bangkok nights

sooo
bangkok nights are very interesting.. especially when your guest house is located in the red light district.
so, the first night, MY BIRTHDAY, we all wanted to go out to eat together.
sadly, it was too expensive to go where we really wanted, and all 20 whatever of us did not fit in one restaurant, so we went to separate places. i ate at some papaya something place with 5 of my friends. since i turned 21, i got a margarita.
it wasn't really a margarita. for some reason, in thailand, margaritas are just like colored tequila. it was blue, though, so that was pretty perfect.
they got me a piece of cake and sang to me. i blew out the 4 candles.. several times as they turned out to be trick candles..
then we went to.. an irish pub.
just the place to spend your 21st birthday when you're in bangkok.
well, for me, it really was. i mean, look at the handrail on the stairs:



after the bar, we walked around this night market. shannon and i, following jess and zach, walked down this brightly lit road. mind you, i was a bit happy from the alcohol my friends had bought me, though no where near unstable, so the experience that came next.. was very interesting.
as we're walking, this guy keeps coming at me, following us down the road saying, "darling, 75 for you! 75 for you, darling!" shannon and i were very disturbed at this point, so we turned around to go back. then, i suddenly realize that all of the tables are male couples or just a bunch of men, and shannon turns and says, "this is a gay street!" we both crack up and go back to the market.
i think we were better off on the gay street. the market was full of more people hounding us. this time, though, there was no "darling" involved. we got lots of lists shoved in our faces, followed by "ping pong show? banana show?"

thursday night, we went to the market after eating at this amazing restaurant called "bug and bee". it was a good night, though we didn't do too much since friday was going to be a busy day. the market had a lot of the normal market items--jewelry, clothing, and shoes. a lot of the items were very western, though some were clearly from thailand and not straight off of a factory assembly line.

friday night was by far the best night. first, everyone went out to eat at an indian restaurant. originally, we were going to go to little india, but the day was too long, so we went to a place pretty close to where we were staying.
after dinner, we went back to the street with all of the gay bars on it. we sat outside for a while, and around 9:30, we went to see a cabaret show.
here are the best pictures that i got from the show: