#Netherealm wants to give them a good ending so bad

[hardeepcox]

The Chronicles of Hardeep Cox - Bangkok pt 1

Intro

Hi my name is Hardeep Cox, I may or may not be a guy born to an Indian mom and a white guy from Boston in the DMV area. Then again I may or may not be just an extremely immature adult with a ridiculous sense of humor. Quick warning: if you are easily offended then I suggest you just exit this shit right now and idk go watch cable tv or something.

I am writing this as we prepare for our first legit night out in Bangkok, as I and a dude named Paper awkwardly wait for my dad to finish showering so we can head out. Tonight’s destination is Above Eleven, but I’ll explain more later on. Let’s begin with our arrival.

Flight and Night 1

After about 20 hours of flying we met up with Paper, our guide/family friend (on my dad’s side). Paper picked us up from the airport and helped us hail a cab. My first impression of Bangkok when I stepped outside of the airport was that it seemed so similar to Los Angeles, I guess because of the weather and vegetation. Anyways, the cab dropped us off at the Doubletree where an enormous wooden figure of a football (soccer) sat in the lobby. To my unbelievable surprise, it turned out that Paper was actually going to be staying in the hotel room with us because he lives outside of the city (my dad of course manages to leave out important details like this when planning trips). Because of the timezone change we were hungry upon arrival, at 3 in the damn morning. So we did what any idiot American tourist would do, we went to 7 Eleven. I had to accept the fact that chili and cheese quarter pounders would no longer be an option, so I went with the spicy basil rice and fish sauce. I gotta say that it was pretty good, even though it was spicy as hell. After crushing my first meal in Thailand, we did our best to sleep for the next couple of hours.

Day 1

Sleep deprived but feeling ready to roll, we got ready and headed downstairs for breakfast. The buffet included the usual American stuff, sushi, dim sum, and some freshly made Thai dishes.The dim sum was by far my favorite, and today it was Chinese egg tarts.

We went to some Buddhist temples, hundreds of years old. There were so many Chinese tourists, and so many lame pictures being taken by them (sitting down in lotus position next to a statue of the Buddha, a chick looking dramatically and diagonally down at the floor while her boyfriend takes a picture for her instagram and you KNOW she’s gonna add some kind of bullshit philosophical caption to it). It was hard to get into the spiritual groove with all these tourists, and the only places where I could feel peace was in the praying rooms where I wish that I could have stayed longer. The best part was the Wat Phra Ram, literally the place where they filmed one of my favorite childhood movies Mortal Kombat. It was totally unexpected and spontaneous, the most interesting part about it was the dog that had managed to sneak up into the actual ruins and seemed to be searching for something at a calm pace. My pathetic attempts to whistle loud enough for the dog to hear me led me to run around the ruins hoping to catch a glimpse of it. I heard it howl a couple of times after that and I’ll always wonder why, maybe its spirit led it to the ruins to discover a link to a past life. Who knew I would have accidentally stepped into the Netherealm, but too bad I couldn't meet Raiden, Shang Tsung, and Liu Kang's dead brother (if you don't get this reference please find a time machine and go back in time to 1995, break into a Hollywood video, steal a copy of Mortal Kombat, watch it, go back into the time machine, return to the present time, and punch yourself in the fucking face).

Tired as hell we walked around markets near the Chao Phra Ya river, they were pretty generic developing country markets and I was extremely tired so I just wanted to go back to the hotel and pass out. We tried some sticky rice dessert that was pretty good so we bought some, and my dumbass ate my entire portion in the cab and felt even more like a piece of shit after. We made a stop for some roadside Pad Thai, it was delicious but again I was exhausted. Back in the cab again I pretty much passed out from exhaustion.

