A little bit of China, a little bit of India and a fab Thai festival

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Feeling fed up again this morning so decide not to sit around and mope, I’m going to go Chinatown and Phahurat, the Indian area. It looks quite close to the hotel and my plan is to walk through Chinatown, then Phahurat to the memorial Bridge pier, and then get the boat back. After a false start where I walk around in a big circle and find myself back where I started (it was ok, I needed to go to the loo anyway), I set off in hopefully the right direction. I do end up finding my way but I was unsure whether I was going the right way for a while. It looked promising enough to start with as I pass a church (church not Wat!) that’s mentioned in Lonely Planet, and see a sign that says Chinatown. But that only lasts for about ¼ of a mile where there are some food carts, and then it all goes quiet. I’m in the back streets of Bangkok and don’t know if I’m going in the right direction! It’s interesting to see this though. People are going about their business, with lots of people outside their houses making Krathong for the festival tonight. Follow my well tried strategy of just keeping on walking! It works again! I decide to take a turn up a side street and it takes me right into the heart of Chinatown, I obviously should have turned off sooner. I literally walk to the top of a street and go from quiet back streets to mad, crazy Chinatown. It’s chaotic, busy and brilliant. Stalls line the pavement and there are markets going off every side street selling everything Chinese. Lots of strange looking foods, herbal remedies, Chinese amulets and clothing
Without much blurring together Chinatown becomes Phahurat. One minute it’s all Chinese things, including all the signs, then turn a corner and it’s men in turbans and the stalls are selling fabrics, saris and glittery earrings and bangles. The stalls here are tightly packed onto the pavement and there’s really only room for one, possibly two people to walk alongside each other on the pavement, but it seems there are thousands trying to move along. The only option is to go with the flow. The worst bit about this is that you can’t get out of it. Every so often there is a gap in the stalls to get onto the street, but getting across to it is a completely different thing! Eventually get to the end of it and walk towards the pier. I’d seen a temple here yesterday that I wanted to come back to. When I get to it though I decide that it looks a bit boring and so don’t bother - I think I’ve got Wat overload! Instead I go into the park that’s next door and have a sit down for a while, it’s lovely and peaceful and offers some welcome shade under the trees, and there’s a beautiful fountain in the middle. The moment of peace lasts for about 30 seconds before a local nutcase sees the mug sign on top of my head. Nothing seems strange at the beginning. It’s just the usual Thailand thing that if you’re a foreigner, sat down, someone will come and sit with you and start chatting. So a man sits down next to me, asks me where I’m from, how long am I here for etc etc. the usual conversation. He shows me some photographs of what Thailand used to be like and as he keeps opening the book that he has with him to take the pictures out; I see that there’s a hand written sign. All I can make out is the top word….which is beware! I keep trying to read more each time he opens his book but I can’t see anymore. Maybe that should have been the indication to step away from the nutcase! Next he asks me which country I’m in. At first I think I haven’t understood him, but after he’s said it a few times I realise that, yes, he has asked me which country I’m in. so reply Thailand. And he starts laughing and rolling around on the park bench. Really rolling around. Laughing. For about two minutes. Then he tells me that no, I’m not in Thailand, I’m in India, Laos, Myanmar…… then he starts talking about the queen (of England), saying that she’s been here……. That’s when I tell him that I must be going, nice talking to him…..and he wanders off talking to himself. I hang around for a while taking some photographs and the next I see of my friend is on the way out where he’s laughing away to himself lying on a park bench. I think it’s where he lives!
I decide then that I’m not going to take the boat back, it’s still quite early as I set off at 10am so I’m going to walk back. There’s a temple in Chinatown that I didn’t walk past, but saw the signs for, so I’m going to try and find that. Walk back through the madness of Phahurat and Chinatown and take some more photo’s, and keep walking to try and find the temple. Something that I’m starting to realise about Thailand - or maybe just Bangkok - is that they’re very haphazard when it comes to road signs. You see a sign telling you to go in a certain direction, so you start going that way, and then there are no more signs telling you where to go. So you don’t know whether you’re still going the right way, or if you should turn off somewhere. I find the temple eventually (Wat Traimit) after a detour to a Chinese shrine (at first I wasn’t sure if that was the temple as there were no signs) where they were having a service and having a good old sing-song. The main attraction of this temple is a solid gold Buddha, which they only discovered when it was being moved and it was dropped and some of the plaster coating on it chipped off to reveal the gold! Take the requisite photographs.
