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Published: June 19th 2017
It definitely wasn't the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last but I get the feeling that what I had just done is something that just can't keep happening for much longer. It's just always the way though; the biggest night of partying almost always occurs the night before a travel day with a ridiculously early start. My dorm mates and I were still enjoying a drunken swim in the resort pool just three hours before I was due to leave for Bangkok. Drunk, tired and spaced out, I waited for my taxi to the pier. Keeping in theme with
my time in the islands, it was bucketing down. Thankfully it was a sheltered pick-up truck rather than a motorcycle that came to pick me up. I got some decent sleep on the two and a half hour ferry to the mainland and then the two hour journey to Surat Thani's airport. I was a little worried that I had left things a bit tight as usual by going for the 1.20pm flight but the minivan got me there in plenty of time.
I usually would've taken the longer, cheaper route to Bangkok but this time I was to meet up with
Chinatown
The neon signs that light up at night leave you in no doubt that you are indeed in Chinatown.my Mum again for a four day stay in Bangkok - she was arriving fairly early in the day and I didn't want to keep her waiting too long. Plus it was only about £15 more to avoid a twelve hour journey by boat and bus by taking the relatively comfortable route by air.
So, Bangkok. It is usually where most people start their adventures in Thailand but for me it would be where I would be ending it. I've heard so much about the place - and frankly most people are surprised when I tell them I've never come here until now - that I have built up a picture in my head about what the place is like; chaotic and traffic-choked; dark, seedy and sleazy; a progressive, modern, glass and concrete jungle; a wild night out; street food and tuk-tuks galore. I was excited to see how the city would measure up to my expectations. In terms of craziness, I was interested to see how my experience in Indian mega cities have prepared me for South East Asia's biggest one.
I did well with our hotel - it was flash yet super-cheap at just £66 for
Damnoen Saduak Floating Market
A tourist trap but still a charming one. five nights in total. I'd say it was probably one of the nicest places I've stayed in on this trip. But the building's sleek finish and contemporary decor masked inconsistent design and a leaky roof!
We discovered this after the massive showers that would hit the city once or twice a day, which made walking around just that touch more frustrating. I have not seen as much rain on my entire trip around the world than I have in the last couple of months.
We spent most of our first day in Bangkok mucking around trying to figure out how we should spend our four full days here. Public transport is decent but limited and the sprawling city is difficult to get around without a car. The BTS (sky train), ARL (Airport Rail Link) and metro don't go right into the heart of the old city which you then have to navigate by foot, taxi or tuk-tuk. This meant that a bit of logistical planning was required to get the most out of our four days here. I wasn't enjoying this process, still tired from my arduous journey the previous day and suffering through the second day of my
Outside Terminal 21
Chrome and glass; this is modern Bangkok and its flash shopping malls. hangover.
We hit Chinatown that evening which I expected to be more compact and cramped but where there was actually far more vehicle traffic than foot traffic; endless streams of cars and motorcycles which made crossing roads a bit of a pain. However, with its brightly lit, Chinese character neon signs everywhere, there was no mistaking you were in Chinatown. Around where we stayed and in Chinatown, we seemed to have trouble finding places that weren't either street food stalls or an expensive Chinese restaurant that specialised in the sad industry that produces shark fin or the weird industry that produces edible birds' nests. There was loads of street food on offer but Mum wasn't too keen on trying much of it.
That was because on our second full day we went on a food tour through one of Bangkok's oldest districts, Bangrak.
Thai food is quite rightly one of the world's favourite cuisines and throughout my stay in Thailand so far, I have thoroughly enjoyed eating here. Among the culinary delights I have sampled are
namtok pork,
massaman curry, cashew nut stir fry, green curry, fried basil chicken and
laap (hot!). There is very little however, that isn't
Bangrak
The original port area of Bangkok. at least a little spicy. Much like how I got addicted to
chai in India, I have got addicted to Thai ice teas here; black tea mixed with sugar, condensed milk and ice. Delicious.
On this particular food tour we tried
pad kapow moo kraw (stir fried crispy pork with chillis - Thai Chinese),
panang curry (Thai Muslim) which is similar to red curry, fried chicken served in pounded and fried lemongrass and
pandan (sweet coconut-like tasting flavour extracted from pandan leaves) custard buns. To be honest, I didn't feel like I tried anything uniquely different on the tour but almost everything was scrumptious. Post-tour, we stopped by a stall selling deep fried bananas that seemed so famous that they couldn't seem make them fast enough for the scores of customers queuing up. Unfortunately, the bananas weren't very sweet and were about as disappointing as some bland and powdery
jackfruit that we also bought in the area.
Bangrak is Bangkok's old port area and is thus home to many immigrant communities, some of whose restaurants we ate in, restaurants that have been a passed down through the generations. Thailand's first ever road and first ever hotel also reside in Bangrak.
Siam Paragon
The most upmarket mall in Bangkok. In terms of look and feel, the neighbourhood resembled the classic 20th century South East Asia that you might've read about with its old colonial and oriental style buildings, street vendors everywhere and anywhere peddling everything and anything; luckily for my mother and I, they were peddling mostly food.
From the city's traditional neighbourhoods, we then underwent a dramatic change of scene as we moved on to Siam Square to explore Bangkok's modern face. Giant LCD screens, bright lights, glass shopping malls and hip, modern stores and eateries abound in Bangkok's new city centre. We began with a walk through the super-flash high-end shopping mall that is the Siam Paragon which was overflowing with the world's most luxurious brands. Over the road is the gigantic MBK Centre which has independent stalls and sellers as well as recognised brands. Mum and I had fun checking out the weird and wonderful things available in the food sections of both malls.
Of course there are moments when travelling with your Mum can get on your nerves a bit but those moments are outweighed by the poignant ones that occasionally come along such as when started Mum gushing about
durian and how
Modern Bangkok
Taken outside Petchaburi metro station, I feel this picture encapsulates modern Bangkok; lots of new buildings and lots of traffic. granddad would bring home a boot-load every time he went up to his rubber plantation back in the day. She reminisced about how she and her brothers and sisters would then all eat it together as a ritual, a throwback to happy times. As for
durian, we got some durian and sticky rice (with coconut milk) and it was actually quite nice...and heaven forbid, I think I might be starting to like it. I have never been able to stand the smell and taste of it which I used to liken to a mix of rotten eggs and onions but I guess tastes can change.
Our schedule during our visit continued to keep pace with Bangkok itself; it was hectic. It is quite incredible - the city just seems to be stuck in a permanent state of traffic jam, even at 5.30 in the morning. To me the city felt like a mix of the street life of India and the modern monstrosities and glitz of Kuala Lumpur's shopping malls with perhaps a lean towards the latter. Though there are definitely some here who live in abject poverty, I have seen much worse than what I have witnessed in
Floating Market Vendor
A customer boat rocks up beside a vendor selling grilled pork at the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. Thailand.
On our third full day we had another early start and I get real cranky when I haven't slept enough, so I wasn't amused by all the waiting around we had to do before our tour to the famous Damnoen Saduak Floating Market which had a 6am start but didn't properly get going until 8am. We did get an inadvertent tour of Bangkok by minivan however including a trip down the infamous Khao San Road, which looked exactly like I thought it would; a dirty looking 'high street' full of hostels, bars, restaurants, massage parlours and food and liquor stalls that you'd expect to see in a backpacker enclave. Indeed if I wasn't with my Mum, I would probably have ended up staying here. At 8 in the morning, it was pretty quiet - it would be interesting to see the place in full flow at night.
Speaking of a tourist trap, the floating market was the epitome of one. Busload after busload would pull up, depositing tourists like us from all over the world into this throwback of traditional village river life, now sustained almost exclusively by tourism. About two blocks long, the market consists of one canal
Chedis At Wat Pho
Wonderfully and intricately decorated chedis inside the Wat Pho temple complex. where vendors sit in their longtail boats selling fruits and coconut ice-cream; on the roofed concrete banks are peddlers of clothes, handicrafts, souvenirs and cooked food. With the advent of new roads, cars and urban sprawl, there really is little need for the market to exist, to which villagers would row their boat via the canal network that connected it to their floating villages a la
the backwaters of Kerala and
Inle Lake. Still, it maintains a sense of charm and it is a classic experience to rock up to a boat to buy a carton of jackfruit and have your change handed back to you in a small net at the end of a long pole. We even got a free ride through the floating villages where locals still live.
Our culture day continued as we visited a couple of Bangkok's most revered Buddhist temples.
The complex of Wat Pho was quite large and surprisingly impressive. It brought back memories of
our trip to Yangon and our visit to Shwedagon Paya. Wat Pho doesn't seem as big or as blinged up as Shwedagon Paya, which is plastered in gold, but for us is perhaps much more elegant. The four
chedis in particular were very pretty
Reclining Buddha
Housed inside a temple at Wat Pho. and intricate and are massive towers of porcelain art. The biggest draw at Wat Pho however is the 46m-long gold reclining Buddha which also brought back memories of Chaukhtatgyi Paya in Yangon, which was actually bigger. It was hard not to be impressed by all the gleaming gold here. I also loved the rich colour and design of the temple roofs.
Wat Arun is named after the Hindu god Aruna and there are several Hindu statues (including one of Ganesha) in the compound. Its most eye-catching feature however is its central tower which like the chedis in Wat Pho, are encrusted with artful porcelain, which gave it a degree of gracefulness. The tower itself is different in style to other Buddhist temples I have seen in
Nepal,
Myanmar and
Chiang Mai.
After over twelve hours on the go, it was the perfect time to have a quintessential Thai experience; a massage. To be honest, I have probably been in need of one for years so while Mum went for a foot and shoulder massage, for just £5, I went for a one hour, full body Thai massage.
Led upstairs by my female masseuse to a dark room of futons and
Wat Arun
Temple complex with a big tower just over the river from Wat Pho. The tower was undergoing restoration. curtains, when she drew the curtains closed, I could barely see anything. I've never had a massage before and suddenly all those stories with happy endings sprang to mind. It seemed like anything could happen now.
"Is it possible to have more light?" I asked.
When she opened the curtains a little, gave me a loose hospital garment-like top to put on and started chatting with the masseuse next door, my mind was put at ease. The masseuse must have really strong thumbs as she went to work on my feet and calves, which she did for about twenty minutes in total. It felt relieving and relaxing and I almost passed out! Some of the massages were quite hard however, particularly on my shoulder and it often hurt.
"Are you OK?" she asked, after one such squeeze elicited a stifled groan.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect and went into it with an open mind, but there definitely some unorthodox techniques; stretching my legs over my head; using her feet to push/stretch/massage; getting on my back and using her knees to push into it. There were also the more orthodox elbows, chops and hits to loosen me up a
Wat Phra Khew
Bangkok's biggest tourist attraction. bit. The funniest moment came when I was lying on my stomach and the masseuse straddled me from behind around my upper legs. She then took my arms and stretched me back. I'm not the most flexible so I was weary about doing my back in but as it turned out she couldn't stretch me back very far and started laughing. I have to say that it was quite an intimate and sensual experience at very close quarters so I can imagine how things might er, go up a level. There was no "happy ending" for those of you wondering but I did feel happy at the end. Reading back this last passage, it seems impossible to describe my first massage without it sounding suspiciously like a sexual encounter so if you're inclined to think that way, feel free to have a giggle.
On our last day in Bangkok we visited its most important site; Wat Phra Khew & The Grand Palace.
As you approach the complex sweating uncomfortably through your trousers - because you are required to cover up your legs when entering any temple with royal affiliations - you can see the colourful and wonderfully designed roofs
Gold Columns Of Wat Phra Khew
The blinged up columns of the main temple housing the Emerald Buddha at Wat Phra Khew. of the temples along with all the massive yet intricately decorated
chedis rising above the whitewashed walls that enclose both Wat Phra Khew, the temple complex that houses the Emerald Buddha, and the Grand Palace, which is the royal residence that contains the royal family's quarters, throne halls and government offices. Once inside, it is even more impressive, as there are a number of other smaller chapels which are just as artfully decorated as Wat Phra Khew itself, as well as several other massive chedis including Phra Siratana Chedi, which evokes the main stupa at Shwedagon Paya since it is also completely covered in gold. As for Wat Phra Khew itself, the exterior is positively blinging with gold columns studded with coloured glass that resemble gems. Inside, the Emerald Buddha is considered the most important Buddha image in Thailand. It was discovered in Chiang Rai in 1464 and was carved from a single block of jasper. It isn't very big and you have to squint your eyes to spot it inside the temple, sitting atop a pedestal wrapped in a gold costume, just 66cm high and 48cm wide. The whole complex is pretty breathtaking and lends itself easily to some
Grand Palace
The royal residence which also contains throne halls and government offices. great photos and though it is slightly different in style to Shwedagon Paya in Yangon, I would still say Shwedagon Paya is the more impressive complex by a whisker.
