Calypso!

Senne's Summary: We spent the day wandering the town and then went to the Calypso Cabaret in the evening.

This morning we enjoyed another excellent breakfast in our room and then headed out to see if we could pick up some tickets for the Calypso Cabaret, the Muay Thai Fights and a Dinner Cruise down the river.

Before we found an agency we found a Starbucks. I haven't had a Tea Latte in about six months so was pretty excited to have one. They even had the sugar free vanilla syrup! The cost is pretty much exactly what it costs at home which seems exorbitant after travelling in Asia for a few months. We still had one… but I don’t think we’ll have more. It was a nice treat 😀 The funny thing was that when we were inside Starbucks it felt like you could be in Starbucks at home. It looked the same, sounded the same, and smelled the same… you’d never even know we weren’t back home in Victoria

Next we went to an agency that we saw yesterday. They advertised that they had Lumpinee tickets so we figured they would have what we want. The agent was pretty apathetic… he actually went out for a smoke in the middle of helping us, if you can believe it. We only booked the Calypso Cabaret tickets from him as his price was actually cheaper than I had seen on the Internet.

When we asked him about the dinner cruise he brought us two ferry pamphlets for Koh Samui???? I’m not sure if he even realized it (more evidence of apathy). I told him the specific dinner cruise I wanted (researched ahead of time of course!), and he said he couldn’t get me those tickets. I decided I would just book them online.

He also had the Lumpinee fight tickets but they were 2000 Baht a piece. Steve had read on the Internet that you could get them for less so we told him no thanks.

After we had secured our tickets for Calypso this evening we decided to see if we could go find a driver to take us around tomorrow. We had looked into the temple tours but they didn’t go to all the specific ones we wanted to go to, so decided to book a driver instead. We found a nice man named "Mr. Joy" out on the street and booked him to pick us up tomorrow at 10 AM and drive us around for 8 hours… this for the bargain price of 1500 Baht (about $50 Canadian) If we booked the half day tour it was going to be 900 Baht a piece and it didn’t go where we specifically wanted to go, so we were happy with our choice to book Mr. Joy.

We wandered a bit more (waiting to pick up our laundry) and went through the street market again. My favourite sign at a stand with DVD’s and CD’s was, “New Porn… It was wonderful… It was perfect. Are those suppose to be customer testimonials??? While Steve and I were giggling at the sign, the guy working at the table across the sidewalk pretended to giggle and cover his eyes in embarrassment.

Side note: Steve read somewhere that the Thai people like to use the word “Porn” to mean something else… but we have been unable to discover what this “something else” actually is. It certainly gets your attention though...

Side note: Just looked it up... it means "blessing".

Next we went on the Skytrain down to the mall area to get some lunch. Again I made Steve pass by the ice cream to get some real food! Unfortunately then we were too full for ice cream again. I promised Steve we would get ice cream another day!

We wandered through the mall again and looked at more stuff, but didn’t buy anything. The things at the mall seem a bit more expensive then we are finding in the street market, so we’ll wait to buy our things out there. Plus there is so much STUFF it is overwhelming. There is almost a whole floor (keeping in mind that one floor of a mall here has hundreds of stores) of the mall dedicated to cell phones and similar things and it is jam-packed with people.

After some more wandering we headed back to our hotel to rest and then get ready for Calypso tonight. Our transfer was suppose to pick us up at 7:00, but arrived half an hour early (I’m liking these Thai people more and more…. They don’t touch you or yell at you AND they show up early!) We weren’t quite ready but Steve was able to make himself beautiful anyway and we headed down to the car. It took FOREVER to get to the show. The traffic in Bangkok is absolutely insane. It would have been better to take public transit (if we could figure out how to get there 😀). One thing I do like is that they have countdowns on the traffic lights. You know exactly how long your light is going to be red or green for.

When we arrived at the hotel where the Calypso Cabaret is we picked up our tickets and were shown into the theatre. It reminded me of a small Vegas Cabaret or a cruise ship lounge. There were some small tables with chairs and some rows of chairs with a little rail in front for your drinks. Think red velvet curtains and disco balls.

While we were waiting for the show to begin we met some people from Vancouver and talked to them for a bit, and also had our picture taken by some more Asian people. I’m not sure why they keep taking our picture, Steve doesn’t even look like Patrick Swayze anymore, now that he has cut his hair...

Unbelievably all these girls in the photos are ladyboys. They are absolutely beautiful!

The show was really, really good. They did a variety of different numbers (all lip-syncing) and had quite a few ladyboy performers. Most of them were quite beautiful. Plastic surgery is clearly a booming business in Bangkok. Might I suggest that waxing also becomes a booming business???

Unbelievably all these girls in the photos are ladyboys. They are absolutely beautiful!

There were also six boys who performed in the show. At one point they all came out in black pants, sunglasses and policeman type hats (no shirts). For a minute I thought I was at a dance with the Tran boys 😉 I tried to get Steve to take a picture but it ended up too blurry so he deleted it. You’ll have to just try to use your imagination!

All in all we really enjoyed the show and think it is definitely worth doing if you are in Bangkok!