge to the next village. We managed to find a man who could fix it quicker than I could finish the beer his wife had just sold us - and all for 120 baht. That's about £2.40!After
leaving Kanchanaburi we returned to Bangkok to meet up with our friend James who was on a stopover on his way back to Sydney from London. The next few days were a bit of a blur. He, and his Qantas crew friends who joined us, are old hands at "doing Bangkok" so we let them take us out on the town and show us the sights. These "sights" all seemed to take place at night and in the areas of the city that are mostly illuminated by lots of neon. It's difficult to remember the order in which we did the following, but it all took place over about three (or possibly four) nights... The first thing I remember is going to a show where some naked, but not very attractive, girls on stage took turns in showing off their talents. I won't go into graphic detail but we saw various random objects disappear and reappear before our eyes, while one talented artist drew us a picture without needing to hold the pen in her hand. It wasn't very pleasant so we decided to go somewhere else and, upon trying to leave, were presented with a bill for 4,800 baht - that's nearly £100! We'd been there less than ten minutes, only had one drink each and the girl who served us swore they were 100 baht each. Obviously we disputed this bill and that's when it all got a bit heated. There was lots of
shouting, waving of arms and brandishing of fictional pricelists while at one point I considered using my tried-and-tested flip flop technique. In the end we flung 300 baht on the table and stormed off indignantly. Once outside we fled like giggling schoolgirls. Unsatisfied by what we'd seen, we decided to sample another one of these shows, this time making sure we set out how much we would be paying from the outset. This was much more fun and much more friendly. After dodging some projectile frozen sausages and watching a girl fail to pop some balloons with a dart (sadly her aim was less impressive than her range) I was invited to play table tennis with one of the girls. Only there was no table. Instead I was handed a ping-pong paddle and spent the next couple of minutes deflecting a volley of balls. After a while I found my aim and was almost able to return them from whence they came. That's when she stopped playing. Another night we sampled the delights of a cabaret show, where drag acts of varying quality come on sta
ge and mime to hits by their favourite divas. It was very entertaining and lots of fun - until Claire and I somehow got cajoled into joining them on stage that is. Luckily for us, but sadly for you dear reader, cameras are banned from such places so there is no visual record of the humiliation that followed. Claire did, however, manage to take a sneaky shot on her phone of the big one who forcibly kissed me before ejecting me from the stage. She looked marginally better than the girls in that first club. We also visited a "Go Go Bar" where a gaggle of very attractive girls dance self-consciously on stage with numbers attached to their bikinis. Men sit around the stage drinking and, once they've seen a girl they like, give the number to a woman with a clipboard. She then charges them
about 3000 baht and the girl goes back to their hotel with them for a couple of hours. It was like being in a sexy Argos. Afterwards we went dancing and didn't get home until around 6am. The next day, Claire was emptying my pockets when she found a sort of time capsule of the night before: a heart-shaped keyring, a lighter (I've not smoked for 6 years), someone's email address, a condom and a sachet of 7 Eleven ketchup. Neither of us have any idea how I came by these items.After James ha
d flown home to Sydney, Claire and I decided to go see some Thai kick-boxing. We went to the Lumpini Stadium (though it was more like a shed than a stadium) and spent the next three hours in a state of confusion. Before each fight the two combatants enter the ring and do a sort of slow, posturing, ritualistic dance. It's like a cross between a Morris Dance and the Hakka.
Then they have their garlands and headbands removed and the fight begins. During each three-minute round a house band plays some mesmerising music on pipes, drums and cymbals that sounds like they're trying to charm a snake from a basket. Then, while the two lads in the ring go at it, the men i
n the crowd signal every punch or kick with a low groan of "Eeeeeh!" no matter who did the punching or the kicking. There's also some mad gambling, which involves lots of men giving secret signals to each other, shouting angrily and waving their arms in the air like
John McCririck at a rave. We saw eight matches and chose a boxer each to follow. Claire beat me 7-1. On the way out of the venue, in consolation, she bought me some silk shorts like the boxers wore. I think they suit me!
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