Night 2

I woke maybe 45 minutes later still in the cab but the sun was setting and the nocturnal city was coming alive. Suddenly it dawned on me that we had to be in Chinatown and my street-mode immediately turned on. After driving us through some beautifully sketchy streets, our cab driver dropped us off at a main road. All the lights made it look like it was an attempt at giving it a times square feel. I was now totally awake and ready for more exploring, and after walking for a bit we walked by a Chinese restaurant (Chinatown in Bangkok is an extremely fast-paced environment full of beautiful chaos, if you can’t keep up you might as well stay in your comfy apartment and drink lattes or something). The menu had so many choices, but no combination fried rice, general tso’s chicken, or lo mein (at this point I realized that I should just forget about these options because I’m not gonna find this delicious diabetes-maximus anymore). I got the egg noodles with roasted duck for $2, and the portion was just right for me since I was still full from that sticky rice and exhausted from the jetlag. Before the food coma took over, we took a tuk tuk to the nearest metro train station and made our way back to the hotel. The metro was actually very organized and technologically advanced, the DC metro could learn a thing or two from it. Because of the timezone change, the beers, sticky rice, and random stuff that I had eaten, I hadn’t really used the bathroom all day. Walking from the metro to the hotel at some point became truly difficult and I had tell myself just breathe man don’t shit yourself on your first night in Bangkok goddammit.

Now back at the hotel and totally relieved, our night actually began.

Nocturnal Adventure

We started out at the Queen Bee, a little bar across the street with shitty mojitos but a damn good blues band. From there we went to a place that my dad would not stop mentioning, Above Eleven, a local Peruvian restaurant. Probably one of the coolest restaurants that I’ve honestly ever been to. This was some upper class bougie shit as the kids say, but the view of the city was breathtaking and the food was absolutely delicious (and I am a picky fuck when it comes to flavors). The Peruvian food was authentic, the Pisco Sour was legit, and we got to meet Chef Omar Frank Maruy. Chef Maruy is the Japanese-Peruvian chef in charge of keeping the food quality at Above Eleven at its exquisite level. After downing a few Pisco sours, and devouring a few dishes (ceviche, jalea, and anticucho) we made our way to Havana Social. I could tell this place was throwing a good party as we walked to the entrance which was a random door in an alley with working girls in the corner. Too bad some of us were wearing shorts so we were ultimately denied entrance. Bummed out we walked to the nearest bar, Oskar, and had Lavender Pisco Sours. Seriously so creative and surprisingly delicious!

After downing these drinks we basically gave up and made our way back to the hotel. Maybe like 5 minutes away from the hotel we walked past a really sketchy alley and I shit you not, my dad says “let’s go into a small street shithole bar!” He’s already walking towards it so Paper and I say fuck it and we join him, plus I mean come on I gotta watch my dad’s back since hookers have been flirting with him for the past 25 minutes. We walk in and of course all these chicks are so psyched to see us, a very pretty hostess welcomes us so we sit at the bar and get some Tiger beers. With Youtube as our DJ, we start sipping on beers and my dad is just having a blast with these two chicks. They try to flirt with me but I’m like meh, I’ve honestly seen hotter escorts in Lima. Then one of them says, “I’m gonna bring my sister for you.” I’m like ok cool whatever, totally unimpressed as I watch my dad party at this little bar. This chick brings the pretty hostess over and introduces her as her “sister”, and I notice dude this girl is actually super cute and obviously not an actual escort. Me and her are both like uhh… hi? She’s not sure how to interact with idiot foreigners, but I can tell and I am just my usual super chill self with her. She gets a jack and coke, and I continue sipping on my Tiger. Her name is May, I was like “is it pronounced like the month May, or is it Mai like my?” She looked at me like if I was a dumbass but she was playful about it, and I start crushing on this chick because I mean duh I am a fucking idiot and I do shit like this. This all ended with a bill of almost $200 USD, an escort angry at us for not taking her back to our hotel, and me DJ’ing some old school reggaeton on their Youtube. As we made our way back to the hotel we ran into into girls selling booze on the sidewalk in what seemed like the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo but cut in half the long way, and the girls turned the bottom half of the car into a mini-bar. As I took a whiz on a street corner, Paper points out that dude there is a toilet at this mini-bar on the sidewalk! I look behind a little curtain next to the mini-bar and there is in fact a toilet there, I mean not connected to any plumbing or anything, just literally a tiny toilet placed on the sidewalk. Did I whiz into this tiny toilet like 20 minutes later? Yes. Did I drink a few too many rum and cokes at this sidewalk mini-bar? Yes. Did I have any idea of what the hell to expect the next day? Hell no.

