Becoming a Bangkoker...

The best thing about arriving with the 40 other people on our very quiet flight from Dhaka to Bangkok is that you feel like you are escaping from hell to some sort of oasis (maybe a slight exaggeration but Dhaka is lacking quite a lot of luxury). Myself and the other other interns were treating Bangkok as a relaxing holiday of sorts where we could eat non-curried food, drink in bars, and sit on a beach without a Birkini (they do exist) and had even used the Hangover II as research...
The next excitement was of course seeing Western brands; even a McDonalds and a Krispy Kreme doughnut stand brought tears of joy to our eyes while the public transport system was beautiful compared to a Dhaka rickshaw. The only off putting factor on Thai public transport is that a number of passengers insist on wearing those air filter mask things which set you slightly at ease as you suspiciously sniff the air...

I do realise I am making Dhaka sound hellish but it is a very isolating place where instant coffee is the best caffeine kick you are going to find. To a very weary bunch of us our first taste of Thai food was in the form of the Aloha Cafe (as authentic as it comes) where we had dumplings, noodles, and thai soup with lots of extra nose running chilli flakes. Stomachs satisfied our first walk along Thai streets did not disappoint, firstly we walked down the main tourist street which is honestly gap year heaven! Every item of clothing that is stereotypically gap yah is on display including patches for your rucksack, elephant trousers, hippy bags, and  even a 'travellers passport'. Well when you can't beat em join em so we bought our elephant trousers and headed straight to the air conditioned Starbucks to exchange stories about cultural awareness. It was on a side street near here that we encountered without a doubt the best thing we have ever seen:

Yes that's right a sleeping snorlax with a very unfortunate rip in his trousers. Welcome to Thailand. A tup tup (Thailand's motorised version of the rickshaw) was in order to take us back to the luxury of our hotel where Thailand's next treat our ladyboy hostel receptionist greeted us. Very funny as we all stumbled through whether 'he' or 'she' is the correct term to address the inappropriately named 'Nice' with, she also of course inserted the typical ladyboy joke when she told the boys they could shower in her room LOL. 

The boys' main objective on this trip was funnily enough not to shower in her room but to visit the Thailand that only comes out at night and thanks to the very liberal sexual views in Thailand, high frequency of travellers, and abundance of sleazy men is very much alive. As we stumbled through the red light district of Bangkok the offers were pretty overwhelming. I do not need to spell out exactly what was offered but believe me you can literally see ANYTHING in this city, be it a ping pong show, go-go show, or anything else that takes your fancy! The offers were frankly too much so at the boys insistence we were persuaded to go to one bar where women dance in bikinis on pedestals. From a girl's perspective this was anything but hot as slightly out of shape women shuffled from foot to foot before crowding round big fat Western men. Making a sweeping statement here but Thai girls really need to sort out their definition of good looking as every single one I saw is shooting way below their level.

To get our revenge we decided to head to the gay district nearby where boys dressed in an even smaller version of the speedo dance round poles. Keith getting slightly cocky after seeing all the males eyeing him up proceeded to announce he was like the 'Thai Brad Pitt' while Alex was too horrified by his glimpses inside bars to move any further. Keith's Brad Pitt status did gain him an offer of $50 from a gay guy walking down the street proving money in Thailand can buy you anything and at a cheap price too! In an effort to be more manly the boys then had to eat some very disgusting fried insects from a street stand.

It also turned out that travelling with 4 different types of passports does create difficulties, as Chinese Shutong went to get a visa from the Bangladesh embassy to return to Dhaka and was promptly told she could not get one in Bangkok and her only option was to return to China. Meaning our Chinese fifth was being deported basically, a very funny but upsetting scenario especially Shutong shouting out in a bar slightly drunk 'I'M BEING DEPORTED'. To drown her sorrows a visit to a Thai club was in order where we could order actual alcohol and not Dhaka's juice alternatives. As far as people watching goes Bangkok is amazing; the main tourist drinking spots are filled with gap year students, middle aged hippies, and Thai girls with old men. While the non-touristy clubs sport Thai hipsters and lady boys who require a second glance to be sure. It gets so confusing that we declared one the best looking lady boy we had seen in Bangkok before realising: 'That's not a lady boy, that's just a lady'...

Busting a move Thai style...
By day aside from buying ridiculous amounts of souvenirs, the street food is without a doubt the best bit. You can buy coconuts, fresh fruit, sushi, fried fish, baked bananas, fried noodles, noodles with soup, pancakes - all cooked by little stalls and incredibly tasty. Best of all is the fried morning glory that is a menu staple and when you get over the snickering actually quite tasty. Being a Buddhist country Bangkok is also full of beautiful temples with huge golden statues of Buddhists, apparently though asking to have my photo taken in front of one while bowing is inappropriate (oh and asking the Chinese Shutong to take her photo in front of China Town is racist). For Shutong and I though getting to a shopping mall was one of the more enticing prospects of Bangkok and after living in Dhaka was a beautiful glowing beacon containing shops from everywhere in the world; with Korean stationary, Japanese clothes, American food, and yes a TOPSHOP ( I was dragged away though without a glance). I am told that having a dream to visit every Topshop in the world is pretty unambitious and sad...

The next part of our escape from Dhaka holiday was visiting the beach, oh the hard life being an intern is. Getting there was slightly stressful as it involved our coach breaking down (the hand gestures the woman used to describe this were priceless though) but mainly because we sat in front of the most annoying American boy who had just found a very dumb American girlfriend to impress. He spent ages wowing her with his pretentious stories and depictions of all the really out there tattoos he was planning on getting, at one point even explaining earthquakes as 'these like really deep seismic movements that like shake the earth' completed with an almost surfer accent. Sadly the island we were headed to was pretty small and we bumped into the aptly named 'gay yah guy' once too many. At least the boat to the island was very Mamma Mia-esque and old school and once there we got to travel in a jeep type thing with the world's worst suspension so we felt suitably tropical island chic by the time we got to our resort. We approached it with somewhat apprehension as the boys had booked it, so quite frankly we could have been staying anywhere. Luckily the boys are more materialistic than us and had chosen a four star luxury resort complete with a spa, swimming pool, and buffet breakfast that was more than adequate (albeit lacking baked beans).


The bubble of luxury did burst ever so slightly when we realised we were staying in a gay resort for hoards of Asian male couples made even more amusing by the very active gay club that the resort was beside. Being the Thai Brad Pitt made Keith slightly nervous so we moved further along the beach to drink rum coconut cocktails and party with the other travellers on the island. Drink here is served in buckets with straws that are sadly more lethal than they initially appear so dancing on tables was definitely in order.

Luckily to recover the next day staying in a beach resort does have the added bonus of enabling me to have a Thai massage to recover followed by a boat trip to watch the sun set. Shutong decided to meditate on the beach to ensure the desert island feel was complete, the photo we took will apparently make her Mum cry!

Returning to Bangkok however was inevitable in order to ship Shutong back to China so she could then hopefully get back into Bangladesh. For my last day I decided to do what could only be done in Bangkok - WATCH HARRY POTTER. Almost a month after the rest of the world I finally got to see the last instalment with a green tea Japanese latte and the offer of Wasabi popcorn (shunned in favour of a classic mix of sweet and salted). I must admit it wasn't quite the same as watching back home as firstly we all had to stand and sing the national anthem and secondly it was sort of fuzzy. And when I say sort of fuzzy I am a hundred percent sure I paid to watch a pirate copy, which came complete with scribbles jumping up on the screen every now and then. Slightly disappointing but at least I got to watch the magic, the stealing of the Braveheart line 'You and what army' from Neville was a random addition mind....

Turning into a cultural Muslim while still being extremely foreign in Dhaka....

So far I am fitting into the culture pretty well here I would say. My day of Ramadan fasting was a success, well I managed it I can't say it was an experience I would repeat. It is doable until about 2pm then you get hungry and for the last hour before 6.45pm is it basically torture as not only are you hungry but so thirsty. It was someone's birthday and the Pizza Hut in Dhaka was having an Iftar all you can eat special so I broke fast there. The food is all plated up in advance so everyone can eat at exactly the point it hits 6.45pm so for about 15 minutes the temptation is incredible. Then when you can break fast you eat so much food that you feel as ill as you did befor! So basically the whole experience is sort of pointless. I have thus decided not to fast any more but just have the Iftar feast instead. A cultural Muslim some might say!

In the same way though that not all Christians go to church every Sunday not all Muslims fast so those who don't want to keep their identity secret so cannot eat openly on the street. So instead all these little market stalls open up covered by material so people can sit behind them and eat in secret. An advantage of being a foreigner for me is that I can just crack upon the coke on the street, very cruel I know.
For one Iftar I was able to go with one of my friend's to a political event as her Mum is a politician here. Which meant dressing up like a Bengali and being the only white person in a very Muslim room. My Bengali attire however confused the mainly male room quite a lot and I was asked several times if I was now Muslim, the fact I am not even Christian is a pretty shocking admission here! But I was introduced, thanks to Mariam's Mum, to the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh and very likely next Prime Minister. I am mingling with the Bengali elite it would seem!

The other amusing thing about living in Dhaka is that its illegal for residents to drink and buy alcohol but again not for foreigners. Restaurants here even have signs on the menu saying locals will not be served. So if you want alcohol you either pay ridiculous prices in hotels, buy it from certain ex-pat shops, or do a dodgy deal with a friend of a friend that involves brown bags, dark alleys, and very shifty old bearded guys. And all you get after all that effort is very cheap over-priced whiskey that has a very suspiciously sounding Scottish name! All the cool kids therefore hang out in Shisha bars that look just like UK bars but close at 11pm and everyone is drinking Red Bull... Some of them are even marketed as 'juice bars' serving an array of fruit juice - can't see this concept of late night juice drinking catching on back home somehow. As ex-pats we are also able to take part in the Bi-Annual H & M clothing sale of faulty pieces from the Bangladeshi factories. Which means an absolute riot as everyone foreign in Dhaka turns out to fight for very cheap clothing: the shock of seeing so many non-bengalis in one places causes everyone in the room to have very unsubtle staring contests with one another as you fight for the good non-holey pieces.

I also decided, after the success of my 50p Bosnian fringe cut, to make use of the equally low beauty prices here (a personal favourite is the 3 pound facial) and get a 90p fringe cut. Huge mistake as I swear they just found this woman off the street as she had no clue what scissors even were and stood in front of me hacking off my hair until I was left with a very squint, very straight, and very short fringe. Responses to it so far have been:
'Oh'
'You had your fringe cut!'
And
'No HONESTLY I like it!'
An utter failure, I even grabbed the scissors of her in an attempt to fix the mess. Photos will not follow.

So now I am escaping Dhaka with 4 other interns for the bright lights of Bangkok where I have been promised a Topshop, Starbucks, McDonalds, and a plethora of Thai delicacies. For the boys this also involves the lure of the infamous Ping Ping Shows (google it if you have a strong disposition), lady boys, and strip shows. We have even watched the Hangover II for inspiration... Just getting away from Dhaka's traffic, pollution, and absolute mayhem will be something of a delight...