Some Nights in Bangkok

It has been a while since I was in Bangkok, but bear with a very long summary about a few days in Bangkok.

I landed in Bangkok late at night, and quickly got into a cab to Peruvian Lorena’s place. Lorena is doing some work in Bangkok, and she generously offered me to stay with her while I was in town. It was fantastic to catch up with an old friend, and celebrate nine years of our adventurous traveling friendship. We laughed a lot, and talked about all kinds of things, big and small.

The first full day in Bangkok I felt the punch of humid heat again. I have learned my lesson; Southeast Asia is hot! And, as a result, is covered with indoor malls.

Along with the heat, I was overwhelmed with the intensity of Bangkok. Bangkok has a lot of everything (i.e. buildings, people, shops, and cars) and pulses with advertisements (both video and print) that felt like having my brain being pulled like taffy. There is an air of excessiveness that comes with the commercials and inside the malls. Luckily, I forged through the city to discover its vibe, and gratefully bought copious amounts of delicious iced juices from the street corners. It was awesome!

I started the day by going to the Dusit Palace and admire its decadence– mesmerizing beetle wings covered chairs and gold-gilded table pieces decorated the building. Intricately-woven tapestries dazzled the walls. My eyes drank in a lot of things there, but sadly I couldn’t take pictures inside, so it’s hard to describe all that I saw.

Experiencing Bangkok, starting at the palaces, I had two surprises.

One of the surprises I had was realizing I could not walk into many places with my normal tee-shirt and jeans ensemble with a travel bag. I was ping-ponged between buildings and told to put different belongings in lockers in two separate locations. I finally understood that there was a strict dress code, for women: I had to wear a long skirt in order to go inside. I mulled this over for perhaps 30 minutes, confused and overheated. I finally broke down and bought the 50 Baht (US$1.40) sarong they had for sale in the gift shop, wrapped up my legs, and journeyed towards the security line. Happily, the sarong is great quality and is now functioning as pajamas.

The other surprise I had while in Bangkok (and first noticed at the palace) was the shocking number of Chinese tourists everywhere. This was not really a good thing, as Chinese tourists seem to typically come in tour groups by the busloads and have little respect for personal space and museum etiquette. I was jostled and pushed around by hundreds at the tourist sites, and felt suffocated while trying to get through. There were signs in several languages insisting on silence while at the palace, specifically, though they did not much seem to care for that rule and the palace roared with conversation. It was frustrating, to say the least.

After the adventure at the palace, I went to the MBK center (it’s huge - 6 floors I think!) for some headphones and a peek at souvenirs. I waited for Lorena with a matcha green tea ice cream float; it was so delicious I realized that I would like Bangkok just fine.

The allegations of food in Thailand being incredibly delicious are all true. It’s often extremely spicy, but many times the level of heat I endured was my own (silly) doing. The diverse food that line the streets are amazing (and super cheap), and the restaurant food tastes like joy. I did not have very many times I didn’t like the food I was eating while in Thailand.

Lorena and I met up and got a massage. At this point, it became clear to me that English would not get me very far in Thailand. Most people don’t speak a lot of English, if any, and it’s more helpful to pick up some of the Thai/Isan that is spoken in the area. I learned this because my massage was great and thorough – a bit too thorough for my sensitive self. I cringed and clutched onto the bed while thinking to myself how it was a great time to learn phrases like “please be much lighter I’m sensitive” and “I have an injury there!” Instead, I yelped and whimpered loud enough for the lady to stop and reconsider her strength a few times. But it was still a great way to help my swollen travel ankles recuperate.

The second day I worked for a while in a coffee shop called MyCoffee. There, I was distracted by a pet fox licking ice in the back of the café that was fluffy and pitifully adorable. I also went to another mall further out of town called JJ Mall. There, I was trying to find some cotton pants my size. This has proven to be a horrible area of the world for big people with big hips (aka me) to find clothing that fits them. Shopkeepers would look at my backside and just shake their heads dramatically, giving me the impression that they’d never seen anyone like me before.

