We flew from Chiang Mai to the island of Koh Samui, and from there took a ferry to a smaller island called Koh Tao. In Thai, koh means "island" and tao means "turtle"; several species of turtle come to the island's beaches to breed.
Here is a view around the harbor near Sairee Beach. The island's primary industries are tourism and fishing.
Here is a view of the island from the ferry. Very green and tropical.
We came here mostly for scuba diving. We did four dives over the course of two days, and saw some interesting corals and fish as well as giant clams. But of course we left our underwater housing for our camera at home, so there are no photos. We do, however, have photos of a pub crawl we did on our last night. After dinner in town, we made our way back to our hotel bar which had a DJ playing techno music for a mostly empty room.
My Mai Tai came in a glass shaped like a woman.
After a couple of fruity drinks, we headed to Lotus beach bar. It is right on the ocean, and has mats on the beach where patrons can lounge while sipping cocktails.
It was a very comfortable place to sit and watch the three firedancers who started performing around 9 o'clock.
They would dip either batons or poi (a wick on a chain) into a large container of kerosene and then light it and begin twirling. In a little while, the whole place smelled like diesel.
At times they came awfully close to the people sitting down, but they seemed to know what they were doing.
We were mesmerized for at least two hours, but they showed no signs of stopping.
But finally we had to tear ourselves away so we could head to the last bar on our itinerary, the Queen's Cabaret.
The cabaret show had started several hours earlier, but we arrived just as they were lip-synching to "It's Raining Men".
I think it must be a requirement for these shows to include at least one version of "Lady Marmalade". This "lady" was clearly channeling the Christina Aguilera version.
The "singer" for Aqua's "Barbie Girl" was very pretty...
But not nearly as sparkly as the "lady" performing the Abba medley.
Afterwards the performers came around and took photos. I'm not sure who's face is scarier -- mine with no makeup or "hers" with so much makeup!
Earlier this week we went to the fun but very tourisy Night Bazaar here in Chiang Mai. Tonight is Saturday night, when they hold the weekly "Walking Street" market. It seemed to us to be more of a fun local thing to do on a Saturday night; we saw lots of families out and about and there were definitely fewer obvious tourists.
There were lots of musicians playing everything from traditional music to singing karaoke on portable machines. This little girl was very talented. I think she is playing a khim, which is a hammered dulcimer.
We enjoyed walking up and down the street, checking out all the booths. But the main reason we came here was for dinner, to try some local foods. Of course we started off sharing an order of phad thai.
Then Kevin had a local sausage (kind of like the ones shown here, but shaped differently and from a different stall).
This lady sold all kinds of good-looking things; we bought a delicious grilled banana skewer to share.
And for dessert there was a tasty ice cream square.
There were a few delicacies that we just weren't adventurous enough to try. Normally, Kevin loves calamari, but this squid on a stick just didn't appeal for some reason.
And not even the low, low price of 20 baht (about 65 cents) was enough to tempt us to try these fried insects.
After our street-food dinner, we took a tuk-tuk to the Thai boxing stadium. Our driver was a lady, which I thought was pretty cool. We haven't seen any female tuk-tuk drivers here. She also had the most tricked out tuk-tuk in town. The rear passenger seat sat on top of a thumping bass, and the ride was equipped with speakers that could be heard down the block. Very fun!
We arrived at the Thapae Boxing Stadium just in time for the start of the fights.
Muay Thai is a style of boxing/fighting that originated in Thailand. It is nicknamed the "Art of Eight Limbs" because fighters are permitted to use fists, elbows, feet, and knees.
The stadium had an interesting setup. Most of the spectators were farangs (foreigners) although there was one section full of Thai people, most likely friends and families of the fighters. There were several bars selling overpriced beers.
Bookies competed with each other to convince the foreigners to wager on each fight. Here are a group of tourists placing bets.
Traditional music accompanies each fight, getting faster as the rounds progress. The clarinet-style instrument is called a Pi Muay, Pi Java, or Pi Kaek.
One of the fights we saw was a championship fight for the 85 lb weight class. These were some tough kids!
For intermission, they also had a "special fight" -- five guys blindfolded and forced to duke it out with each other (no kicking allowed). Things got interesting whenever they mistook the referee for a combatant.
Afterwards, the blindfolded guys came around asking for contributions and taking photos with the spectators.
Just to give you an idea of what Bangkok is like, here are some photos of daily life.
Traffic here can be ridiculous -- this was taken during rush hour.
