Bangkok
I fear that this post will not due justice to my experience in Bangkok. This, in addition to my general laziness of late, has been the reason for my delay in posting. At this point I’m resigned to failure and am willing to savor the experience myself and share what little I can in this medium. My one regret while there was that I had not brought someone along to share the experience with.
Compared to Manila, Bangkok is cleaner and easier to get around. It did not impress me with nice buildings, beautiful parks or terrific surroundings. Manila is situated in a location more to my liking: surrounded by lush mountains and pushed up against Manila Bay. If Manila took advantage of these it could become an amazing, gorgeous city. (I don’t recommend holding your breath.) Bangkok’s skyline cant shake a stick at any number of cities I have been to: Seattle, Vancouver, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Paris, all of which have more impressive skylines and nicer parks. What sets Bangkok apart in my mind is more elusive and hard to define, but if forced to say, it would be the spirit and grace of the people there. Most of the time I felt like an honored guest.
Of course there are the normal things that a western tourist must deal with: the taxi cab driver that wants to scam you, the guides hocking their services outside attractions, and paying more cause you look like you have money. I know now that the taxi cab driver went the long way around the city from the airport to the hotel and had me pay the expressway toll to do it. One begins to expect these sorts of things when traveling. They are the cost of being new, an initiation of sorts.
I spent my time trekking off to Wats (Thai Buddhist temples), markets and the Grand Palace, eating fantastic food in hole-in-the-wall restaurants near my hotel, and drinking copious amounts of Heineken with my book at the pool. If you are in Bangkok you absolutely must go to see the Grand Palace, it lives up to its name. It is a large compound, but nothing like the size of some European palaces such as Versailles. What the Grand Palace lacks in size it more than makes up in richness; absolutely everything has character and in most cases meaning. As you can see in my photos below it’s gorgeous also.
It was so surreal to be on my way to the 7-11 for beer and need to wait for the elephant to pass by before crossing he street. I had two such occurrences while in Bangkok and it was a bit shocking both times. One min I am going to cross the street and instinctively stop for the large object coming my way (in Thailand they drive on the left side of the road – a bad habit they got from the Britts), and then you realize that its walking and flapping it’s ears. The first time it happened I stood dazed for a moment before grinning like a kid at the zoo.
I LOVED going out wandering after dark. At first I was a little scared, but I got over that quickly. Streetlights are not ubiquitous; the streets are lit, for the most part, by shop signs and light spilling out of restaurants. Along the sidewalk are food carts with glowing charcoal on which some Thai dish is cooking. In-between the shops and the street are people sitting out eating and talking. Cats lounge around waiting for a fallen scrap. They look so at home with people walking near their resting spot that you might mistakenly think that you could pick one up to pet.
If I were not leaving for the Peace Corps, I would have seriously considered staying in Bangkok for a year or two teaching English. I enjoyed it that much.
Inside The Grand Palace:
Fountain inside Wat Pho:
Wat Arun from Mae Nam Chao Phraya:
Compared to Manila, Bangkok is cleaner and easier to get around. It did not impress me with nice buildings, beautiful parks or terrific surroundings. Manila is situated in a location more to my liking: surrounded by lush mountains and pushed up against Manila Bay. If Manila took advantage of these it could become an amazing, gorgeous city. (I don’t recommend holding your breath.) Bangkok’s skyline cant shake a stick at any number of cities I have been to: Seattle, Vancouver, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Paris, all of which have more impressive skylines and nicer parks. What sets Bangkok apart in my mind is more elusive and hard to define, but if forced to say, it would be the spirit and grace of the people there. Most of the time I felt like an honored guest.
Of course there are the normal things that a western tourist must deal with: the taxi cab driver that wants to scam you, the guides hocking their services outside attractions, and paying more cause you look like you have money. I know now that the taxi cab driver went the long way around the city from the airport to the hotel and had me pay the expressway toll to do it. One begins to expect these sorts of things when traveling. They are the cost of being new, an initiation of sorts.
I spent my time trekking off to Wats (Thai Buddhist temples), markets and the Grand Palace, eating fantastic food in hole-in-the-wall restaurants near my hotel, and drinking copious amounts of Heineken with my book at the pool. If you are in Bangkok you absolutely must go to see the Grand Palace, it lives up to its name. It is a large compound, but nothing like the size of some European palaces such as Versailles. What the Grand Palace lacks in size it more than makes up in richness; absolutely everything has character and in most cases meaning. As you can see in my photos below it’s gorgeous also.
It was so surreal to be on my way to the 7-11 for beer and need to wait for the elephant to pass by before crossing he street. I had two such occurrences while in Bangkok and it was a bit shocking both times. One min I am going to cross the street and instinctively stop for the large object coming my way (in Thailand they drive on the left side of the road – a bad habit they got from the Britts), and then you realize that its walking and flapping it’s ears. The first time it happened I stood dazed for a moment before grinning like a kid at the zoo.
I LOVED going out wandering after dark. At first I was a little scared, but I got over that quickly. Streetlights are not ubiquitous; the streets are lit, for the most part, by shop signs and light spilling out of restaurants. Along the sidewalk are food carts with glowing charcoal on which some Thai dish is cooking. In-between the shops and the street are people sitting out eating and talking. Cats lounge around waiting for a fallen scrap. They look so at home with people walking near their resting spot that you might mistakenly think that you could pick one up to pet.
If I were not leaving for the Peace Corps, I would have seriously considered staying in Bangkok for a year or two teaching English. I enjoyed it that much.
Inside The Grand Palace:
Fountain inside Wat Pho:
Wat Arun from Mae Nam Chao Phraya:
posted by Toby Johnson at 9:26 AM
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