On Saturday a group of us decided to check out RCA (Royal City Avenue) downtown. It ended up being one of the most hectic nights we've had here. Because there are so many of us, it required catching three taxis outside our apartments. When we finally found a cab driver that agreed to take us there, we showed him the address (in Thai) and he proceeded to tell two other cab drivers where we were headed- nice right? Not so much. Each cab was dropped off in a different place, all side alleys. We obviously had no idea where we were or how to get there. My cab was luckily taken to a 7-11 (they are literally everywhere here) and we asked a woman who spoke some English where the club we were trying to find was (Route 66), and she flagged down multiple taxis to take us there; one of the nicest things anyone has done here but shows how friendly and understanding the Thai people are to foreigners. We then were dropped off at the entrance of RCA (which we later realized if we'd just said "RCA" to a cab driver they would have taken us to the right place...) and still no one was to be found. After making what seemed like 500 phone calls to the other taxis and around an hour later, we were all reunited! It seemed like a miracle at the time, but after later looking at a map we realized we were all just dropped off at random different alleys off two different entrances to RCA. But enough of the fiasco drama.
I want to take a moment to describe the atmosphere in general. Standing at the entrance of RCA was like the final silent and peaceful moments before a battle scene (I've been reading/watching a lot of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones lately..excuse my analogy). You could hear all different types of club-ish music bumping, and people were constantly streaming in (in some very interesting and revealing clothing compared to the rest of Thailand). Even just standing at the entrance peering in made me anxious-we had no idea what to expect!
Getting into the club was also a little difficult. We have been ushered into any other club we've been to so far because we're usually the only white people there- but this time they required an ID card with your birth date (you have to be 20 to get into clubs). Three people didn't bring ID's (one of them being 19!), but after much debate and conflict, someone decided to try to bribe the bouncer by paying 500 baht....and it worked! Definitely a funny story looking back on it.
Regardless, it was a little different than normal bars/clubs in the US- there was a huge outside patio with tables and chairs and inside a huge dance floor and live DJ (with "international" AKA English music)- with almost no one dancing. After pushing our way through to the front (near the DJ) we began dancing, which was pretty limited considering how crowded it was. Regardless, everyone around us (probably) found us jumping up and down amusing and some even danced with us! Some did just laugh and point- which is understandable and normal for us even just walking to class. Here's a few pics I took of some really cool lasers and the DJ (taken with my phone- excuse the poor quality). I consider it an overall successful adventure.
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