We had had to re-organize our southeast Asia visit, to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, partly because of the Indian visa fiasco, and partly because of the closing of the Pakse airport, whose runway was undermined by the monsoon. So we had a second stay in Bangkok.
We didn’t do much different this time in Bangkok, just settled more deeply into the life of this exotic, vibrant and multi-personality city.
Yes, multiple personality:
it is a huge, teeming city, where a traditional powerful elite woven from old families, wealth and the military maintain a tenuous and tenacious grip on the country, despite the pressures of the rest of the country which feels largely disenfranchised. At the time of our visit, the celebrations for the King’s 85th birthday were imminent, and out of respect politicians of all stripes called off their violent squabbling, and the deposed Prime Minister elect, Thaksin, on the run from corruption charges of which he is probably guilty but certainly no guiltier than those who usurped him, mainly a cabal of army and traditional elite, is being hosted by the Cambodian government, who are using the opportunity to offend their Thai neighbours by welcoming the fugitive to make a point in a squabble about some disputed territory.
Multiple personality:
one morning on our way to the LRT station we shared the hotel tuk tuk with a wealthy Indian family whose daughter was going for an obscure operation (not our business, understandably) at the main hospital there, a hospital known throughout this corner of the world as the best. Christmas decorations adorned all the malls and department stores, enticing money from people’s wallets in a country where a tiny percentage of the population might call themselves Christian.
Multiple personality:
thousands and thousands, perhaps millions of workers from different rural provinces kept the city operating, cleaning it, maintaining it, driving tuk tuks, supplying the sex trade, and as the day wore on more and more food stalls appeared to provide these workers with a taste of home. The most exotic of which were the stalls selling deep fried locusts, slugs, wasps, for the migrant workers of the poorest province, Isaan.
Or:
Joan did a cooking class, a nightmare of a cab ride so that she had to re-schedule but eventually it happened, and she brought back her delicious production, nearly missing her spa appointment again through the total ineptitude of the cab driver. However I have learned that our cabbie experiences are far from the worst. Suffice it to say to future travellers to Bangkok: be ruthless and assertive with your drivers. There are exceptions, such as the one who took us to one of the large markets. I also think you are safe going to and from the airport. But generally, taxis seem to exist in Bangkok for drivers to take you where they want to go, not where you want to go.
cooking class - great colour!
And again:
Our last night, a cabdriver took us to the Banyan Tree Hotel, whose rooftop bare and restaurant, Vertigo, is a spectacular collection of dining tables and a bar that looks down over the entire city of Bangkok. A famous hotel, and the driver didn’t know where it was. Fortunately, it wasn’t far from our hotel, and I had the address, and actually was able to direct the driver. It was a perfect, balmy night, and Bangkok lay below us with its grid, within which seemed to flow moving lights like those candle-lit flowers that the girls here place in the river to meander and disappear, extinguished somewhere out of sight.
lights of Bangkok from the Vertigo bar, top of the Banyan Tree Hotel
Recent Comments