Advertisement
Published: January 23rd 2010
Edit Blog Post
Wat Pho
Gate - the Thai/Chinese style of the carving reminds me of the terracotta warrious I arrived at the Bangkok airport after a long flight over the pacific, 17 hours in the air from Vancouver with a 3 hour stop in Taiwan. Probably Taipei is a very interesting city, but the airport has zero personality.
Bangkok, however, has it in spades! I'd booked a hotel room ahead of time and had them send me the address written in Thai. I handed it to the taxi driver, he puzzled over it for a few minutes and then away we went! He was a disappointingly safe driver (I've heard harrowing tales of the traffic) and had reams of Buddhist paraphenalia on the dashboard so I knew we'd be fine. About a half-hour ride into town on a new elevated toll expressway (I had to pay the tolls ~$4). My hotel was in the Sukhumvit road area of town which is newish concrete jungle. Actually, in a small alleyway off a sidestreet. When the taxi pulled up six (I later learned) middle-aged Swiss ex-pats who were holding court at a large table on the patio (under an ever larger ceiling fan) eyed me suspiciously until I asked "um...this is a hotel?" and the owner sprang to life "Yes!
Wat Pho
Incredibly temping --- but I somehow refrained.. Yes! Velcome! Velcome!" To my ear I'd say he's from the German-speaking part of Switzerland.
The Thai girl on the hotel desk was very pretty and with a charming smile she showed me the room - Queen-sized bed, a little L-shaped sofa in the corner, TV, air-con, digital safe and plug-in broadband. She said "um, this is how you open the window, if you want to..", the view was breathtaking! A gorgeous multi-story parkade made from the finest concrete and graffiti. Closed I the drapes, evermore.
I picked this hotel because (1) it is 1 block from a subway AND a skytrain station, (2) in-room safe and (3) internet. I mostly got around bangkok on the skytrain -- I didn't trust my language skills to try to explain my destination to the taxi drivers. Once I'm a little more acclimatized, ok, but off the bat? The in-room safe was important because I was carrying a wad of C$ cash with which to finance the trip. Along with my credit/debit cards & passport were riding uncomfortably in a money belt. (Side note: if you ever want to save money, just get a money belt. *wow* is it a pain
Reclining Buddha
"here's looking at you" -- this sculpture is way to big to take a picture of, the building housing it is only about 15% larger than the statue... to try to buy things when you've got to practically pull the cash out of your underwear!) So, it was Saturday and the plan was to open an account with a Thai bank monday morning - I paid a little extra for a personal hotel safe to well, be safe right?
ok, so a quick shower (sweaty - did I mention it's kinda hot over here?), and out to explore the neighborhood! Exited the alley to find...a 7-11! Very popular in Thailand for some reason. I bought some water and carried on to the main street (Sukhumvit). There were stairs & escalators to the skytrain and all along the sidewalk were vendors selling fake T-shirts, belts, bongs, fake Viagra, pirate DVDs of all sorts, etc. At the next main intersection I noticed the traffic lights have a number beside them counting down how many second until the light changes. Good idea!
Street food vendors have little hot-dog style carts (sometime a bit more elaborate with cauldrons, cuttings boards, etc) and usually have a couple of those cheap plastic tables and chairs adjacent. Definitely the best deal in town, eat your fill of great food for $1-2. Hygenic? um,
maybe? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I was feeling more jet lagged than brave so I chickened out this time and found an English pub serving Cornish pasty.
I spent the rest of my time in Bangkok mostly stomping around or skytraining it (I wore out my favorite pair of shoes...they just couldn't hack the mean streets). There is a big river winding through Bangkok and there is a boat service set up with about 15 piers-of-call. I picked up a daypass for $5. It was great fun! Not only is it cooling with the water and breeze, but avoids the street traffic. I got off the boat to check out Chinatown, Wat Pho (a monastery which is home to the giant reclining Buddha statue), and Banglamphu neighborhood. The "real" Bangkok -- older buildings with way more character, better deals, more dreadlocked backpackers whistling Bob Marley. I had my hair cut like a buddhist monk for $2 and had the best meal yet in town, Wonton soup with pork and noodle, $0.40! I was quite close to the Khao San road so beloved of backpackers (or reviled, Kim 😉 but I'm saving that for my next pass.
a Thai tugboat
the bulldogs of the seas A quick glance at the map shows that in Thailand all roads lead to BAngkok.
One fun thing I spotted was the long-tail boats on the river. Very narrow (maybe 1m across?) but about 10x that in length. The captain has an automobile engine mounted on gimbals driving a propeller on a long chopped shaft about 3-4m in length. I saw many of these and it was clear that the Thais were pimping them out - modifying the engines, chroming them up....thai hot-rods ! Next pass thru town I'll find an excuse to go for a spin, they looked super fast.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0569s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb