Category: Bangkok

Back in Bangkok (after 4 previous visits while visiting the rest of Thailand 7-8 years ago), I had just enough time to swing through my favorite snacking neighborhoods and have a nice Thai massage.

On my first day I felt like a zombie due to hardly catching any sleep on the redeye from Colombo. Fortunately my hotel let me check in early so I could take a nap in the afternoon. On my second, rested day, I hopped the skytrain to the riverboat to cruise up northwest of the main temple region so I could stroll along the roads with countless food tables selling everything from fresh squeezed fruit juice, coconut flavored popcorn, fresh fruit, homemade candy, and every kind of Thai dish imaginable. My aim was to walk back through Chinatown to the main train station where there was access to the subway line.

Unfortunately, Bangkok is one of those cities with a road network that twists around and doubles back like a plate of spaghetti. I ended up getting very lost and walked much farther than I had to due to my disorientation.

Bangkok Snacking Tour

I decided to recover by having a 2 hour Thai massage at my favorite place “Let’s Relax”. A proper Thai massage is actually quite painful and includes a lot of deep tissue work and elbowing, but you definitely feel very revitalized afterwards. At times it feels like they are trying to pry the meat off your bones, but it is definitely worth it. A 2 hour massage costs around $25. Cheap!

Otherwise, I spent most of my time running errands around town getting ready for being back in the 3rd world for the next few weeks. Bangkok has a population of about 14 million and is very modern compared to most Asian nations. It has excellent public transportation in the form of skytrains, subways, river boats, canal boats, and buses, taxis, and tuk tuks. It is also full of big modern shopping malls that the masses seem to enjoy hanging out in, probably to get out of the tropical heat.

I seemed to have some sort of stomach virus over my last few days in Bangkok. Either that or food poisoning. The thought of certain Thai foods still make me want to run to the bathroom 🙂

While in a fairly weak state, I did finally manage to get around and see the Vimanmek Teak Mansion — which is a bit hard to get to on public transportation so I had been putting it off.

It seems that years ago, the King of Thailand made a visit to Europe where he met other heads of state and decided he too needed a royal palace (like they all had). It was very impressive, I must say. Built in the 1800’s, it’s the largest teak mansion of its kind in the world with over 80 rooms. It was used briefly as the Thai White House (so-to-speak) and continues to be used for entertaining foreign dignitaries. You need to walk around in your bare feet to preserve the flooring. All wood, everywhere.

There were plenty of other interesting little buildings to snoop around in the compound that mostly contain artwork or Thai crafts. It was a nice place to get away from the usual hustle and bustle of Bangkok. I had to keep taking sit-down breaks to regain my strength, however.

My 18 hour air odyssey has come to a close. The longest flight of my life! We flew non-stop north from L.A. passing just west of Gilroy (a little more east of Watsonville), up over Anchorage Alaska, in deep over Russia, down diagonally across China (which is one big country), and finally in over Vietnam and into Bangkok at sunrise. It was night time outside the whole way as we followed the dark side of the earth. It was the longest night of my life, I think.

Thai Airways wasn’t a bad way to go… They stuffed us full with three meals that seemed too big to fit on our trays. We had the usual personal movies and TV on demand, and they gave us comfortable seats with lots of leg room (for economy, anyway). I managed to get about five hours of sleep and took another nap on arrival at my guesthouse.

I’m now scrambling to come up with local travel plans for my next few weeks here in Thailand. While getting a cheap haircut, I just bumped into a guy who serves lunches over the counter at a shop I visit 3000+ miles away in Perth. Small world…

Spent most of the day walking my dogs off while Christmas shopping. Not much mention of Christmas ’round these Buddhist parts… Not like Singapore, which always gets extra high-tech and glitzy this time of year. Or Kuala Lumpur — even though it’s a Muslim country. New Years gets a mention here in Bangkok, but that is probably aimed more at the Chinese population. You just get the odd sounding Christmas tune in department stores. That’s about it, here in ninety degree heat. Actually, the weather’s be quite ideal (and perhaps a bit cooler). Nice, dry, warm, and sunny. What Perth should be like right now.

Before I hit the markets and shops, I spent a few hours checking out old Jim Thompson’s place. Jimbo’s a Yank who’s credited with opening up Thailand’s silk trade. He studied architecture at Princeton before being sent to Thailand during WWII (the big one) to do espionage work. Jimbo decided to return to Bangkok after the war ’cause he fell in love with the place. He decided to make a living by promoting Thai silk around the world. Considered quite the hero for it.

Jim Thompson is actually the second American I’ve come across in the past 18 months responsible for opening up a foreign country’s trade. The first being Tom Price in Western Australia, who is credited with opening up Australia’s mining industry for export. Anyway, Jimbo collected traditional Thai buildings and resurrected them on his old property, which is now a nice museum, just around the block from my guesthouse. Jimbo (as I’ve obviously come to call him) mysteriously disappeared while on vacation in Malaysia in the 1960’s. Adds to his legend status, I guess.