The Grand Palace is also rather spectacular though is more European in style as opposed to the definitively Thai architecture of the temples. Much to the disappointment of myself and annoying swathes of Chinese package tourists, you are not allowed to enter the Grand Palace and must admire it from the outside. The late Thai king Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is adored by the locals - I'm not sure I have ever seen such devotion and love for a royal figure before - is still lying in wake in the royal compound and thousands of Thais were stuck in queues that stretched throughout temple complex and for hundreds of metres outside it, all dressed in black, waiting patiently all day to pay their respects personally to the king.
Thais are probably the second most friendly people in the world (after the Burmese) and this is despite having dealt with tourists now for so long. I've often seen local populations simply sick of the sight of tourists in many countries but in Thailand
Street Stalls In Chinatown
Even the rain doesn't stand in the way between locals and their street food. they have still managed to retain a level of hospitality and politeness that is up with the world's best.
This politeness also extends to the art of queuing. Ha, and the Brits think that they know how to queue. Queues in Bangkok are always orderly, even at rush hour. The consummate example of this are the queues to get on a train; everyone queues up in single file either side of the train doors, giving passengers leaving the train a guard of honour before politely filing into the train once everyone wanting to get off the train has alighted. You never see this anywhere else where it is simply a free-for-all (although Londoners do let people off first on The Tube without the smart queues).
As part of your ticket to into the Grand Palace complex, you also got to see a collection of clothes from the king's wife Queen Sikrit, which she wore on a world tour in 1960. Mum was loving it as she marvelled at the elegant ensembles put together by French designer Pierre Balmain which fused Thai and Western styles. I also admired the collection although I was more in it for the fantastic air-conditioning inside
Inside Terminal 21
Malls such as Terminal 21 show off Bangkok's modern face. the building.
We would've liked to have checked out the massive and crazy Chatuchak Weekend Market but we ran out of time. Instead we went to Terminal 21, a flash Blade Runner-like shopping mall with an airport theme and different floors themed after different cities around the world such as London, Rome, Tokyo and San Francisco. The shops were mostly boutique shops which was quite cool to see although brands such as H&M were also present. The best thing about the mall however was its food court where the prices of everything were amazingly cheap. Therefore I decided that on my last night in Thailand, I would spend whatever small change that I had left on gorging myself on Thai food one last time. Between us, we demolished a
pad thai, a red curry, a
tom-yum soup (super hot!), fried mussels and one last durian and sticky rice, washed down with one last Thai ice milk tea. All for just 300B (£7.50)!
My mother had never been to Bangkok before and she had heard of the place as being somewhere you go to eat, shop and get massages. We certainly did that, especially with the eating part, but
Streets Of Chinatown
There are some busy and jam-packed alleys such as this one that give the place a unique character but not as many as I thought. we also chucked in a few cultural (if hyper-touristy) sights as well. It wasn't the typical Bangkok backpacker experience for me but it was nice to change things up a bit. I don't think we have any regrets during our visit and I'm pretty sure my mum enjoyed herself which was really all I wanted. I won't see her now for at least three months but that is nothing compared to the gaps of years I went without seeing her when I was living in London.
As for my personal impressions of Bangkok, I did enjoy it and it has a lot more to see and do than other big South East Asian cities such as Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and is a real melting pot of cultures and people across the economic and social spectrum. In saying all that, I wouldn't go as far as to say that I was blown away by it and it isn't my favourite city in the world. It is nevertheless a fascinating place and would encourage people not to skip it on the way to the islands.
My mum and I were now heading for the airport in an Uber; mum
Mum & I
Posing at the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. bound home for KL and I for a new country with just a snippet of excitement; Vietnam!
แล้วเจอกันใหม่ (leaw-jor-kan-mai),
Derek
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samuel david
non-member comment
very good
Another amazing blog- I just really like reading your blogs. Just curious, since I might be visiting BKK, what was the name of the hotel you stayed at and were was it? Thanks.