I wrote an entire blog post on the bus this morning and it looks like I managed to delete it. I am not going to win any awards for my blog skills.

Canal boat in Siam

When I left you last I was heading out for the night on Khao San Road. Khao San Road is like a frat party with laughing gas balloons (50 baht, 33=1USD), the thrift store song playing every 23 minutes, lady boys, ping pong shows, the ability to buy fake ID cards, a lot of lacrosse jerseys, and drinking that never ends. It was actually more like every frat party tries to be (minus the lady boys). It was also how backpackers can destroy an area. The main objective of most people on Khao San is to be able to tell people how messed up they got the night before. I headed back pretty early, 2-3am. Needless to say I had a sluggish morning and rolled out of the hostel a little after 10am with a vague plan consisting of take a river boat to the sky train to Jim Thompson’s house.

Paul could get a job

I was disgorged from the sky train in the middle of another protest zone (my first of three that day). It was really more of a market with some people sleeping in tents under pavilions that had been erected.  The area that the protest occupied was really large in space, but not people. It was also the first time I noticed police anywhere near the protests. If you are following the news you may have noticed that a state of emergency has been declared in Bangkok about the protests. In reality I would not notice the protests at all if they were not based out of the sky train stations.

Siam sky train protest

Protesters camping out

Empty protest

After wandering around the Siam district for a bit I decided to visit the sex district in the day to see what it is all about. The first thing I noticed was the prevalence of 50-70 year old white men by themselves and their beer guts. The second thing I noticed that instead of sunglasses the street venders were selling Viagra and Cialis. The third thing I noticed were women in varies states of dress in plastic patio chairs calling out to you as you walked by. I quickly got tired of the area and headed back to the river. I then wandered (read I had no idea where I was) to Chinatown, eating street food along my way.

Putting me out of business

Happy massage across the street from the Westin

The name of the sky train station near most of the sex tourism I saw

That at night I decided to play it low key and started talking to some Aussies that led to a few drinking games. Prior to the drinking games two of us were challenged to name the 9 countries that have 4 letters and the 4 that only have one vowel. It only took an hour. As it neared 1am I decided I should be responsible and pack my stuff since I needed to checkout and catch a bus at 7am. This led to my second non Ambien induced sleep night in a row.

A monk gazing at the sunset