Djalma's two days at work at the beginning of the week passed by quickly, on Monday I started the week with fresh intentions to clean up my act a bit and try to get in shape for upcoming beach visits, so I went for a power walk in my local park, did a yoga session following a video from Mandy Ingber (an annoying woman with a tiny bottom, she got Jennifer Aniston in shape). After a much needed shower I got stuck into the housework. Fortunately for me I hadn't been using nearly as much talcum powder and so things weren't quite as dusty, a real blessing because I haven't been able to find any furniture polish and as for a duster – I've been using one of Djalma's thermal sleeves he cut off, not exactly a professional set-up. The cleaning fluid I got for the bathroom isn't strong enough to cut through a weeks build up of grime, which is actually a fair amount considering we each have a minimum of two showers per day. Tuesday followed in the same suit minus the housework and because Djalma taught two lessons I had the flat to myself all day.
Wednesday, well Wednesday I had plans for. I've been dying to go to this butterfly and insect place for ages, and we made tentative arrangements to go mid week, but Djalma was feeling super lazy and I decided to put it off till later so we could go together. Cue a day of major card playing and a fair amount of boredom. Until the evening that is, we walked into town stopping off at a street-side restaurant and had some delicious dinner, before carrying on into town and up to the cinema complex in CentralWorld. We checked the times before leaving the house and so we arrived just in time to see our film of the week, X-Men – First Class. Wow, how charming is the young Xavier!? Loved it, even though I have overdosed on X-Men and Wolverine films in the past, the younger characters and all the previous relationships made it fresher. We wandered back in the balmy evening air, stepping on the wonky paving slabs that squish up filthy rain water after a good downpour.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
And now the moment that I'd been waiting for... Thursday and a trip to South East Asia's largest Aquarium. This large underground attraction, hugely expensive, in at the bottom of a swanky shopping centre, Siam Paragon. We still had money off vouchers from when we had planned to visit previously and instead of getting a much cheaper normal ticket we upgraded to get a little package deal, very exciting stuff.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
The place was huge and beautifully lit although very dark, I took hundreds of pictures and deleted most of them, what follows are the ones that I deemed okay enough to keep... After passing through the weird and wonderful section...
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
we came into the lizard, frog and salamander section, one of the frogs looked dead so I didn't take a photo (how tasteless would that have been!?) but after reading the sign I realised that actually it was supposed to look like a dead leaf.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
After Djalma stopped to pet a snake, he was a bit put out that he wasn't allowed to hold it, we waited for the water rat and otter feeding times. The water rats just ate the food out of the guys hands but the otters did tricks, fetched balls, jumped through hoops and pulled out banners, very impressive.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
We carried on through the Aquarium, actually I though everything was so amazing I wanted to go back and re-take pictures, we ended up re-visiting the penguins and several fish tanks, but they were all so pretty it didn't really matter.
*On a side note, I'm sitting in a small pub in a Soi off Ratchaprarop and I've just realised that the ladyboy served me a Coke Zero, it's disgusting!
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
We sat outside a fish tank for larger fish and waited for them to be fed, it's amazing how slovenly fish are until it comes to feeding time.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
There were a couple of really huge fish and several ugly ones, we took great pleasure in taking pictures of each other, documenting everything because it was a treat day. After yet more pictures outside tanks (there was a really cool one with silver fish and little sharks that was supposed to be like a Mangrove Forest) we went for a little dip in the Happy Fish Happy Feet Pools.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
In the enclosed area our feet were rinsed off and we sat on comfy leather seats in front of a huge plexiglass section showing all the sharks and eagle rays. I managed to dip my toes in a couple of times (very near the surface) but my feet bolted out of the water of their own accord as soon as one little muncher attached itself to the sole of my right foot and started gnawing on me. Ugh, just thinking about it is making me shudder, Djalma was egging me on trying to get me to enjoy the experience as he sat with his huge hairy feet covered with lots of wriggling fishy bodies gorging themselves on his dead skin, he even commented on one fish really going for it on his big toe. I will not being going in for that experience again.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
We were almost at the end of the show but we doubled back on ourselves to go and watch the penguins being fed, what fat little lazy adorable underwater torpedoes! The same guy who had fed the rats and the otters came through a little door at the back, with his bucket of fish and the little chubby birds gathered round his feet with their beaks open waiting to catch a fish. It was rather comical, actually it reminds of a quote I pinched from my little sister QI Book of Quotes... 'It is practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry. Joe Moore' If the guy missed and a fish fell out of a penguins mouth, it would let the fish go and wait patiently for another, what a lazy little blubber ball, I loved it.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
The guy through some fish into the water, the front part of the enclosure was one wall of plexiglass and you could see the water and the rocks behind at the same time, the slightly more energetic penguins which went after the airborne fish plopped into the water like agile fat torpedoes, sorry I can't help calling them little fat torpedoes, they were just so cute.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
Leaving the cute little blobs behind we went through the shark tunnel for the first time, there were plenty of sharks and eagle rays, it was amazing to watch them swim overhead with rows of teeth magnified by the glass. There was even a swanky Band and Olufsen room playing classical music, the lights changed behind the jellyfish tanks and it was very soothing.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