One of the many interesting things about Jim Thompson’s place was the fact that the main house was positioned with its front door pointed towards a little skinny river canal that ran the length of inner Bangkok. The premises may have been tucked away back up some alley, but in the day it was built, the canal system was the preferred mode of transportation in this city. Bangkok was known as the “Venice of the East”. To this day, regular long boats frequently ferry passengers back and forth on these canals. And unlike the few remaining cable cars of San Francisco, the people who ride these boats aren’t predominantly tourists.

Had another nice cheap Thai meal tonight. Maybe $2 this time. Funny thing I’ve learned about Thais. When they say spicy, they mean burn-your-mouth-off and sweat-a-gallon spicy. But when they say “not spicy”, I’m still finding the food to be about as hot as anything labeled “spicy” in Western supermarkets. Guess their taste buds are too burned off to recognize mild spices anymore. ‘Course, the cure for an overly hot Thai meal is a nice scoop of coconut ice cream.

Saw an ad in the paper today for my flight to Los Angeles tomorrow. It’s a brand-new spanking plane with a personal entertainment system on each seat. Hopefully that will help break up the monotony of the 15 hour non-stop flight. Maybe I’ve got that wrong though — it could be quite fast, since it’s scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles 20 minutes before it leaves Bangkok.

Well I’m safe and sound in Bangkok, but not before arriving with a throbbing migraine as a result of the 8 hour red-eye flight to get here from Perth that started at 2AM. Fortunately, I had one last migraine pill in my carry on luggage and went straight to a men’s room on arrival to pop it down my gullet. Unfortunately it decided to pop down the sink drain instead. $7.50 down the drain (literally). Fortunately I had more migraine medication in my checked baggage, but that took a little longer to get to (after the additional headaches of immigration, baggage claim, and customs).

Once I got to my guesthouse, they acted like they had no record of my reservation — even though I made it six weeks ago. I followed all their Web site instructions to the “T”: had it confirmed, and then re-confirmed by e-mail both Saturday and Sunday and re-confirmed again by phone on Monday (two days before my arrival). Oh well, they came up with a room for me anyway. I guess I shouldn’t complain for $10 a night.

I spent a few hours napping this afternoon, trying to catch up on my lost sleep from the flight. Then I spent several hours dizzily wandering the streets and shopping centers of downtown Bangkok. Tonight I had a nice yummy double meal of Phad Thai (cooked before my very eyes) and barbecued chicken and coconut flavored rice for a whopping US$2.41!

I’m currently blogging this from the top floor of a giant shopping mall called Siam Square. They have huge movie theaters here that offer deluxe viewing packages (recliner seats, free eats, etc). King Kong perked my interest, but it doesn’t look like it opens for another week. I’ve heard you’re required to stand and pledge allegiance to the King of Thailand (aka the King of Siam) before all movies here. That, in itself, could be interesting.

At this point, however, I’m just looking forward to a good night’s sleep….

I’ve been spending a few days wandering the back streets and neighborhoods of Bangkok. There are lots of Buddhist temples and some monks about. They also have a Chinatown and Little India, like many southeastern Asian cities. The people are very nice and hardly anybody hassles you about anything.

One of the nicest features of this place is the fabulous food. There seem to be endless places to eat with all kinds of food from around the world, but mostly Thai (of course). I love Thai food and have been having a wonderful time sampling many of the streetside stalls. As per the advice I’ve received, I make sure the food is kept cold and then cooked up fresh in front of my eyes. They seem to know exactly what ingredients to add to make everything taste special. The streetside cooks usually don’t know too much English, so you just have to point at what you want. I usually point at just about everything and shrug my shoulders. They’ll through in all kinds of exotic spices and fresh herbs and come up with something great. Even when I ordered popcorn from a streetside vendor it was flavored with a sweet coconut milk concoction. You can often get very cheap fabulously tasting meals for around A$1 (US$0.75). And to think most Thais don’t seem to have an ounce of fat on them! I guess it just must be healthy eating.

I found a great guesthouse on a back street in a nice quiet area in the center of town, but next to some of the big shopping areas. Bangkok seems a bit more modern than I expected. Probably a mix of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately, the public transportation system is a bit of a mess. They have a nice skytrain (monorail) that doesn’t seem to go enough places, a brand new subway that has just been shut down due to an accident, boats that cruise up and down the main river, and lots of heavy traffic everywhere else.

I’ve booked a trip on the overnight train to Chiang Mai tomorrow night to see some of the sights in the northern part of the country. From there I will probably slowly work my way back down to Bangkok, and possibly into southern Thailand (if the post tsunami problems improve) or east into Cambodia and/or Vietnam. I will have to see. I’ll be here for close to four weeks.