Bangkok
Bangkok blogs
Blog.Travelistic
I’m a big fan of massages, though I rarely get them. I think I like them as much as 50 Cent thinks fat kids like cake. So when I went to Thailand, a place that is known for said pleasure for a fraction of the cost, I was thrilled. And after lugging myself around Bangkok for a few days with the extreme heat and crowding that makes New York City look like uncharted territory, I was ready for a rubdown.
The thing was, I didn’t need all my muscles to be attended to. So my two friends and I began our mission to find an authentic Thai massage, free of happy endings. We were told if the place was legit, it wouldn’t be down a back alley. It ended up taking us three frustrating hours to find somewhere that would not leave us with the parting gift of an STD. Finally we were all led to a clean, good-sized room and told to strip down and put on our robes.
We lay down on our mats and three miniature Thai women entered, chatting away with each other. With little more then a smile in our direction, they got to work molding our backs to their whim, never stopping their chatter. And it was a good thing they kept talking because they drowned out our moans of happiness. When I was turned over on my back and the woman started walking to the very top of my inner thigh, I learned I was tense in places I hadn’t even thought about. It was intimate enough that I felt like we should share an after-massage cigarette and take a nap together.
By the time the women were done, the three of us were puddles of relaxation. It literally took everything we had to get dressed. And while the experience was a bit odd, it wasn’t nearly as strange as an Indian ayurvedic massage a friend told me about. Apparently for that experience you’re completely naked, they lube you up with so much baby oil that the person giving the massage hangs from a rope, and then they massage you with their feet. When the masseuse started massaging her breasts with her well-worn hooves, the girl slid right off the table and out the door faster then you can say Kamasutra.
I guess there’s something to be said for an authentic, foreign massage, but the cost of getting out there without being emotionally scarred, well, that’s priceless.
- by Emily Epstein of b’scuse me? fame.
Blog.Travelistic
What is on the mind of the Travelistic viewer today? Your top five most popular tags and searches tell all…
Among the tags, some obvious choices:
– Beaches
– Shopping
– Nightlife
and some less so:
– Street Vendors
– Pak Klong Talat
Gridskipper
Turns out that denizens of lower First Avenue, Las Vegas and film critics aren't the only ones who hate famed bar/noted cinematic stinker Coyote Ugly. Thailand's Queen Sirikit banned Thailand's "Coyote Ugly girls" from performing in public places this week after video surfaced of girls gyrating near a Buddist temple on a holy day. She has more restraints in store for them (not the sexy kind), though watching the film is not rumored to be among her proposed punishments.
After the film debuted in 2000, many Bangkok nightclubs were moved to feature Coyote Ugly girls. They acted much as the bartendresses in the film: scantily clad, they would dance the night away atop bars, dispensing liquor. Soon, they became the Thai equivalent of giant balloons, christening car dealerships and the like. Considering the acts that are available for your viewing pleasure in Bangkok, it was all rather tame, but now that era seems to be drawing to a close.
More entertaining is the Coyote Ugly girl the AP found to give her side of the story if the profession is banned altogether. Hers is a familiar tale:
Ms. Parichart, who also calls herself Natalie, is a college student by day, pursuing a double major in law and English with a minor in hotel management. On evenings and weekends, she slips into stilettos, hot pants and midriff-baring tops for a few hours of dancing, which brings in a hefty $2,000 a month.Yeah, we've all heard that line before.
Queen Prompts Thailand to Restrict Coyote Ugly Dance Troupes [AP]
Coyote Ugly [Official Site]
Previously: Estrela Da Lapa, Pop Goes the Vino, More LA Blow Back, Long Lines in LA, Private Clubs No Longer So Private
Gridskipper
The ban on liquids in airports caused plenty of grief for travelers when it was instituted in July, but they'd better control their water intake if they wend their way through Bangkok's new Suvarnabhumi airport anytime soon. According to the New York Times, Thailand's blinged-out architectural marvel is short on facilities. And by facilities, we mean places to drain the lizard (or whatever the Southeast Asian equivalent of draining said lizard might be). That's right: there aren't enough toilets.
The Thai airport authority responded to complaints by bulldozing some offices at the airport and replacing them with 205 sweet new cans. Yet, that's not the only problem at Suvarnabhumi. They also have cobras--and not the entertaining kind that battles G.I. Joe. Suvarnabhumi was known as "Cobra Swamp" before the name was changed and the swamp drained to build the airport--just like Newark!
In the coming months, many of the issues like Suvarnabhumi's lack of signage and ATMs will be addressed, but was there a reason the builders skimped on toilets in the first place? Were they worried about the potential for toilet-cobra infestation? Only time will tell, but stay vigilant. Cobras eat lizards.
In Bangkok, a Rough Start for a New Airport [NYT]
Bangkok's New Airport
Blog.Travelistic
According to Word Spy:
aerotropolis (air.oh.TROP.ul.lis) n.: A city in which the layout, infrastructure, and economy are centered around a major airport.
Word Hum picked up this coinage via a story in the NY Times this week, about the opening of Bangkok’s massive new airport complex, Suvarnabhumi. According to the Times this “golden land” will eventually encompass “all the components of a major metropolis: shopping malls, office buildings, hotels, hospitals, an international business center, conference and exhibition spaces, warehouses and even a residential community.” Even more over-the-top new airports in Dubai and Beijing will be opening in a few years. This trend has its roots in showplace terminals like O’Hare and Charles De Gaulle 2–which turned airports from fusty warrens of passageways into shiny, white spaceports–but really got going when Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok opened in 1998 on its own island, custom built to house the massive air-travel city, which employs some 45,000 workers.
Previously:
– Airports
– Word of the Day
Gridskipper
I recently paid a visit to Sirocco, Bangkok's breathtaking rooftop restaurant, and all I have to say is this: holy fucking shit. As one of my companions said, the place is an opening scene of "Six Feet Under" waiting to happen. Patrons sit at tables and crowd around a circular bar implausibly perched on an outcropping some 64 stories above the city. The drop to the traffic below is sheer. Meager glass railings are all that separate visitors from the precipice. Looking out over the edge -- once you've calmed your jitters by downing a $10 cocktail or two -- reveals a straight drop from Bangkok's second-tallest skyscraper to the peanut-sized cars below. I saw one farang woman resting her elbows on the railing and peering down at the Chao Phraya river, her highball glass held straight out; had it fallen, the consequences at ground-level would have been dire. (In the photo above, consider that on the night I visited, the crowd was so thick that folks were nearly jammed up to the railing all around.)
If you can manage to calm your nerves -- and seriously, I'm not even afraid of heights and I felt a bit on edge -- then you're in for a treat, as the view is remarkable. While the drinks are (understandably) overpriced, the place simply must be seen to be believed.
Sirocco [Official site]
Sirocco Restaurant [2Bangkok.com]
Previously: Bangkok's New Airport, Chatuchak Market: Nike Cock Pizza, Chatuchak Weekend Market, Once You Go Lomo, You'll Never Go Back, Newley in the NYT, Lonely Planet Founders Do Bangkok, Bangkok Shop n' Block
Gridskipper
Besides being the hangout for Thai cowboys, Bangkok's largest outdoor market is home to 15,000 stalls selling everything from country music to vintage Nikes. Daniel at Metroblogging Bangkok picks out three of his favorite market activities, and strange for Bangkok, only one involves cocks.
...hidden near exit 5 is a series of booths selling vintage shoes. Now if you're not into your pre-owned vintage shoes, well this may seem absurd, but to most sneakerfreaks its pure heaven
his little gem of a restaurant sells both pizza and amazingly good Thai food. The pizza is by far the best I've had outside of Milan and the Thai is in the top 5 for this city. The name of the place is Pizza Bay and for those who know Chatuchak well, it's by the art section, near exit 5 I believe.
Hidden away from the main strip is a small area where some of the finest cocks in the city come to fight it out, not always to the death. There is a small plastic ring placed near the cages and then in true Thai fashion, more screaming and shouting on betting odds of who will win. I wont publish where this is, you will have to mail me for further details.You can contact Daniel here. Now there's no excuse for not watching to cocks injure each other, except, perhaps, decency.
[Photo: Daniel]
Previously: Chatuchak Weekend Market, Once You Go Lomo, You'll Never Go Back, Newley in the NYT, Lonely Planet Founders Do Bangkok, Bangkok Shop n' Block
Gridskipper
Sunday consists of going to gym to build up arm strength to pick up the tablet sized New York Times Sunday, heading over to Little Giant, and dissecting the newsprint like a fœtal pig. Imagine our joy seeing a byline by Gridskipper's own Newley Purnell in the Travel section. Newley joins the ranks of Ian Mount of Gskippers in the NYT. Entitled Thailand's Tourists: 'Coup? What Coup?' the article highlights the blithe insouciance of expats and tourists in Bangkok. Few if any tours have been cancelled, the bars are stll flled with drunken horny expats. In fact, the new government has loosened the regulation requiring bars to be closed at 1 am, an almost Bostonian time. The pacific relaxed air in Bangkok could be, one might conclude, a result of Miss Asia 1987 reading the news or perhaps some things, (cheap beer, the need to relax) trump geo-political upheaval.
Thailand's Tourists: 'Coup? What Coup?'
[Photo: NYT]
Previously: Lonely Planet Founders Do Bangkok, Bangkok's Shop N' Block, I Love the Way She Says Coup, Whither Goest Bangkok?
Gridskipper
Tony and Maureen Wheeler, who founded the Lonely Planet guide book empire in 1973, gave a talk and signed copies of their new memoir, Once While Traveling: The Lonely Planet Story, at a bookstore in Bangkok's super-swanky Siam Paragon mall last night. As the New York Daily News once said, the couple are "the specialists in guiding weird folks to weird places." They also happen to helm the world's largest publisher of travel guides, an outfit that sold more than six million copies in 2004. The pair were affable and up-beat and proud of their new title, which, according to its promotional copy, is "equal parts autobiography, corporate history and travel book."
Anyone who's paid attention to Lonely Planet's books over the years will have noticed a shift in editorial focus of late. The books are not exclusively for independent budget travelers anymore -- they now appear to be aimed at tourists with much more expendable income to splash around. I asked the Wheelers about this, and they said that their books have changed as travel itself has evolved. More people travel these days, they said, and their books are designed to appeal to low-budget and no-budget tourists alike.
Indeed, it's hard to quantify the impact that the Wheelers' titles have had on global travel -- for good and bad. (Their books have helped countless people explore the world; they have also, critics say, brought hordes of tourists to what would otherwise have been unspoilt territories.) I came away thinking, however, that the two truly believe in what their titles espouse: the spirit of exploration and adventure.
Once While Traveling: The Lonely Planet Story [Official site]
The Parachute Artist: Have Tony Wheeler's guidebooks travelled too far? [New Yorker]
[Text+Photo: Newley Purnell]
Previously: The Lonely Planet of Travel Writers, Tony Wheeler's Podcast Adventure,The Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel, Mr. Lonely Planet
