Days 101-103: Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok is huge. Like the saying about Texas, everything is big in Bangkok; the crowds are big, the sights are big, and the number on the thermometer is big. We were in Bangkok for 5 days and I feel like there are only a few tiny corners of it that I vaguely know. More so than any other city we’ve been too, Bangkok seems immeasurably big, perhaps even more so than New York City. Part of it is that the city is exhausting to traverse, with the traffic, crowds, and heat. Part of it is that the city seems to change so rapidly and frequently that you feel like you’re exploring a different city every time you get off the boat, skytrain, or subway. And part of it is that each part of it is foreign in a different way, and you start exploring anew each time.

We were lucky to find a condotel in a great part of the city for a very reasonable price. It had an incredible view up and down the river, and we spent a fair bit of time just sitting out on it, watching the boats go up and down the river, the cars sit in the parking lot of rush hour traffic, and feeling the temperature drop. The condotel was also close to three of the best modes of transportation in the city – the boats that speed up and down the Chao Phraya River, the MRT subway, and the BTS monorail (skytrain). Many of the most famous tourist sights in the city are along the river, so the boats provide easy access to many of them, which are not serviced by other forms of public transportation (there were public busses, but given how crowded they were, I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be able to get off, having boarded once). The subway and skytrain are very modern and nice, but have somewhat limited coverage. I was quite impressed with how easy to use and efficient they were.

We started off our touring with a river cruise, going up and down the Chao Phraya River, then along some of the khlongs (canals) that cut through Bangkok and the neighboring city of Thonburi. This is still a real working river, filled with barges, edged with cranes, and constantly churning from all the traffic. Along the khlongs you can still find people going house to house with food and other goods; waterways are still the lifeblood of Bangkok, the way it used to be in all Thai cities apparently. We were amazed to see people swimming in the river, given its level of pollution. But given the heat, it’s quite understandable – we retreated to the pool to avoid the urge to join the kids in the riverThe next day I went out exploring to see some of the sights while Mary rested and recovered from her encounters with Bangkok. I took a boat up the river to visit the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew, the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, Wat Arun, and Chinatown. I met up with a German and two Estonians and we toured our way through. We’d all read in the guidebooks how there would be people at the famous sights reporting them to be closed and steering you towards other attractions, making money off the tuk tuk ride and any other shops they could steer you into. What we didn’t expect was how good they’d be at it. They’d stage themselves at a side entrance to the site, then wave you over, chat you up in excellent English, German, or Russian (as we all found out), and explain how there was a royal ceremony going on (hear the music?), and the palace was closed for an hour. They were so friendly and knowledgeable that it was hard to keep in mind their ulterior motives – in the end, only the fact that they were randomly hanging out where they were was enough to keep away my normal trust.

The sights were worth the effort though! The Royal Palace is stunning (and blinding at times), covered in gold and streaking into the sky on chedi and temple peaks every which way you looked. The Emerald Buddha was incredible – it was nice to see it after visiting one of its prior homes in Chiang Mai. The Reclining Buddha was huge, the view from the top of Wat Arun was spectacular, and overall it was a rather overwhelming day. To calm my mind, I went down to Chinatown, with it’s quiet streets and solace :-) Ok, maybe not – in a busy city, Chinatown still stands out as a hotspot of activity. There were thousands of different types of food for sale on the street, leaving me feeling like I’d never be able to try even a sample of each one.