Now I am not going to claim I am well travelled, far from it (have I mentioned this is my first time outside the EU), but I have seen my fair share of airports domestically. There is always something about airports that fills me with joy, it's that sense of excitement about what lies ahead. I know all the food is overpriced and I can't even get a can of coke past airport security but it still manages to seem enjoyable; this brings me to LCCT, the low cost terminal of KL. The nerdy brother to the cool and suave KL International Airport.
To say I dislike LCCT is putting it a bit mildly. To any casual observer there may be no reason for such unfair treatment of an innocent airport but there is. My reasoning is twofold: having to have a baggage scan PRIOR to CHECKING-IN the bag and having no toilets beyond the security check. OOh I thought of another; having to walk across the tarmac to GET to the freaking plane. Rant over.
We boarded the plane to Bangkok feeling rather sleepy, having had to be up early to catch the bus to the terminal. The arrival was a 2 step process: Lena's dad dropping us at the bus stop at 7.30am; the second step was the 1 hour bus journey to the airport. Sadly once we were there we had a long wait on our hands as our airplane didn't depart until 1pm. To try and keep ourselves conscious while we waited for the plane. This involved a McDonald's breakfast and some McDonald's ice cream dispensed from a small kiosk set-up on the edge of the fast food restaurant. For RM1 we got a small whippy cone which was really appreciated in the heat, Lena got a slightly more expensive version called a 'chocotop' which involved dipping the ice cream cone into liquid chocolate and letting the temperature of the ice cream solidify it on the surface of the ice cream.
After boarding we found the flight went quite quickly as we spent the entire time sleeping, waking only when we came into land. As the cabin depresurised and we disembarked I was struck by the lack of humidity and slightly reduced temperature; it seemed as though the weather here would be far more mild than I anticipated, fantastic!
The airport on the other end of the journey was more accustomed to what I was expecting and I was relieved to find collecting baggage a breeze, if only because queuing at immigration took so long...
Once our bags were gathered and we had our bearings we had the task of figuring out how to get to the hotel. We decided on the cheap option of taking the train coupled with a short walk to our hotel. On our way out we asked for some directions at a tourist centre and found ourselves walking out with a half price city and temple tour for the following day, we were off to a good start! With our spirits rising high we made our way to the train station and booked an express train to our stop buying return tickets that we would need at the end of the week to quickly drop us off back at the airport.
Our trip into the city gave us a chance to admire the scenery and the very fitting temples that dotted the landscape. A brief 15 minutes later we found ourselves at the end of the line looking for our next connecting subway to take us to Sukhumvit road where we would trek on foot to our hotel. As we exited a kind man showed us the way to the station where we found there was an airport scanner for us and our bags, upon setting it off we had to open them up to confirm to the poor overwhelmed guard we were not harbouring any illicit device. Feeling slightly shaken by that little transgression with the law (apparently deodorant is highly dangerous to the Bangkok subway system; who knew!) we were once again on our way. The subway wasn't nearly as nice as the previous (and shiny, don't forget shiny) train journey we had taken. Lena, being all Asian looking was fitting in nicely whereas I was sticking out like a sore thumb but thankfully I had gotten used to all the glances by now.
Departing at Sukhumvit was an easier affair although getting our bearings was proving to be much harder. After wandering the streets trying to find our bearings we got a friendly Aussie to point us in the right direction. When we eventually gave up and flagged a taxi it was much to our chagrin to find out we were no more than a street away from our intended destination. Oh well.
Getting inside the place looked a little run down but we were to expect that from what reviews had said, considering the price we got on the room it was an acceptable price to pay. Once checked in we made our way up to the room, it...was...massive. Put any room we had in Cambridge to shame and I think it probably cost less per night and it had breakfast included too! Deciding we had had far too much time with our room we headed downstairs to start crossing some of our items off our list: ladyboy show and ping-pong show. Bang! One night of debauchery in Bangkok. The tour guide that operated out of the lobby was really friendly and gave us competitive pricing along with private drive there and back, we were off to a good start with this holiday malarky.
When we got to the ladyboy show it was packed with lots of tourists just as curious as we were to see these ladyboys in the flesh. Now correct me if I'm wrong but when attending a ladyboy show you are going in expecting every one of the 'women' to be ladyboys, this was a concept Lena was having trouble with. Apparently she interpreted the ladyboy show more as a game of 'find the pickle', with every new 'woman' on stage Lena explained 'she can't be a man!' as if the makers of the show were trying to get you to pick the ladyboy out of a lineup. Was quite cute really :).
Between venues our driver kindly took us for some food, the last food we ate was the McDonald's at the airport and that was a looooonnnngggg time ago. He took us to a small street shop and to our surprise, bought us dinner. Mind you this wasn't michelin star quality but it was still an unbelievable gesture I wouldn't have expected from anyone, much less our tour guide.
After the show and our complimentary Pepsi (yay) we moved onto the ping-pong show. Now when we asked for this the guy behind the desk said he could take us somewhere but it wasn't going to be on the list of tours, rather a more private, wink wink affair. When we turned up the place was distinctly less touristy than the last place, some might say sleazy. The appearance some places generate I suppose, but when your clientele are drawn to you so they can watch women do unrealistic things with their vaginas I don't think decor factors into things much. We paid and realised that in order to do everything we wanted we were going to need to change a few more ringgit. Now we were led to believe we were just going to be watching some mildly older women do things with their nether regions, imagine our surprise when we walked in on some acrobatic sex show. Thinking we had made a mistake we were about to head to the door until we realised that it was the finale of the show and we were just about to catch the next loop. What followed was the most bizarre lineup of women doing things you could only imagine or conjure up in your worst nightmare, depending on your sensibilities and sexual preference I suppose.
We left feeling rather dirty and were glad once we were back in a locked car heading in the opposite direction. Quite a first day.
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