Every year, during the holy month of Ramadan, Mosque Road in Frazer Town converts into a major hub for food lovers. Several stalls are set up selling a variety of Iftar treats by the road side, and every year, the number of stalls just keep getting bigger and bigger.
Now, you don’t have to go to Frazer Town for Iftar treats as stalls are set up outside every major mosque in Bangalore during the holy month of Ramadan. But Mosque Road being what it is attracts are a larger number of people. I have been Mosque Road with friends in previous years, but this year I wanted to capture some photos for my blog.
After meeting up with a friend, we rode down to Frazer Town, parked my bike near Savoury Restaurant and walked up to Mosque Road.
After packing up some more food, I left Mosque Road. It’s obvious the annual Ramadan treats have grown into a big business opportunity for vendors over these past few years. It wasn’t this crowded when I visited 2 years ago. People of all faiths turn up to try out the food. Of course there were a few ignorant people. One guy was silly enough to ask if pork was available! 😛
Also, the prices this year weren’t low by any street food means. A plate of pathar gosht was sold for Rs. 200, and the quantity was only good enough for just one person. A stick of just three chicken-cheese balls cost Rs. 50. Don’t even ask about the sea food prices.
Still, if you have an opportunity to check out the fare on Mosque Road, do so if you have never visited the stretch during Ramzan before. And do it before Eid. Happy feasting!
After a good night’s sleep, I went downstairs to have the buffet breakfast at the hotel. Then spent an hour browsing the internet on the guest computer at the lobby. After feeling quite relaxed, I checked out as the clock struck noon.
I took a moped taxi to the bus station (฿50) and bought a ticket for a bus heading to Ekamai bus terminal in Bangkok (ticket cost ฿113).
In the bus, I also wondered where to stay in Bangkok. I wanted to stay on Khao San Road, Bangkok’s popular backpacker hub. I really wanted to check it out as it’s a preferred joint for backpackers, but unfortunately located on the other side of Bangkok (some even call it Old Bangkok) — which isn’t connected via the skytrain service (BTS). Trouble is, tomorrow I am to meet up with a friend arriving from Bangalore and the day after, I had a ticket for the Jay Park Fan meet in Siam Paragon Mall. Commuting back and forth by taxi, that too with Bangkok’s mid-day traffic was the last thing I wanted to do in the last 3 days left in Thailand.
Traffic slowed down (a lot) from here on. It took half-an-hour more for the bus to reach Ekamai bus terminal. The terminal is on Sukhumvit road and is easy to get to because the BTS station (also named Ekamai) is right in front of the bus terminal. So if you are staying in the Sukhumvit or Silom area, and want to head to Pattaya, don’t go to Mo Chit bus terminal, head to Ekamai instead.
In the end, I decided to stay on the Sukhumvit side itself, which meant Thai House Inn again. I paid for two nights in advance and checked into the same room I stayed before. I probably should try and find another place to stay in since Thai House Inn isn’t the classiest of places, but at ฿700 a night, the proximity to Nana BTS station (a minute walk), for a single guy there’s no better deal like it anywhere else.
Post-movie (which I thought was a bit of a drag), I decided to go to MBK.
I got back down to the street to see if I could cross the road but there were policemen there as well. I asked them who was passing by, and they said: “The King”.
Tidbit of valuable information when in Thailand. King Rama IX is the most ‘beloved’ man in Thailand. I put beloved in quotes because there is a law which makes it a criminal offense to say anything bad about him in public. So you have no choice but to praise him. His photos are everywhere in Thailand and his birthday is a national holiday. He is credited for developing Thailand, his influence has stopped many political coups and reportedly, he’s the richest royal in the world. (But my point is, if people truly love him, why have a rule criminalizing lèse majesté?)
Sadly for the Thai people, the King hasn’t been in the best of health lately and isn’t seen much in public because of that.
I obviously didn’t get a glimpse of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, but then again, nobody would have. Nobody could identify in which car the King was. Maybe it was a security measure.
Anyway, I was hungry by this point and decided to go back to Siam Paragon because their food court has better options for fast food.
In the evening, I decided to check out Bangkok’s Chinatown.
When I was doing my research, I read there is even a small community where Indians reside. You could call it Bangkok’s ‘Little India’ as Singapore’s popular community is called, but don’t try asking for it here. I tried it with some Thai locals, and they looked at me with a smile… which implied they had no clue what I was talking about. I wanted to find the area mostly because there is a large gurdwara here in Bangkok (since the Indian community here are predominantly Punjabis). I knew asking for a ‘gurudwara’ would get me more puzzled stares but I did ask if anybody knew where the ‘Indian temple’ was. No luck with that either.
But just as I was about to give up and walk back, I saw a woman who looked kinda Indian (I’m guessing she was a second generation Indian resident of Thailand) and asked her where the gurudwara was. She told me I needed to get to Pahurat Road, which wasn’t very far from here. I thanked her and noted down the name of the road.
Figuring the gurudwara would be closed to the general public at this time, I decided to come back the day after. I hailed a taxi and headed to Patpong.
Patpong is famous for two things: one, it has a night market; two, it also houses Bangkok’s red light district.
There wasn’t anything seedy about the place (at first)
But as I went to the side street to get a glimpse of what the other stalls were selling…
Like on Pattaya’s Walking Street, here too you will find a few touts soliciting tourists (quite aggressively) to come watch a peep show. Most them say it’s free but having read people’s experiences on Tripadvisor, I knew these are just tactics to pull you in and then slap you with a huge bill as you leave.
One of the touts, even held my hand and dragged me into one such place. Figuring I wouldn’t be coming back to an area like this again, I followed him. He was rather in a hurry saying the ‘ping pong show‘ would start soon. He led me upstairs into a bar where the girls and the mamasan welcomed me in. There weren’t many others in and the setting wasn’t what I was expecting. While I was expecting a more quiet, dark and sensual setting, this joint was just another typical low end bar with dim red lights, and where every song plays at 2x speeds blurts out from the sound system.
As soon as I was seated, I was surrounded by 3 or 4 smiling girls all of whom tried to chat me up, and when it came to ordering drinks, there was no menu. I ordered a vodka drink and insisted on knowing much it cost. The waitress said ฿100. Fair enough. I also made it very clear I was told this show was free and that I wouldn’t have to pay anything to see it. The mamasan assured me with a “yeah yeah”.
When the performance did begin, it was the amusing act of seeing the two girls shoot objects like bananas, darts (at a balloon), and ping pong balls (of course) — all using her nether region. And that’s exactly what it was, amusing… it was the least bit erotic, surely not in the setting I was in 🙂 The most amusing act was when one of the performers pulled a series of blades on a string out — and she cut a paper using the very same razor blades to prove they weren’t blunt. Now, only women know the true potential of their inner workings, but I’m sure even women in far more respectable professions would squeal if they saw this. As a guy, my face looked more like this: 😕 None the less, I had to praise these performers for their, erm, talents.
After 15 minutes and my drink nearly done, I had seen enough and wanted to leave. I could see the other patrons arguing with the mamasan over their bills and I knew what was coming my was as well. Besides the ฿100 for my drink, I wanted to tip a ฿100 each for the two performing women, so that was a total of ฿300. The bill they handed over?
฿3000.
I told the mamasan I wasn’t going to pay it and ฿300 is all she will get. She raised her voice (she had to, they wouldn’t turn down the crappy music) and threatened to call some men to rough me up if I wouldn’t pay. I replied: “Call them”. When she did, I knew things were only getting easy for me. She spoke in English to her Thai “baddie” saying there is an Indian who refuses to pay and that he better come. Now if there is one thing I’ve learned about Thais is that, you’ll never see one Thai speaking to another Thai in English. Very few in Thailand know how to speak English, that too fluently. So I knew this was just an act.
After she hung up, she said they’re coming. I replied: “Okay, I’ll wait”. I could see some of the working girls try and hide their smiles, so I knew I was going to win this one. After waiting around 2 minutes, the mamasan finally said: “Okay, give 1000!”. I said: “No, 300”. More standing still ensued. Finally she gave up and said: “Ok give!”. I handed her the ฿300 and told her ฿100 each were for the two performers. She didn’t say anything and I walked out.
