Halloween Penthouses

Last weekend was surely one to remember.  My friend Chris called me on Wednesday to tell me that he had managed to get a bunch of us a penthouse suite overlooking the river in downtown Bangkok.  We had planned on going out downtown for the weekend anyway but the prospect staying in a beautiful apartment made it even more exciting.  It turns out that Chris has close family connections to two very prominent Thai doctors.  One of them, in fact, performed hand surgery for the Queen of Thailand a few years back.  They had a spare apartment and insisted that we stay in it for the weekend.

Six of us arrived on Friday and had dinner with Chris's family friends.  It was a delicious meal, the plates just kept coming.  We were then taken over to the apartment.  It was amazing. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two large family rooms and two balconies on different sides of the building each with an outstanding view of the entire city.

Friday night we enjoyed ourselves at the apartment.  It was a welcome change for all of us after being in some pretty shabby surroundings for the past month.

Saturday was one of the more fun days I've had since my arrival in Thailand.  We were invited to a retirement party for the Queen's hand surgeon.  It was very cool to be a part of a celebration in a different culture.  Again, plate after plate of food was brought out to the tables until we just couldn't eat anymore.  Then the karaoke started.  It is a Thai tradition that whoever sings one song picks the person who will get up and sing the next song.  Inevitably, we were chosen so the six of us together sang "Hey Jude."  It is another tradition that the other people at the party present flowers to the singers based on how well they do.  We each got three flowers.  I guess it's better than getting booed off stage.

That night some of our friends from orientation came over to the apartment.  We all hung out there for awhile then headed to Koh San Road.  Koh San Road is known as the "backpackers' district."  It is notorious for its nightlife.  It certainly lived up to the hype.  They had giant stages set up in the middle of the street in celebration of Halloween and people were walking around in crazy costumes.  We met up with some more people from orientation, altogether there were about 20 of us, and we all had a blast.

The weekend was better than I ever could have imagined it would be.  Our hosts made us promise that we would come back and stay at the apartment soon.  I think that probably won't be a problem at all.