And so to Bangkok, a complete contrast from the quiet of Khao Sok and the Phuket beach vibe. It’s a noisy, busy big city with poorly integrated transport links, and the traffic is notorious. The road system is a labyrinth – every journey seems to involve multiple switchbacks and u-turns – and the public transport systems don’t talk to each other much although some of their stations are interlinked – we get a Rabbit card for the skytrain, but it doesn’t work on the metro, which it connects to.
We’re here for a few days of contrast from the country and beach, before we head up north. Like everything else on the trip we hadn’t intended coming here, but it ended up being in the way, and a convenient stop en-route. I’d not visited before but Nikki says it’s calmed down in the last twenty years – and shot up at the same time. Roads, tracks, gardens, modern offices and hotels all seem to be moving upward towards the cleaner air and longer views. Down at street level, though, much is still the same, and old-world buildings nestle next to modern blocks, in a world where urban planning is regarded as a woke occupation for a snowflake generation.
We found the flower market in Phra Nakhon and then caught the big street market at Chatuchak – but honestly it felt that there were more tourists than locals. Hundreds of vendors selling stuff, but no idea how most of them make a living. In the middle of a stifling covered area with a dozens of stalls you’d suddenly find a restaurant, usually full of people. It all seems very … foreign, yet full of foreigners. The market is one big sweet shop for those wishing to fill an extra suitcase to take home and much of the t-shirts, sarongs and elephant trousers (more latera) are decent to good quality The art is also good However we are still moving on and are acutely aware of the weight of our back packs.
Our first day was topped off by the excitement of the Kim Il-Jung Korean Barbeque. Having had a frankly disappointing example of this in Cebu I wasn’t convinced when we wandered down a dark alley to find a pop art palace – but the food was fantastic, even if the waitress kept on explaining to us that we would need to book if we came again. My mouth was too full of food to tell her that at their prices I would need to take out a second mortgage.
Nikki : It was £44 and that included alcohol – we are getting used to Asian pricing and are going to be shocked when we get back
We’d arrived in Bangkok on Saturday and spent Lazy Sunday roaming about without a huge amount in mind. Eventually we found a floating art market and had lunch with our feet dangling over a canal full of fish. We both had Pad Thai – largely because the only thing on the menu was Pad Thai. Delicious though, and cost almost nothing. Then Nikki demonstrated her own artistic talents … (hers is the one on the right).
Characteristically we then decided to stroll to a bar which turned out to be twice as far away as we expected, but we eventually made it to what turned out to be a jazz club full of older Irish gentlemen, most of whom seemed to know each other. The clicking of hips and knees could be heard above the very good jazz on show. Nikki then decided to eat at what I would describe as a lower class restaurant on a street corner. I declined, but was more than happy to watch her eating brains and offal from a large pot that had no doubt been simmering for several hours … and then we ended the day at the Saxophone Pub listening to a band doing some kind of jazz-funk interpretation of modern classics (aka George Michael and Michael Jackson). The horn section was very good, not so sure about the rest of the group.
On our final day we became tourists par excellence. We started by heading over to the Jim Thompson house, a collection of six old teak houses that the US silk merchant had carefully taken down from their original locations both locally (across the river) and further afield (toward Chiang Mai) and then had rebuilt and repurposed in Bangkok back in the 1950s. Being American and of some means he also had an indoor bathroom and toilet put in. The beautiful houses are full of artefacts gathered on his travels, and the whole place is largely as he left it in 1969 when he disappeared on a trip to Cambodia, allegedly while working for the CIA. The houses and gardens were excellent, the tour was interesting and the retail opportunity for the Jim Thompson (silk) company at the end was avoided (it would have bust our daily budget to buy even one item).
Nikki – cough (birthday) cough
We then took the river taxi to the central district where Nikki route marched me to the Grand Palace and we sneaked in at the end as it was closing. The palace complex is vast and frankly we should have hired a guide because we had no clue what we were looking at. There were temples and shrines and statues everywhere. My attention was mainly taken by the sight of so many people wearing Bali elephant pants. You have to be covered to come into the palace, and most tourists had obviously turned up in shorts or short skirts and had then purchased the cheapest cover-up they could find. But it looked like they’d all come out in their pyjamas for a giant sleepover.
We then found our way randomly (Nikki – not at all randomly!) to the Khaosan Road, infamous for being backpacker central and where all the cool kids hang out. Although most of the kids that I saw needed to lose about 30 years and 30 pounds if they were going to be cool again. We did find a happy hour – our first in Bangkok – and people watched until the street lights came on, about 7.30pm We are definitely not cool – we were hot and foot sore so thinking of heading back but then Nikki realised that an amazing vegetarian restaurant, May Kaidee, was only metres away from the hordes of vendors selling fried scorpion, knock off sunglasses and cheap beer. Pumpkin humus and the special salad (special as in fried) was a delicious way to end a brief trip.
Bangkok is best seen from street level and we walked a lot – it’s full of character and areas are noticeably different. But it’s huge and the challenges in getting round make it much harder to see than, say, London. I enjoyed our three days in the city, but it was enough. Time to go back to the country.
– Tim