The gang and I had another great day in Bangkok, but it stared off kind of hectic. We decided to go see the milking of a snake at a snake farm. We were really tired of walking so we took the sky train, which is a subway above ground level, and the metro. After breakfast, we went out in search of the snake farm. Unfortunately as we were looking for it we passed it and missed it completely. We kept walking until we eventually got lost and missed the milking of the snake. Suddenly Teacher Deb realized that she didn’t have her wallet. She decided to go back to the hostel thinking she may have left it in the room. That made Mr. Wei Hao Wu our new tour leader, and let me tell you that was an expierence…just kidding, he’s a good guy. Oh and just so you don’t worry Deb found her wallet, it was in her room, but anyway.

Now with Wei Hao in charge the group went into Bangkok’s Chinatown. It was a lot less hectic from most Chinatowns I have seen and it wasn’t as dense of an area. Here we had lunch at a hot spot restaurant. Wei Hao and I made a deal that from now on whatever he ordered I would get as well, so this lunch ended up being very…can I say – exotic. For starters David ordered shark fin soup, which we all had a taste of. It was actually surprisingly good. Then Wei Hao and I shared goat meat, and for dessert Wei Hao ordered this dish called birds nest. Birds nest is a type of cold sweet soup, that is made up of the spit a bird creates when making its nest. Unfortunately he told me this before I ate the dessert, so you can imagine how hard it was to get down. I was able to get most of it down, but at one point my mind just couldn’t handle the texture of the bird spit.

After we ate lunch, we decided to take another stab at finding the snake farm. This time we were able to find it and we saw a snake bearing show. It was amazing to see how these people got so close to venomous snakes. It was actually kind of scary. I think the snakes were drugged though because they had a very slow reaction. After their show, the audience was able to put some snakes around our neck and take pictures. It was very cool. We looked around the snake farm a little more, and then we headed back to the hostel.

That evening the group went to a Thai boxing match. Luckily Wei Hao was able to get us ringside tickets. Boxing is a huge sport in Thailand and the difference between Thai boxing and american boxing,is that you can kick in Thai boxing. We were lucky and got to see one of the two biggest names go against each other. We got there very early, but in a matter of seconds from when the first fight began, thousands of people filed in and the arena became filled to the max. The crowd was going crazy and every time someone got a good hit on another person, half the crowd would yell/chant. It was actually very funny, because as Americans we had no idea what was going on. The fighting was very intense and we were able to see one knock out which was unbelievable. Most of the fighting was kneeing the other person, however there was some interesting moves. After boxing ended we went out for dinner, and walked around a street called Pat Pong. Pat Pong is very similar to New York’s finest Canal Street in, which there is a line of vendors selling fake goods at a low negotiable price. Once everything settled down we headed back to the hostel, and everyone slept like a baby. Now we still have our last day in Bangkok, and head up the Chiang Mai tomorrow. Thanks

John-Michael

P.S: Hey guys, I was able to put videos up, however they are not edited only because I do not have the time. I hope to edit them once I get home. These are only quick clips of the boxing match and the Snake Farm. Again I did not edit or speak  for these particular clips. I do have a few more and I will definitely try and get those up before we leave for the elephant park. Also if the videos aren’t working on the blog you can check them out on my youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/user/outsider202?feature=mhum