We planned to do white water rafting for my birthday but after learning it would be a total of 4 hours in the car, and with my tendency to get car sick like a 6 year old, I decided to be lame and go see a movie instead. Rafting will be tomorrow but today was a day of relaxation, pampering, and lady boys.
We woke up to hear about a bombing happening in Bangkok. When I looked further into it, the news said an Iranian man (those guys need to lighten up a bit) had a bomb go off in his own house as part of what may have been an accident. He ran out of the house bleeding and tried to hail a cab to the hospital. When the cabbie wouldn’t take him, he promptly threw a grenade at him. When the police came, he threw a grenade at them as well, which bounced off of a tree and blew his own legs off. World’s dumbest criminal? Coincidentally, we saw a Thai man with no legs crawling on the floor at the mall today, begging for change. Coincidence?
So we got our asses out of bed after B sang me an impressive rendition of Birthday Sex and we did what I always wanted to do on my birthday – drive around Phuket looking for a gas station in sweltering heat. Next stop was the mall where we found a grocery store. Not a hoity toity grocery store where a box of granola bars is $7 but a real extra foods type grocery store called The Big C. I know this sounds strange, but the level of excitement was through the roof. When you eat at restaurants with a budget of $10 a day, a grocery store is a very welcome change. They also don’t have very many here. Most people seem to shop at local stands or 7-11. I’ve literally seen 3 grocery stores in an entire month of being here.
Next stop was pedicures – I picked neon pink, obviously. The level of hygiene left much to be desired and at one point she shaved the bottom of my foot off with a razor blade. This is illegal in Canada but common practice here I suppose. I had very tender heels for the remainder of the day. B’s pedicure was extremely painful, or at least it seemed so as she spent the entire time with her hands clenched in fists with a worried look on her face.
Next was lunch and blizzards, obviously. Then movie time. The movie choices here were pretty terrible. All mindless action flicks, Safe House, Man on a Ledge, Contraband – we went with Man on a Ledge, it cost a whopping $2.50. Thai movie theaters are interesting. Firstly, there are different levels of seats: deluxe, superior and a couch. Once you pick your seat type, you get to pre-choose where your seat is from a monitor, similar to going to a concert. After watching countless commercials, I was confused when the people in front of us stood up, “Are they leaving?” Then everyone else stood up and the screen turned to the Thai national anthem with pictures of their king flashing. One thing about Thailand, they really love their king. People have calendars with his face on it. Who in Canada has a 12 month calendar of Stephen Harper? Thought not.
Man on a Ledge was as can be expected but it was nice to be in an air-conditioned facility for a few hours. Next stop was GROCERY SHOPPING! One of the highlights of my day, believe it or not. Breakfast has been really rough for us here. We can never find anything to eat and we end up paying out the ass for gross food. Since we are in the same hostel for a week, we decided to spring for a toaster! Yup, we bought a toaster. It even toasts little suns onto the bread. We also bought a two loaf pack of bread (less than a dollar) as well as jam, a 6 Liter jug of water and a cake, of course. All of this had to be held, by me, on the back of our scooter for a drive through chaos-town at night.
Next up was the Hardrock Café for dinner. We saw it the other night and there was quite the performance of Thai people dressed like 80’s rock stars singing Evanescence and Black Eyed Peas songs so there was no way we could pass that up. I paid an obscene amount of money for my meal. It was $20 Canadian but when you are used to paying $2 for a meal, that really stings. Our water was THREE DOLLARS for a small size bottle. We got 6 Liters for 1 dollar just an hour prior. Truly painful. I am getting cheaper and cheaper every day. You know it’s bad when you waver between two menu options because one is 75 cents cheaper than the other even though you don’t want it.
The asian band was followed by a bunch of bikini clad girls hanging out in a foam pit. Then the bikini contest which involved the girls dancing for what seemed like 20 minutes. Just sweating under the lights and extremely exhausted. The chipper host, “Come on, sexy girls, we are going to burn our fats tonight!” I thought it would end after the dance with the usual applause-o-meter but it kept going when the girls had to do a hula hoop contest. Not a single one dropped. They hula hooped for so long that the host actually called an end to it and made them all jump rope. Still, no one faltered and we had to resort to the applause.
We were about to leave when but the cabaret show started. This involved 3 lady boys in various outfits very poorly lipsynching to Beyonce, Tina Turner and CCR. A trainwreck impossible to look away from.
Then off to bed to wake up bright and early for rafting.
Anyone who knows me, knows that this is quite happily, exactly how I’d spend my birthday.
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