Familiar Bangkok-2009
I like being in this familiar city again. And this is the winter…the best time of the year to be here…75 and 80 degrees during the day and even down to 60 degrees at night. But it’s nearly the end of December now and the temperature is slowly creeping up. But not enough to keep the locals out of their jackets and neck wraps! But it’s winter they say!
For the last 5 weeks I have spent a couple days a week in a dental chair in Bangkok…at the Bangkok International Dental Clinic. All very competent English speaking dentists working part-time…waiting for you to walk in. A multi-story new spiffy-clean facility with in-house labs. One tooth extraction, one root canal, four crowns and two implants and prep on a third. My young implant dentist completed 4 years of dental school in N. Carolina and spent another 3 years as implant instructor…and now back in Thailand with his family. $1200 each implant here…and $4000 and up in the States, he says. A no-brainer…and a holiday to boot.
I’ve enjoyed an International Street Fair in Lumpini Park with a Thai friend…seeing Chinese Opera Face-changing for the first time. Amazing! A thanksgiving dinner with my husband who came up from Pattaya where he lives…festing on a huge hotel restaurant buffet with a friend of his who is here having physical therapy on his shoulder. A trip to Khao San Road, a colorful backpacker walking street where you can get your hair dreadlocked, with my son Doug just before his temporary return trip to Oregon.
I really enjoyed seeing the comedy…Julia And Julia…and recommend this movie (screenplay by Nora Ephron)…especially to anyone who cut their teeth on Julia Child’s French Cook book and/or watched her TV cooking show. Meryl Streep did a great job…you almost forgot that it wasn’t Julia up there on the screen. And I love those lay-back lounger chairs in the new theaters here. Wasn’t so impressed with the new Scrooge in 3-D.
I like my familiar neighborhood on Sukhumvit 22. I like to sit in front of the Parrot Cafe and have my morning coffee…checking for email with free wifi on my iPhone. I like the meaty German breakfast at the Bei Otto German restaurant with wonderful home-made German rolls. All the foods that Oaxaca Mexico doesn’t have. I like having side-walk noodle soup while sitting on one of two small plastic stools…for 30 baht…less than a dollar. I like the Thai massage I can have as often as I want because they only cost 250 baht ($7.50) for an hour.
But I could really do without all those incessant insufferable Christmas carols in all the malls. Paragon Mall and other nearby malls are covered with outside megalights and the area just off the skytrain is expected to draw thousands at an extravagant New Years Celebration. It’s a Buddhist country…but anything for a party! Everyone lines up in front of Christmas displays to have their pictures taken by friends or anyone nearby who is willing to serve as picture-taker…many of them Japanese tourists.
An American friend and his Thai wife flew into Bangkok yesterday from the States. I called Dave to give directions to my serviced apartment. After a long explanation he said, you know, we must be very close to you. These are two well-traveled people (him and me) who have found their way in countries all over the world! So he sort of followed my directions…walking a very long way up Sukhumvit 20 to Sukhumvit St…down Sukhumvit St…over to Suk 22 and down to the corner of my little street where I was waiting for them in front of a cafe. After a little catch-up visit we rose to walk on to my hotel. This is where you are staying, Dave and Syy exclaimed! Yes, right there on the left, I said. We are staying there too!!! We just shook our heads…bewildered…and laughing at how we could have misunderstood each other so badly.
But tomorrow I’ll have a chance to get out of the city into the country-side to visit Syy’s family in a tiny village. A Vietnamese friend who works as a flight attendant for United Air is flying all the way from California to Bangkok so that we can join Dave and Syy in the village for lunch…then Nick will fly back to LA the next day! Well, I guess if you get a free flight in first class you don’t mind the trip so much on your day off! So to get ready I have been reading the directions to my new Sony video camcorder.:((
Tags: Bangkok, Thailand
Zoe
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