I also saw an outdoor market that sold fish (both pet and edible) in rows of plastic bags outside, next to bags of living crickets (for eating), next to other strange shops full of peculiar finds. I felt stunned to go through the market, and felt kind of bad for all of the fish.

At night Lorena and I took a boat to Asiatique (which is like a night market/mall that has anything you could ever dream of eating or buying) to enjoy the sacred Loy Krathong Festival. During Loy Krathong, people give offerings to the goddess of water at the end of the rainy season to thank her and apologize for polluting the rivers and lakes. It’s also seen as a purification ceremony for some. Overall, it was bright and a lot of fun. It felt a bit like being in Times Square on New Year’s Eve with all of the people tightly packed in the area, but there was music and food everywhere to easily enjoy. I had bought Lorena and me a krathong offering, and we participated in the ceremony; I think the goddess heard us, as it started to pour soon after we offered our krathong.

In the third day I took a long tail boat on the river that went to the Grand Palace. The boat ride was harrowing; as it literally flew in the air and crashed back into the river, I wondered whether I had made a horrible foreigner choice taking the questionable boat to the site. I made it out alive, and that’s all that matters now.

The Grand Palace was, of course, loaded with the aforementioned tourists, but I was impressed with the beauty of the palace grounds and the intricate designs on the buildings around me. I couldn’t stay long because of the crowds and toxic heat, but I am glad I got to see it for a little bit.

Nearby is the Wat Pho with the big Reclining Buddha, and I went over to see the temple for a while and relax in some shade. It was gorgeous, and I felt like I could have stayed there for days in its peaceful fortress. There weren’t many tourists there when I went to visit, which was a relief, so I took my time loving every sculpture and spire. I have been trying to show respect to Buddha while in Southeast Asia, and I went in to pray a few times in some of the rooms. One time I felt like I was having a real connection with Buddha – either due to the intense heat or an actual connection with the Buddha – which blew my mind for a while.

Afterwards, I hid from the heat in anther mall (Terminal 21) and waited for a friend - Counselling Roshni – to meet up with me for dinner. She is from Bangkok, and I was looking forward to hearing some more context from a local about this amazing city. Once the sun went down, we walked around the central area and she explained to me things, such as that the homeless people there are run by the mafia, which is why one should not tip them. I was shocked.

We ended up eating at a restaurant called Cabbage & Condom, which is a restaurant that advocates safe sex in a big way. It was founded by a guy who wanted to help Thailand manage its concerning population rate and a national AIDS epidemic through advocacy and education. The restaurant is part-workforce development and advocacy, and I think it does its job well. The decorations and lamps are covered in condoms, and after eating a great meal with Roshni they gave us condoms to take home. I really recommend the place.

On my last day in Bangkok before going to Isan/Ubon for class, I woke up early for a cooking class, called Cooking with Poo! The woman’s name is Cham poo, which means rose apple, but her nickname has gotten her some global popularity. Knowing my passion for sanitation and food, Roshni recommended the class; seeing the title of the class, of course I signed up. It started by walking through one of the local markets that is mostly for locals, which means it wasn’t all cleaned up and sterilized like many tourist places can be. Instead, we saw the dirty and grimey and fascinating face of Bangkok that I don’t think many get to see so clearly. In the market, we saw filleted and stuffed frogs, all kinds of edible insects, boiled chicken feet, and an array of fruits and vegetables I’ve never heard of! They warned us that some of us might be disturbed by what we saw, but I found I was more impressed and captivated than anything!

We ended up at Poo’s home in a poorer community, where she taught us how to make simple yet tasty Thai food, such as pork larb, thom ka soup, and garlic chicken. The cooking space was colored with fun colors and I bonded with some of the older British students there. Poo also made us her mango sticky rice, which may have actually changed my life to a certain amount (I can’t express how delicious it was!).

After the epic cooking class, I met up with some fellow classmates who arrived to Bangkok for our intensive in Ubon the next day. We went to a riverside hotel for drinks and headed out for dinner at Asiatique. It was a lovely way to finish a memorable few days in Bangkok. I look forward to returning in a month.