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Published: April 27th 2009
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Well, it was not what I was expecting. The last time I stayed in Bangkok it was at a 5 star hotel close to a Sky Train stop. Since then I have stayed in guest houses in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. In both places the guest houses were clean, everyone was friendly, everything was new, and they were very well run. And they were inexpensive, costing under $15./night. The backpacker areas where they were located were clean, friendly, quaint, and inviting. I actually liked the Vietnam guest houses more that I enjoy a nice, but impersonal, hotel.
My initial impressions of the Bangkok backpacker district were not good. It should be called the “drunken backpacker” district with litter strewn streets. It was almost 03:00 by the time we arrived at our guest house, the Sawasdee Bangkok Inn. It is located in an alley off Khaosan Road, the center of the backpacker area. The driver let us off at the end of Khaosan Road, so we had to walk a little more than a block to our hotel. We missed it the first time, but found it soon after with the help of a tuk tuk driver.
The
alley where the guest house was located was dirty, smelled of urine, and had several questionable people hanging around. When we walked in the lobby I was reminded of the movies “The Year of Living Dangerously” and “The Quiet American.” It was dark, looked run down, and there were three seedy looking guys sitting around. One jumped up and checked us in, charging us a 500 baht key deposit. Another carried our bag to the room. I tipped him 20 baht. I thought Sea looked like she was ready to run back to Shenzhen.
My initial impressions of the room turned out to be wrong. Walking down Khaosan Road late at night, through the dark and smelly alley, and into the seedy lobby colored my outlook I was ready to join Sea and get the hell out of there. But in the light of the next morning, the room was OK. It was clean, had a few extras like a chair, wardrobe, HBO, refrigerator, and a nice selection of snacks and drinks, albeit at outrageous prices. It was fairly large, but the room was not new. It could have used some paint and caulking. It did not have WiFi.
But for the the price, it was fine. Sea plopped down on the bed, which was comfortable, and went to sleep instantly. I watched a few minutes of TV before joining her in slumber land.
Another problem with the room was the curtains were very thin. We woke up at 07:30 because the sun was so bright, shining through the window coverings. In the morning light the hotel looked much better than it did at 03:00. The lobby and breakfast room were clean and cheerful. The employees were friendly. The free breakfast was good, bacon and eggs. Sea had a pork congee that she said was good. Even the alley was better looking than I thought, the urine smell was gone, and it seemed bright and clean.
It turned out is was Thai New Year. The water and mud were part of the celebration. And it also just happened that Khasoan Road was the center of the celebration. For thee next 3 days we would be unable to go anywhere without being smeared with mud and wetted. It was fun the first day, but quickly got old and irritating. Fortunately the celebrating did got get into full swing
until the afternoon. We were able stay clean and dry if we left the area in the early morning.
Sea wanted to see the Erawan Shrine and the Four Faced Buddha who lives there. I did not understand why this particular Buddha was so important to her, especially in Bangkok, a city full of shrines and Buddhas, but it was. So that was where we went first. It was a small statue on a busy street corner in a better section of town. It was next to a Burberry and was surrounded by other upscale stores. The statue was fenced off. We entered. Sea bought some joss sticks, candles and flowers to offer the Buddha. She prayed at each of 4 stations, one for each face. Then she left a monetary offering and we left.
We got a tuk-tuk and went to Wat Pho, home of the giant reclining Buddha. I had been to Wat Pho previously, but Sea had not, and being Buddhist, she had an interest in seeing this type of thing. I wanted to get the temples and shrines out of the way on one day. We wore long pants and shoes, not sandals. It
was very hot.
In Wat Pho we looked at the reclining Buddha, then walked around the grounds. I guess because it was New Year, there was no admission charge to the Wat and there were vendors set up all over selling food and trinkets.
Sea bought some sort of custard looking stuff. It was served with a bit of coconut milk. It had clear, white and yellow ingredients. I tasted it. It was sweet and very good. The yellow ingredient turned our to be corn. I couldn’t identify anything else. She also bought a small container of what appeared to be fermented cabbage. It had a vaguely fishy flavor. Again, it was good.
There were several tour groups of what appeared to be Asian Indians wandering around the grounds. They liked to take pictures of themselves with others, even if they did not know them. Sea got into the spirit of things and had me take several pics of her with other tourists. She tapped a monk on the shoulder to ask to pose with him. The monk jumped a foot as though he had been hit with an electrical shock. He looked angry. He did not
speak. A man in civilian clothes ran over and said “You can not touch the monks!” “Don’t touch the monks!” Well excuse me.
We walked around the grounds for another hour or so, looking in various buildings and taking pics. Then we left. and headed back to the Khaosan area for dinner.
We didn’t realize it, but Thai New Year was in progress. It is called Songkran. During Songkran people walk the streets splashing each other with water and smearing each other with mud. That explained the mess on the night of our arrival.
Sea did not enjoy being squirted. And whenever a kid approached her with a handful of mud she gave him such a look, that he usually backed off or put it on me instead. But eventually she got into the spirit of things. Actually she had little choice, there were thousands of people walking the streets and mud and water were everywhere. Eventually she gave up and joined in the spirit of things. We broght some wateer annd walked around splasing everyone we passed. We had dinner while everyyone inb the restaurant was squirting each other with giant water guns.
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