We continued on to a room which looked in on one side of the shark tunnel and watched with plenty of others and an extraordinarily cute little girl, as two divers descended to the bottom and ALL the fish came out of hiding and circled the rubber clad duo.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
It was the first feeding time of the day, I'm not so sure I would have jumped into a small enclosure with one hungry fish let alone all the sharks. After watching the sharks get fed from a short sticks and then prodded on their way we retraced our footsteps and queued up for the glass bottomed boat tour which was in exactly the same place as the back of house tour.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
It took about five minutes and we shared a boat with a cute old Asian couple and watched the tuna and the eagle rays swim past, not put off at all by the blinding reflection of our dayglo orange safety vests. Immediately out of the boat we joined a back of house tour, I didn't catch much of what the girl said, it is embarrassingly difficult for me to understand the Thai accent, I am so ashamed especially when someone can speak my language and all I know of theirs is hello and thank you. Anyway we walked round the back looking at big tanks that cleaned the water, different water filters and some shark eggs.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
By now we had spent over two hours in the Aquarium and I was feeling the need for some fresh air, we had already had some popcorn and fizzy pop while watching the rats and the otters and then again when watching the penguins but my stomach was calling so after one last photo opportunity we headed out into the fresh air, giving the food-court a miss and got some pad Thai from a street vendor under the BTS link.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
We then headed on the walkway overhead to the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre to see a Foreign and Familiar exhibition which we had seen advertised. The centre was super cool, outside there was a big bin and some big ugly animal heads and indoors a huge open space surrounded by paintings and works of art.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
We sat down outside one of the small cafés selling coffee and art and then walked past local portrait artists, one of whom was sleeping, up the escalators to the exhibition. Stupidly I didn't take any photos, it was such a pleasure to see some different styles of photography with such different takes on the same topic. Djalma and I were very grown-up, we walked round separately enjoying the art and then walked around them together afterwards talking about different pieces, did we like, why were they good/bad/interesting etc. It was a lovely was to spend and afternoon and completely free!
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
We made our way back towards home stopping off at the Peace Park near our apartment, we have two parks near us one is less than two minutes from our door and is smaller and quieter, but I think more beautiful and the other is larger and in a slightly busier area with a bigger play area for kids. I sat on a park bench taking pictures of kids playing while Djalma went on worked on his ever growing biceps.
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| From 6 Week Six, Bangkok, Thailand |
It was early evening so we stopped for dinner at street restaurant opposite the park and ordered some dinner, I pointed to what a girl near me was eating and Djalma had chicken, veg and rice, mine won hands down. I still can't get over how well you can eat here for 1USD, it's nuts and I love it. Heading home feeling exhausted we put a film before falling asleep like babies.
Djalma went out to work on Friday late morning, I went for a walk and did some yoga, we just sat back and chilled out on Friday night, Djalma was dying to have a night out on the town but I really wasn't feeling it so we had a few beers and stayed in playing cards.
Saturday rolled around and we decided to pay the Youth Centre a visit, I woke up feeling very grumpy and when we got there my mood wasn't helped by the fact that most of the machines were broken and the one working cross trainer was being used by a woman who looked like she wasn't about to come off it any time soon. Cow. I went down to see Djalma who was sweating it out with the big boys, they might be short but they made up for the lack of height in extreme width. Djalma stayed for another half an hour while I went home and did about ten minutes of yoga, I fell on my mat exhausted and grumpy and refused to do any more.
When he got home we cracked open a couple of beers and played cards getting in the right frame of mind for hitting the town. Having had my ass handed to me on a plate, as always, we had dinner, more beer, a shower and then left for Kao San Road – where all the backpackers go and where we stayed the first night in Bangkok. We sat down at one of the bars offering strong cocktails and promised not to check our ID and ordered the first, of what I expect will be many, Thai Buckets. For the uninitiated, a Thai Bucket contains a small bucket-full of whatever cocktail you order, a Samsung was cheapest – Thai Whiskey, Red Bull and Coke. I had to pace myself in order not to eject it over the pavement but the melting ice made it drinkable, maybe you need to drink more for it to taste better, I will test this theory on our next night out. We called Mateus, from Djalma's home town and from the bucket bar we went to another place with live music and a disco where we danced for a couple of hours before heading home. It was good and I can remember most of it but the best part of the night was calling Susanna at 2.30 in the morning and having a good old chin-wag, heaven.
Needless to say Sunday was a do nothing day. After dragging ourselves out of bed at 10am we went back to the 7-Eleven where we had got a hot dog from last night and got ourselves another for breakfast. Back to bed for a film (I cannot remember what we watched, I do know that over the course of the week we watched; MammaMia, Teeth, Tooth Fairy and something else) and then out again for lunch, a nice dirty BigMac Meal in our local McDonalds, I do, by the way, realise how much of a nasty tourist I sound like, but the fact of the matter is that I miss Western food and I have NEVER eaten so much fast food in my life (believe that if you will) but there is something about McDonalds out here that just really grabs, well KFC does as well but I can't find a Zinger Tower Burger for love nor money. Well that about wraps up our sixth week in this beautiful city. Stay tuned for next week's offering: Bangkok, Thailand: Week Seven. Exciting stuff I can hardly wait!
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