Fun in Lumphini Park

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Today I was up at 6am to go to Lumphini Park. All the guidebooks recommended getting there before 7am, so I take the earliest hotel shuttle boat at 6.40, then have to take the sky train for a few stops. Hopefully it will get me there before 7, but I don’t know? I get to the stop for the park at about 6.55 and the first thing I have to do when I get there is navigate crossing the road - at 7am on a Saturday morning! What are all these cars doing here at this time? I stand there for about 5 minutes before I even get a sniff of a chance. Then when I have a go I nearly get wiped out by a taxi doing a right turn. A Thai man turns up next to me, so I decide to follow his lead in the hope that he’s used to crossing here. I keep to his right side just in case, at least he’ll get hit first! When I get into the park I can’t believe how packed it is. Hello….. It’s 7am!!!! Get excited when I see a tai chi class going on….after the 215th they lose their interest! As I’m walking through the first bit, at this stage still excited at seeing the first tai chi class, a whistle blows and the national anthem starts. Everyone stops dead in their tracks and stands to attention. I take a while to catch on as there’s been a lot of music playing so I don’t really notice. Then I gradually realise that everyone is standing like a statue, and slowly slow down to a stop - a bit comedy stylee. It’s like losing at musical statues! The tai chi classes are amazing/amusing in themselves, there’s a huge one going on in one area, and lots of smaller ones at different parts of the park. There’s a marching band??????? People learning to do the waltz on a bandstand…..to the Muppets theme tune?????? Some people are doing traditional dance with swords and sticks. There’s a weightlifting area, some people meditating, and then there’s a group of teenagers training to do a fan dance. They then start cart wheeling across the grass. Amongst them is a little boy who looks about three years old. He’s trying to do cartwheels as well, but keeps falling over. Then every time he gets up he shakes his hands because they must be sore from trying the cartwheels. When he can get away with it, after he’s fallen over for the first time, he checks to see if the instructors looking - if he isn’t he just runs over to the other side. I come across a man who’s sat clapping. Not to music or anything….I walk past him pretty sharply, it’s normally those one’s that come over and talk to me!
There’s a lake in the centre of the park, and I stop to take a photograph, from the edge, of the other side. As I’m stood there something catches my eye. It’s a huge monitor lizard, the biggest I’ve seen her or in Sri Lanka, and it’s swimming around right in front of me. So long as it stays in the water we’re ok! In the middle of all this we have the national anthem at 8o’clock again…an hourly thing?
I play chicken run again at the road and take the sky train and boat back to the hotel for breakfast.
I’ve bought a day ticket for the sky train, so after breakfast I get the boat there again and go to Chatuchak market. I went there when I had cold and wasn’t too impressed, so I thought I’d go up again wondering if it was more having the cold that made me not enjoy it. On the way there on the sky train I have a classic Thaibrides.com example. A big old fat English bloke gets on with a tiny Thai girl. I struggle not to laugh as he sits there talking really loudly about Bangkok, as in…oohh they have a sky train, what a good idea, and “I’ve never seen something like this before. “ or “they have MacDonald’s, how funny.” the funniest thing is that he keeps saying “oh my god” over and over. I’m not sure whether it’s through excitement, that he cant believe the situation he’s in, anticipation, thanks….?? His Thai “friend” keeps going “shhssshhh” and is obviously pretty embarrassed. He must be paying her well!!
The market is actually no different, but I wander around and take some more pictures, and probably take more in and notice more things. Amongst todays (further) unusual sights are the following: - - a stall selling country and western music, with a Thai man in a cowboy has sat outside playing the spoons
- Two girls, one dressed in silver and singing very badly, the other not making a sound or moving except for her arms waving in a pattern in front of her
- and a boy playing a tune by rubbing the rims of glasses filled with different amounts of water, whilst another boy sat on the floor next to him playing the guitar! (Actually he was very good.)
I end up staying at the market for a lot longer than I’d planned……because I can’t find my way out! I keep trying different ways, but just find more stalls. I think it finally takes me an hour before I recognise some stalls together that look familiar. I take my chances and fall breathless onto the street…..just kidding but I don’t think I was too far off! Cool myself down with a diet coke, where I again make the mistake of impressing someone with my grasp of the Thai language. I only said “Tao Rai?” (“How much?”)…and they answered me in Thai so I didn’t have a clue. By this time I’d wandered into the “locals” stalls so they didn’t speak English. They had to take a 20Baht note out to show me how much! From here I had to change at Siam station to get a train to the next spot. I wanted to go and have a look at the canal by Jim Thompson’s house (the seed had been sown by Mr. Scam) and it wasn’t too far from here.
Now, Siam is the main shopping area, somewhere I’ve frequented a few times, and as I was sat on the train heading there I thought…..”you know I could do with a new mascara, maybe I’ll call and get one now. It’ll only be small so it wont be awkward to carry whilst I’m walking around.” while I was I the department store I also thought I could do with a buffer for my nails. And the nail buffers were near the straightening irons……and I succumbed…….to a pink pair! And some oil treatment ….and spray…… I decide that I’d better take these back to the hotel before I carry on with my journey. So I take the sky train and hotel boat again….. And again to go back. May as well make use of the day ticket! My plan from the canal by Jim Thompson’s house is then to take a taxi to the marble temple )the one that the tuk-tuk driver was supposed to take me to), but after walking on the canal I’m so hot and sticky, and in need of a shower that I just go back to the hotel. I must look very hot and bothered as on the boat the attendant gives me a bottle of water. He and I always chat and wave at each other if we‘re on different boats. All of them are very polite but mainly just do their jobs, but this is the one who’d asked me why I’d bought the others the Krathong last Sunday. Obviously a bit cheeky! We were talking the other day and I thought he was about 20 he looks so young. Turns out he’s 30 and he takes his hat off to show me where he’s starting to get grey hair. Today he asks me if I’m a writer as whenever he sees me at the hotel I’m always earth reading, writing or on my computer! When I get back to the hotel I make good use of all my purchases. I body and face scrub, hair and face mask (x 2), eye mask, dry and straighten my hair. And then wax my eyebrows. And wax ½ of one of them off!!!!! I’d done a bit too much last time and taken too many hairs away. But, although it was thin, it still had the shape. This time however………..I took about ½ an inch off the end. There obviously weren’t enough hairs there to withstand a waxing! I keep going back into the bathroom in the hope that it will look better, but I cant convince myself that it does. So I get on the boat and take the sky train to the department store. Thank god they sell bobby brown. Buy the same powder and brush that I have at home. How vain is that? I was thinking about going to the Patpong area tonight (sleaze city of Bangkok), but was having 2nd thoughts with it being Saturday, thinking it might be too busy for me to take photo’s - my only reason for going in case you were wondering! I make my mind up when I get on the train and see everyone heading off for their nights out. There’s a hen party, group of blokes…. Feeling sorry for myself and lonely again. Go back to the hotel and order room service.

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