Set off back towards the hotel, I think. I have no idea whether I’m going the right way or not. I keep trying to remember if I’ve seen any of the things I’m passing before, if anything looks familiar. Keep convincing myself that it does, but for a long time I’m having serious doubts. Much delight and relief when I definitely do recognise something. Get back to the hotel after six hours of constant walking. I’m very hot and very dirty. Today I saw most of the pollution that Bangkok has to offer I think. Before I have a shower I sit and eat some fruit as I haven’t eaten since breakfast and Michelle calls. She’s bought tickets for a boat trip tonight at 9pm - only 200Baht. Spend ages in the shower scrubbing the dirt off, especially my feet, and then apply a cleansing face mask that I succumbed to buying at the department store. Go and meet Michelle and we go back to the same food place (restaurant would be stretching it) and we order exactly the same thing that we had last night! Then head off to the pier for the boat trip. We go through a few tuk-tik drivers until we find one that we're happy with, I don't think there's any way round getting ripped off tonight. When we get there it’s jam packed. This is where all the locals come for their Loi Krathong and the atmosphere is amazing. It's so difficult getting through the crush that we have to buy our Krathong in a real hurry. So much so that I forgot to take a photograph of it. Amazed to find that the boat we’re on is almost empty which is brilliant because we can move around to see the best sights and take photographs. Get talking to a young Thai boy who’s from Bangkok. The only disappointing thing about the trip is that we thought that we would stop at Wat Arun and get off the boat to float our Krathong. What they actually do is just stop the boat in the middle of the river for us to put our Krathong in the water. I’m beginning to wonder how I’m going to manage to do this when the Thai boy tells me that the have a big spoon to lower it into the water. Pretty relieved at that as the boats are really high up. I can’t even reach the water with the big spoon so the attendant on the boat has to float mine for me. That’s not really how it’s supposed to happen. Oh well, at least I can say I was there. We then go back to the pier ready for the fireworks which are starting at about 10.15 (the boat trip was just under one hour). We had decided that we’d try and see the fireworks from the bridge, which is again what all the locals do. It looks packed though so I suggest that we try and get the boat back across and watch from there. Michelle wants to try from the bridge so we spend 10 minutes trying to get on there, then have to fight our way back down again as there’s no way we are getting anywhere near. That’s why our boat was quiet; people know that they have to get onto the bridge early. We then have to fight our way through the throng of people to get back to the pier to get the boat. Because it’s so busy though the boat can’t get through. We end up getting a hindered view of the fireworks between the pier and bridge. All the boats on the river, presumably the hotel one too, have stopped in the middle and so would have been a brilliant view of the fireworks. So there are advantages to being by yourself and doing what you want to do, I would have been on that boat if I’d been by myself. Can’t be helped. I’ll just have to come back next year and do it again! Once the boat does arrive Michelle says that she’s too tired to go for a drink at the bar like we said we would so she’s going to go straight back to her hotel. When the boat gets back to the hotel I give the driver and attendant a Krathong each that I’d bought for them. They seem a bit bemused. I feel really bad as well because there’ a boy from the other boat at the pier and he asks me why I’ve bought them a Krathong. Back at the hotel it’s a real anti-climax as it’s only 11pm. There are people having a drink and still people floating Krathong. It looks really pretty because the Krathong have stayed on the water here as it’s much calmer between the wall and pier. I don’t want to go into the bar by myself as it will probably be busy tonight so I just go back to my room feeling sorry for myself and very lonely.

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Photos

Loi Krathong
You can just about see my foot, I\\\'m under the man trying to get my krathong in the water!

Loi Krathong
You can just about see my foot, I\'m under the man trying to get my krathong in the water!

Loi Krathong
You can just about see my foot, I'm under the man trying to get my krathong in the water!