This is an alley near our hotel. They look a little like garages, but these are private homes.
Street food is very prevalent here, and vendor kiosks line nearly every sidewalk.
Most of the dishes are very, very cheap -- we paid 75 baht for two papaya salads (around $2.50), and 60 baht for two plates of phad thai (about $2). Here is our phad thai being prepared mai phet -- not spicy!
Beers are also generally inexpensive. Most places seem to have Chang for about 40 or 50 baht (about $1.50). These were a bit more, since we went to a western-style pub (the Londoner) to see the live band.
Speaking of the band, close your eyes and press "play". Sounds like Barry Gibb, right? Now open your eyes.
Other covers included "Bohemian Rhapsody", "The Wall", "Light My Fire", and "We Are the Champions". And "Don't Stop Believin'", one of my personal favorites!
One of the highlights for serious shoppers is the enormous Jatujak Market that runs on weekends. In all our travels we have never seen such a huge market. It is 35 acres with more than 6000 stalls. Lots of great stuff for sale.
Shoes
Clothing and Artwork
Dried Fruit and Nuts
Fried Quail Eggs (my brother had some to snack on while we walked)
Electric signs in many languages
Western wear and music (hawked by a banjo playing vendor)
Enormous seafood platters
And of course the ubiquitous knockoffs. Anyone want a Tiffany necklace?
We actually only saw a small portion of the whole market; it is much too big to see everything in a single day. There were so many great things to choose from that we were overwhelmed and ended up not buying anything. But it was worth going to just for the experience!
With only two days left, we thought we'd share a few sights we've seen just looking out our window. We didn't even have to leave the apartment to see interesting things!
One of the first weeks we were here, we heard jazz music seeming to come from right below us. Looking out the window, we saw this promotion for Ricard, which is a brand of pastis (anise flavored drink served as an apértif). The "parade" stopped at several of the bars below us, and the drivers served samples out of the backs of the two huge R's.
There was also this activist march for RESel, a group protesting high rents and evictions (100,000 per year). We heard the chanting and looked out the window just in time to see them go by.
On August 12, a group of what appeared to be students marched down the street singing songs accompanied by drums and guitars. Unfortunately, I have no idea who they are or why they were marching, and I can't make out the flag they are carrying. It looks like it's red, white, and black with some kind of insignia. Any ideas?
The most interesting for sure was when we kept hearing someone yell "Action!!" down below, and then he would shout other verbal cues "You look at her!!! You keep going!!!". Curiosity piqued, we looked down and sure enough it was a commercial shoot.
From what I could tell, the one model (fully dressed) was walking down the street eating some kind of baguette. But then, a sassy topless model walked past her eating some other kind of bread (maybe a croissant -- I couldn't tell, I was distracted by the lack of clothes). They did about 20 takes. I'm sure the bar patrons at Grappe d'Orgueil were riveted.
About a week ago, the Ricard's promoters came through again.
And this was the view of the houses across the street just before a very heavy rain one evening.
Technically this one wasn't shot from our window, but it was just down the street....there are all kinds of street performers who perform regularly in Rue Montorgueil. These breakdancers got a bit of a surprise when an elderly lady decided to join in the fun.
Before we went to the Panthéon yesterday, we walked around the Rue Mouffetard area in the 5th district. Since it was a Sunday, many of the streets were closed to traffic and there were lots of people strolling around. We started off near the Place de la Contrescarpe. From Rabelais in the 16th century to Hemingway in the 20th, many writers have found inspiration in the taverns and cafés around this square.
Further down was the Mouffetard Sunday market. For the most part it was just like every other street market we've been to -- a few stalls of produce, fish, butchers, etc. However, something I saw in the street caught my eye.
At first I thought maybe this was just some cheeky street art. But further investigation showed that there was, indeed, a bowling alley on Rue Mouffetard.
But after looking at this mural in the stairway, I'm not sure they play it the same way.
As we headed down the last flight of stairs we could hear the telltale sound of pins falling. There were several groups down there enjoying a Sunday bowl, accompanied by loud techno music.
We went back up to the street and walked down to the end, following the sound of accordion music and singing. There was a whole crowd gathered, and people were handing out song sheets for a big sing-along of French chansons. A few couples were dancing, as well.
We hadn't been standing there more than a minute or two when one of the organizers approached and asked me to dance. How could I refuse? Stephane was very kind and didn't seem to mind that I can't dance to save my life. It was very fun, though. He sang along as we danced...the song is Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.
Here's another short video of some much more talented dancers!