And that was it 🙂
In hindsight, it made me wonder if I should have gone for all this in Pattaya’s Walking Street as the Tourist Police was right there and by now, I’m sure they heard countless such experiences from other visitors. But even if this happens to you, follow the same advice: just keep your foot down and refuse to pay. What’s the worst they’re going to do? Stab a tourist?
Walking out, I noticed there wasn’t even a name for this bar, so it surely was one of those clearly intended to scam people and only remain operational by paying off the right authorities.
What I just experienced didn’t change my opinion of this wonderful country. If your sole purpose of visiting Thailand is just to hang out at such venues, you will most likely leave with many such stories. Even if you don’t, as with any other country in the world, shit happens — you just have to be on your guard.
The so-called ping pong show is one of those “When-in-RomeThailand” things-to-do. Many tourists, men and women alike, are eager to see it. In fact it was a girl friend of mine who told me “not to miss it,” with a laugh. Now I know why — it’s more a laugh than sensual 🙂 Trouble is, many use that eagerness tourists have to run scams like this.
Patpong doesn’t seem as big a seedy place, not based on some people’s descriptions calling it Bangkok’s largest red light district. Maybe there’s more to it, who knows, I wasn’t bothered to explore anymore of it now.
If you plan to come to Patpong just for the night market, don’t. There’s nothing here you can’t find anywhere else in Bangkok for the same price (or maybe even cheaper).
I took the BTS back to Siam.
Once back in my area, I decided to grab dinner first and then go back to my room.
Date: 27th November 2010
Today, I met up with my friend Sawmteii and her friend, who had just arrived in Thailand. We met up at the Siam BTS and since it was their first time in Bangkok (and came with very clear intentions of shopping – a lot!), I showed them around the malls.
After Siam Discovery and Siam Paragon, we walked towards Petchburi Road.
On Petchburi road, the girls wanted to check out Platinum Mall, which claims to be Thailand’s largest fashion mall.
Eight floors of fashion goodness… well, mostly for women anyway. Hardly anything for men in here.
Despite advising the girls to keep all their shopping towards the end of their journey when they return to Bangkok, they couldn’t help but feel like kids let loose in a candy store 🙂
Who can blame them? Even as a guy, I could appreciate the stuff being sold here. Really good looking dresses and accessories at prices anybody can afford. Dresses which would easily cost upwards of Rs. 1000 in India could be had for Rs. 500 or less. You could buy one, two, three, ten or more — and prices vary accordingly.
We spent quite some time in here. And when I saw ‘we,’ I mean Sawmteii and her friend Mimi. I loitered around wondering if there was anything for guys. It wasn’t until we got up to the 4th floor that I found a store selling some pretty nifty t-shirts.
After walking past pretty much every floor, the girls decided to dedicate their last few days in Thailand in here and we went up to the 6th floor to have lunch at the food court.
Post-lunch, I took the girls to Chatuchak (disembark at Mo Chit BTS).
Sorry, make that thousands of shops!
Jatujak weekend market is the largest flea market in Thailand and sees most shops open on Saturday and Sunday (It is open on weekdays too, just not every shop).
After much walking around and being clueless as to where exactly we were (it will happen), eventually it was time for the puppies to come out. (Real puppies). You’ll only see them being sold once the sun sets — which means they’re probably doing it illegally.
And at the prices the puppies were being sold for (around ฿3000-฿5000 depending on the breed), she didn’t feel like putting them down either. We were seriously talking about how to bring dogs via airplanes.
Eventually we decided to call it a day.
We got down at Nana so that the girls could check out my area (they were staying a few BTS stations further down). Got some currency exchanged and had dinner at an Arabian restaurant before wishing each other goodnight and parting ways.
Tomorrow was going to be my last full day in Bangkok.
Today we needed to be out and early as we had to head far out to reach Batu Caves, a famous Hindu temple site — and one of Kuala Lumpur’s must-see sights. Since I was up and ready first, I decided to take a few photos of the place where we were staying.
As was the norm everywhere we stayed on this trip, once you are done with breakfast, you wash the dishes yourself and keep it back from where you took them.
Given that our triple room cost us around Rs. 4300 (RM297/$96/€68) for 3 nights, we couldn’t have been more happier with Irsia, given the location. Yes, the walls are a little thin and ventilation isn’t great, but if you are going to be spending more time inside hotel rooms, you best look at proper hotels. By the way, that is Rs. 4300 for all three of us — Rs. 1400 per person, for 3 nights in KL!
Once all three of us were ready and done with breakfast, we stepped out. We decided to take the monorail to get to KL Sentral.
Once at KL Sentral, we asked the information desk how to get to Batu Caves and were instructed to head downstairs to the train platforms. We bought our tickets (RM2/Rs. 30/$0.60) and headed down.
Unfortunately, in the confusion of which train to get on, I accidentally stepped into the wrong train but was too late to step out as the doors closed with Ramesh and Loi still on the platform.
But by then, Ramesh and Loiyumba were in the right train and already ahead of me.
The ride took nearly 30 minutes and by the time I arrived at the station (which by the way is the last stop), Ramesh and Loiyumba were already at the temple.
Once I reached the top, I met up with Ramesh and Loiyumba who were done and were ready to head back down. They said they would wait for me down below and so, I went in for my photography.
But even with a wide-angle lens, trying to capture the scale of the caves from the inside (without distortion) was near impossible, so I took a few multiple shots and merged them into one using Photoshop.
Once down, I caught up with Loi and Ramesh and we decided to have lunch from here itself.
Post lunch, we just sat outside for a while and observed the crowds. We were even approached by some PR team for Sony, and asked to pretend we were using Sony camcorders. In return for doing so, we asked them if we could keep them — but they said no. 🙂
We bought our tickets (RM2) and boarded our train.
Once we got back to KL Sentral, we decided to head to the IKEA store as Ramesh was keen on picking up some stuff from there. The outlet was located in the area called Mutiara Damansara and we asked around on how to get there by bus. We waited at bus stop outside KL Sentral and hopped on to one that went that way.
The journey took us through a lot of residential areas in Kuala Lumpur.
(These were taken on my Nokia E72)
An hour long journey later, we were in Petaling Jaya. Even though it was a long journey, it was quite a relaxing one for me as I got to see residential areas outside of the CBD (Central Business District), something I wouldn’t have seen given where we were staying.
Once we entered the IKEA store, we were hooked! There was soooooo much that we felt like picking up, but just couldn’t, because figuring out how to carry them home was something we couldn’t comprehend.
Regardless, we still picked up quite a bit of stuff and by the time were out, it was well past sunset.
Since we had quite a lot of stuff with us to carry, we decided to just take a cab.
And save time it did, the taxi took the highway from the IKEA store into KL and we were back in our rooms in just half-an-hour. (IKEA store directions)
For dinner, we decided to head to Kuala Lumpur’s China Town, which was also accessible via monorail.
From Imbi, the monorail stop for getting to China Town was only two stops away, at Maharajalela.
Once inside, it was a just one street (probably covering two blocks) with a lot of stores and street shops. No vehicles allowed.
A lot of the t-shirts were from Thailand and so, cost a lot more than what I saw them for in Bangkok. Yes, you have to haggle, but even when Loi did so for a backpack, the price they came down to was still too high. We soon left Petaling Street.
And just as we left, it began to rain all of a sudden.
We saw an Malay Indian restaurant and jumped in for a quick dinner.
Ramesh didn’t find anything on the menu that was pure veg, so it was just myself & Loi. Once we were done, we headed back to Berjaya Times Square by taxi (cost RM5) as it was still raining.
We headed back to Irsia, calculated our daily expenses, sorted out who paid for what, and who owes whom how much — pretty much a daily routine for us on this trip, before hitting the sack.
I was quite happy with some of the photos I took inside Batu Caves and rate the caves highly as one of the “must see” sights in Kuala Lumpur. It only costs RM 2 for the one way journey to Batu Caves by train and is a nice break from the city.
Tomorrow morning, we planned to get up early (again) and head to Petronas Towers to try and get a ticket to visit the observation deck. We only had one more day left in the capital.