Phil-San In Thailan(d) – Part 2

Exchange Rate

One of the biggest problems I found with Thailand was that as everything was so cheap, it was hard to break down notes. In Japan, no-one buys anything with card, it’s very much a cash nation. For that reason, it’s common to carry around a lot of money, and being a safe place helps. On top of this, it’s not strange to use a 10,000 Yen note (£50) in a newsagent. Thailand was strikingly different in that a 20 Baht note (30p) was knocked down by many people if the price was below this. So imagine how hard it was to use a 500 or 1000 Baht note (about £7 or £14)! Added to everything being cheap, I actually didn’t spend much at all. The biggest rip-off wasn’t even in Thailand; it was changing money into Baht from Yen – 1/6th of the money was taken as commission. If I’d known that I wouldn’t have converted much until I got there. But, as Mastercard put it:

Flight - £300
Spending Money - £100
Conversion - £50
Holiday to Thailand – priceless.

I have a lot of baht left, which I’m not prepared to convert back, hint hint…

Damnoen Saduak

Try saying that five times quickly. At 7am on the second morning, after a hot and restless night’s sleep, I got on an air-conditioned minibus headed for the floating market, about an hour outside of Bangkok. It was refreshing to be out of the city, seemed much less noisy and dirty, and more relaxed. There were about ten people, although some were older and there was a family. I’m not huge on organised tours, but given my limited time it seemed like the best option to travel around and see the sights. And only £5!

The first stop was at a tourist trap which showed how you make coconut sugar – extremely sweet with a bitter after-taste. The tour guide (Mr Max – pictured below – who greeted us with: “So, today we’re setting off for Cambodia, everyone have their hiking boots”) showed us a local delicacy – a bread roll and filled with sweetcorn and then ice-cream. Supposedly very refreshing although it sounds a bit too much like pregnancy craving food for my liking.



This area was pretty cool looking, in the LOST sense.




The floating market was extremely impressive; maybe the best thing I saw my whole trip. If you’ve seen that ‘Thai Bites’ advert, you’ll have seen it, but basically it’s set on a canal and women sell fruit, cooked food and knick-knacks on boats. Although it was very touristy – slightly hypocritical, I know – it was an awesome sight, watching the trading. Everyone was very laid back – the women threw fruit for customers to try and they all helped to pass money and goods from one side to the other when a deal was done.









I bought two types of lychee and one exotic fruit that I don’t know. It looked like a clove of garlic but was so juicy and sweet. The lychee were fantastic and, again, ridiculously cheap. I would’ve sent some if I could, but customs regulations and all that.




Afterwards, the tour carried on down the river on an old rusty speed-boat. I’d say houses, but more shelter/hut-like, were lined along the river and we saw how some people lived. We stopped at one for petrol – nice to know that nowhere is safe from the brand names that we have come to rely on.



Indiana Jones’s Nightmare



The final stop (and unknown to me) was at a Snake Farm. It would’ve been pretty bad if someone had a phobia of snakes but everyone was OK. It’s best described straight out of the leaflet:

Come and visit the world famous cobra show, where snake venom is collected to make serum. See cobras being milked of their poison, aggressive jumping snakes,
giant pythons with razor sharp teeth , three mangrove snakes against one man, mongoose fighting a cobra…

And of course, if you get bitten, don’t stop at the pub on the way to the hospital. Always useful to be given good advice.



The man doing the talking sounded straight out of ‘From Dusk Til Dawn’ – Apple Pie *****. Don't worry about what's happening, just listen:



I won’t go into much detail as a lot of it was cruel but I managed to sit through the whole show. I have some pretty nasty videos (especially of the mongoose fight) but if you want to see them I will send them to you. However, I did capture a hilarious video clip. One man was performing with a jumping snake:



Unfortunately, I stopped just as it happened. No-one was injured, although the scream is absolutely priceless. Makes me laugh every time.

Ant Attack

The refreshing 4pm rain hit like clock-work back on Khao San Road so I chilled in my hostel’s bar and watched Team America; f**k yeah! Unfortunately, I must’ve had my bag on the floor in a bad spot because, later when I was on my bed, I started getting bitten by red ants that had found their way into my bag. They were all over the bed and no way of knowing how many there were. I killed quite a few, but losing the battle and the extreme heat which the ceiling fan was doing nothing to quench I thought about giving up and going back to the boutique hotel. I stayed put. All part of the fun. I killed the rest and didn’t have any more problems with them.

My bag stayed firmly off bar floors.

Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? Is It Rubbish?

In the evening, I went to Siam Paragon to the cinema there. This was the most grand-looking movie theatre I had ever seen. Beautiful, and both modern yet keeping some romantic atmosphere of old style theatres. And cheap – movies in Thailand are £1.40 each for the standard reclining padded leg-roomed seats. And with a drink and popcorn it all came to £2.50! Thai - 1, Japan - 0.

The first trailer was for, wait for it, Snakes On A Plane: the greatest title ever. Does exactly what it says and looks hilarious. More about that movie another day. The other trailer worth pointing out was Spiderman 3 which looks absolutely, umm, ‘amazing’. If you haven’t seen it, check it out now:





I still hold that Spiderman is the only truly great superhero adaptation of the latest craze.

Before the movie, everyone suddenly stood up and, accompanied by shots of Thailand and Thai people, the national anthem came on. This really is a patriotic country.

Superman Returns, for whoever didn’t guess, began straight after, without any BBFC-type slide. I wasn’t expecting much, knowing that Brandon Routh (Superman) dodgy looking cross-eyes and Kate Bosworth is the most useless lump of an actor after Orlando Bloom. Lois Lane is meant to be a feisty head-strong reporter, and they chose Bosworth for the part. Hmm. And the verdict:

Absolute rubbish. Nothing special or intriguing about it. Every scene or idea had been done better in the other Superman movies, Lois & Clark, or Smallville. Granted, the special effects were very realistic, but nothing held together. Each scene was pointless, nothing was followed through, no characters were explored and there were huge plot-holes; the main one being that Superman had been gone 5 years, and Lois had a child in that time but the boy was at least 8 or 9 years old. And he was irritating as hell. Kevin Spacey was also rubbish – very boring. The strangest thing of all was that although the film was long, it felt as though Lois, Superman/Clark or Lex hardly appeared. I’ve never felt that before but it was as if things happened around them and sometimes they’d be involved. And by the end, nothing had really happened. I wasn’t sure what exactly the plot was and it never took off.

Back on Khao San Road (the taxi to Siam which is the other side of the city cost £1 each way) for the evening. I watched a bit of Wimbledon, ate some more curry and finally fell asleep. Maybe from heat exhaustion. Or ant bites.