One Week in Bangkok

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Bangkok is definitely the most hectic place I've visited. Kuala Lumpur and Singapore don't compare, and even though London has traffic and crowds everything there is so much more regulated and ordered. Here, you never know quite what to expect on turning a corner other than that there will be some kind of activity going on. On just about every street, from the 6-lane throughfares to the narrow alleys there is business being conducted: food stalls cooking up noodles or rice, handcrafts or clothes or CDs or something whose purpose is a mystery is being offered for sale. Even when something looks ordinary and predictable from the outside there's often a surprise in store, such as the stationary and kitchenware shop (a bit like Wilkinsons in the UK) that had what I thought to be music playing - when I went upstairs there was a live singer just across from the pens and towels, with a small but appreciative audience!

I came here from Ko Pha Ngan by way of Surat Thani train station, which is actually in a little town called Phun Phin, which I'll remember for the spicy fish curry. I reached this place at about 9:30 on the bus from the pier after crossing from Thong Sala on the ferry, and the train wasn't going to be here for another two hours. There was a food court in the station but I put my bag in the left luggage and went off into the town to look for something more interesting. It took a while to find one and I began to think the town's eating places had already closed for the night, but there was a little restaurant with only a Thai script menu and I had one of the tastiest - and hottest - meals I've eaten since arriving in Thailand.

The train arrived shortly after the station staff said it would, and this time I did have a sleeper with a curtain rather than a seat, and though again the lights in the carriage were left on all night I slept most of the way. Because I didn't have accommodation reserved this time, I decided to put my backpack in the left luggage and just take the day pack up to Khao San Road to look around the guesthouses. It didn't look that far on the map from the train station to this area, which is well-known as a backpacker centre and has a lot of budget accommodation, but it still took over two hours to get from one to the other. After I figured out which bus to get and where to get it from, I thought I was all but there but the bus spent longer sitting in traffic than actually moving, and after taking about half an hour to get less than 1km near the Grand Palace I jumped off and went to get a riverboat instead. This moved a bit faster and before long I could start checking out guesthouses, and after a few which had no rooms or no single rooms or were way outside my budget despite having been recommended to me I found one, the Marco Polo (review here), that had a single room with its own shower and loo for B400. I was a little wary as to how come it was such a good deal but have been there 6 nights now and had no problems. Of course, I still had to go back for my pack - I took a taxi this time, and it didn't take anywhere near as long to get there or back.

On my first full day in Bangkok I went to visit the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, the temple of the Emerald Buddha. I happened to bump into two of the people, Nik and Tina, that I met in Haad Rin. They were waiting for a free English-language guided tour, and I joined them in taking the tour which was well worth it as there's a lot to see here and not very much in the way of explanation of what the significance of anything is. Unfortunately photography was not permitted in a lot of the buildings we went into, including Wat Phra Kaew itself as well as the regalia museum among others, so I don't have as much to show on here as I'd have liked. A short walk from the Grand Palace is Wat Pho, which is also a brilliant sight. These are Bangkok's equivalents of the cathedrals in London I suppose, but the wats are so much more colourful and ornate. The reclining Buddha at Wat Pho is gold-plated and around 46 metres long, it's a real "wow" sight when you first enter the building that contains it, it is on such a large scale. On another day I visited Wat Intharawihan which has another gigantic-scale image, the standing Buddha. This was a slightly strange one because I was told about it by a tuk tuk driver trying to get me to take a ride rather than my Thailand guidebook which oddly doesn't include it. I haven't taken a tuk-tuk (three wheeled open-sided motorised vehicle) yet, the drivers either want you to go to their preferred destination (gem shops, tailors or massage places mainly) or quote way too high a fare compared to the metered taxis. Anyway I went to Intharawihan by foot and back by bus, stopping off at another smallish temple on the way.

Apart from the temples, there really doesn't seem to be much very Buddhist about Bangkok. Even in one of the temples I visited there were stalls selling lottery tickets! This lottery seems very popular here, there's some kind of 'lottery office' across the main road near Khao San and it's always been busy whenever I've passed there. There are a lot of monks about - you can easily spot a monk because they wear bright orange robes and have cropped short hair - and there are signs on the boats and buses saying 'reserved for monks'. I even saw two monks shopping for computer accessories in Pantip Plaza. In a lot of small restaurants and shops you can spot a little Buddha statue. But in the main the city is all about business. Like Kuala Lumpur, in some of the air-conditioned malls you can forget you're in Thailand, but of course as soon as you get back out onto the street the heat and humidity reminds you. There are a lot of Western chains, including Boots chemists as well as the likes of Burger King and KFC, as well as the ridiculous number of 7 Eleven convenience stores (according to my guidebook, there are more than half the number of these in Thailand as in the whole of the US), and there are some strange links to England, such as the billboard with the three lions England football team badge advertising some cola brand that I don't think I've ever seen in my home country, but - much more so than in central KL - Bangkok ('Krung Thep' to the Thais - the familiar name is only used by foreigners) mostly retains a distinctly Asian character.

Mostly, I say, because - other than the aforementioned malls - one part of Bangkok that can't really be said about is the Khao San Road itself. Yes, there's no two ways about it, it's a 'backpacker ghetto' and its full of hawkers selling all kinds of tat aimed at tourists from novelty croaking frogs and bracelets to fake diplomas and student cards. Bars offer the sort of 'buckets' that I thought I'd left behind when I took the songthaew to Thong Sala just over a week ago. Dodgy travel agents with tickets that are clearly too good to be true, overpriced second-hand book shops. The big hits of 2010 pump out from the bars and restaurants from all day (Ke$ha at just gone noon?!) and well into the night, and just like in Haad Rin a lot of the people I meet are still to graduate from uni.

It took longer than it should have for me to discover this considering its at the other end of the narrow street in which my guesthouse is located, but Khao San Road has a slightly mellower cousin just to the north, called Soi Rambuttri. OK, the name doesn't trip off the tongue quite the same, but while the bars on Khao San play chart-toppers, here you're much more likely to find a guitarist and singer doing versions of songs like 'Hotel California' and 'Stairway To Heaven'. I'm at Rambuttri as I write this, using a very good wi-fi connection provided by a guesthouse with bar/restaurant called the Green House, and earlier on was listening to just such an acoustic singer.

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Comments

[Anne & Vic]

Once again, great photographs and a colourful and informative description of Bangkok. Enjoy.