Night 3 - Let’s try not to die tonight shall we?

I’m skipping to Night 3 because the highlight of Day 2 is just me holding a lemur (by the way lemurs are freakin adorable and they have actual fingers and thumbs!), and realizing that my dad should move to the Thai countryside cuz he is actually genuinely happy there (he greeted random people from a canoe, including a naked fat guy who was in the middle of a soapy bath in the river).

On Night 3 we make another attempt at Havana Social (if there ever is a place with reggaeton and Cuban rum then you’ll probably find me there). The entrance is the #1 coolest that I have seen in my life so far, some dude gives you a code and you punch it into an old phone-booth, this then unlocks an old door next to it which you push open and find a little piece of Havana hidden within Bangkok. So there I am doing my thing downing Cuba Libres, dancing, and laughing at tourists dancing like idiots when I notice three pretty cute chicks dancing near us. I am not the most extroverted dude, but when I hear Latin music the beast is then awakened and I just let it take me places. So I slither over to these girls and pull off some of my signature moves, including one borrowed from my grandpa which I call the Egyptian knife hands. One of the chicks starts dancing with me and my first thought is “wow my dad is watching me spit some legit game, now I AM THE MASTER!” But anyways yeah we dancin and shiet. Suddenly she asks if I wanna go with her and her friends to another club, I thought it was a bad idea but the rum and Daddy Yankee had me saying “yeah screw it let’s go.” The four of us leave the club and somehow fit into a tuk tuk that says VIP on the seat and one of the girls say it’s free! RED FLAG - free shit usually comes with a price later on, and these girls seemed way too excited to have me along. One of the girls pulls out a wrapper with a bunch of pills and puts one in my mouth, my first thought is oh fuck I’m about to get roofied, or flooried, dammit Zack Galifianakis! I pretend to swallow the pill, then I look over into the street and spit this shit out. The girl is like are you feeling okay? I’m like yeah I’m great (meanwhile internally trying to think of an escape plan without freaking out)! We get to this club called Mixx, and this party is poppin. Every tourist is dancing with a local, and I’m thinking wow is every girl at a club in Bangkok an escort… like every single damn one?! My phone only has internet if there is wifi, and I tell the girl that I wanna call my friends to come but I need the wifi password so she hooked me up with her hotspot. Instead of figuring out how to use the wifi to escape, I’m in the bathroom FB messaging my friends back in the states how I almost got roofied and that I’m probably gonna die cuz I mean that is a brilliant idea right? I go back out there and one of the girls goes “if you wanna hang out with me it’s gonna be 3000 baht (like almost $100 USD).” Since I don’t wanna die I go “okay sounds good, let’s hang out every day this week okay?” Her eyes brighten up and she has a huge smile on her face, she tells her friend who then makes a face like “we did it bitch!” I’m thinking okay thank god I’m not gonna wake up tomorrow in a tub full of ice with my internal organs missing because they wanna take all my money throughout the week. Suddenly the Thai DJ starts playing the cumbia song “Colegiala”, and it was at this exact moment that I knew that everything would be okay! I stopped freaking out and danced the night away, didn’t sleep that night, and somehow found a really nice cab driver to take me back to my hotel afterwards (he charged me 300 baht but had no change so I just gave him my 1000 baht bill, really nice guy and really grateful). Yep definitely not doing that again, from now on I will assume every chick at a club in Bangkok is an escort. If you are asking yourself if I hit up that girl again to hang out and continuously pay her $100 USD throughout the week, the answer is dude of course not wtf.