ISpyShanghai

The Thai greeting "Wai"

It seems like a long time since I was on the beach at Koh Samui, listening to the sound of the waves and waiting for my Tom Yum Goon to turn up (a kind of soup, not a male prostitute).

Koh Samui is a beautiful island- Palm Trees everywhere, the main industry until the tourists arrived was Coconuts.

They still farm Cocunuts you know

The temperature was around 29 degrees with a slight breeze the whole time I was there.  Perfect.

Sandy beaches with shallow warm water ring the island, there are Butterflies everywhere (cool little Geckos eat most of the Mosquitoes). I saw some local kids ride a water Buffalo into the sea and a Monkey climb a tree to pick Cocunuts for its owners- it could be anytime over the last 150 years if there wasn’t a Starbucks.

We stayed at Emma’s parents house, a gorgeous place that has speakers outside so you can listen to Shaggy as you play Water Volleyball in the pool.  

The house is at Mae Nam, the pick of the beaches on the island- and since Emma’s parents (thanks Alan and Helen!) lent us their car, we drove around the whole island a few times to see what was around.

There are a couple of bigger resorts including Cha Weng where we met a bunch of 10 year old kids that play Connect 4 for money. Our buddies Yi and Joern were visiting the island at the same time, and Joern was mouthing off about how great he is at Connect 4. He was still a bit edgy about playing the kids though.

Come on man, don’t be scare!

Said the kid. Eventually, after I offered to put up half of the stake (the winner gets 100 RMB), Joern went for it.
 

He lost, obviously. The kid’s a professional athlete for flip’s sake.

Other things I saw on Koh Samui include (can you tell I’m running out of lunch hour?):

Thai kids: cute

Mummified monk: Creepy

Monkey up close: cute and creepy

Ahh Thailand…

People are funny about feet.

At the Emerald Buddha temple in Bangkok we had to make sure our feet were bare before we went in to see the main statue, but also that whilst we were there, our soles didn’t point towards the statue.

If they made up the deity, then they can make up what offends him I suppose, but it’s a little odd.

Emma likes to point out that you never see bare feet on an American sitcom. If Chandler from Friends gets out of bed in the middle of the night, he’ll always be wearing horrible thick white sports socks.

It’s a prudish thing that as a Brit I will never really understand; Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II regularly gives the Christmas speech whilst soaking her bunions in a bucket of hot water for all to see.

Slippers your Majesty?

Boots the Pharamicist in Thailand stocks a few things that you don’t see on the shelves of the same shops back home

Since this is a cream for men I think I can figure out what the “Specific area” they’re talking about is. But this is Thailand, so I’m not sure whether it’s supposed to increase the size and or performance of the area, or just make it disappear completely?

Help at last for those with non-specific problems in their specific area

Women: Are you tired of worrying about the size, shape and firmness of your breasts?

Why not take a break from all of that and start worrying about the colour of them instead!

Mmmm colour soft

With Bangkok snarled up in its infamous traffic, Emma and I took the river bus to one of Thailand’s top tourist spots: The Grand Palace.

Monks on the boat to the palace

 
The Palace was until pretty recently the official residence of the beloved King of Thailand (creepy photos of His Majesty are everywhere in Thailand, and if you say anything bad about him, they throw you in jail). 

Presumably due to the protests currently going on in Bangkok, royalist supporters hang out near the palace to tell people that the building is closed to foreigners until 3pm (last tickets for entrance are sold before 3pm).
The sneaky swines.

I was in a bit of a mood by the time we got into the palace; they have a strict dress code (no shorts, skirts above the knee, vest tops or Oxford bags). Emma wasn’t sure whether there’d be any place to change when we arrived so I had been walking around in the baking heat wearing brown woolen trousers.

When I arrived and saw how many people had been caught out wearing shorts and were now paying through the nose for horrible, horrible emergency clothes- I was glad she put her well-covered foot down. (Although apparently, this nipple-revealing highly-respectable see-through top was OK)

"What the hell is that guy wearing?"

The  eye-popping gaudiness of the Grand Palace is a wonder to behold- it’s a bit like an ancient stone temple that’s dressed up to go to a Mardi Gras parade hosted by Elton John.

Thais take their religion pretty seriously, every piece of land has a “Spirit house” on it (for some reason or other), and there are more temples than branches of KFC, but they don’t mind adding a bit of glitz and glamour to the proceedings. 

After all, what kind of divine being wouldn’t want their house covered in purple, green and gold shiny tiles?

The Grand Palace

Entrance Fee: 250Baht for foreigners / free for Thai nationals

These are great fun- 150 Baht (around 3 quid / 30 RMB) from a guy on the beach. The ring at the bottom is a little firelighter, a paper tube above that to catch the air, and away you go.

Also on youtube.

If you can’t see this video because your computer is backwards, then you probably aren’t going to enjoy the slideshows (one of Bangkok, one of Koh Samui) that I’ve got a team of farmers working on right now.

The beach at Mae Nam is pretty peaceful and the only person to come up and sell us something was the guy with these paper balloons. At the big resort of Cha Weng however, the whole sea front was packed with waves of hawkers.

Products for sale included:

• your photo with a Lizard
• A pearl / polysterene necklace 
• buckets of Thai Whiskey
• huge fireworks (they go great with the Whiskey)
• Your photo with a Monkey

Bangkok was full of crazy shoes. Shoes of every possible style and hue.

I’d show them all to you now, but then where would that leave me during the traditional Shoe drought of February 4th – March 12th?

Rumours that these are what Spongebob Squarepants wears for his ladyboy show are so far uncomfirmed.

It’s going to take me a while to organise photos of the excellent stuff I’ve seen both on Koh Samui, and in Bangkok- so I hope you’re not in a rush.

Why, only today I saw a trained monkey climb a tree and throw down coconuts to its cruel human captors (it was awesome).

Until I get back to base camp you’ll just have to imagine the many sights I have seen.

Oh OK then, you can have this one to tide you over.

Whew, online again here on Koh Samui. This is what the well-dressed foreigner is wearing in Bangkok markets these days:

Denim waistcoat, denim pedal pushers, and a pair of indoor 5-a-side football shoes.

Swish.