There’s such a lot of world to see

My early-morning flight from Hong Kong would get me to Bangkok for late morning, as Thailand is one hour behind China.  This was great news for me – I already had my hotel booked, so managed to get through the airport with no problems, and despite taking over an hour to get from the aiport to the city centre – Bangkok is a huge, sprawling city – it still gave me the afternoon to have a look round town.  I was only going to be in Bangkok – in Thailand, for that matter – for a day and a half, so I wanted to make the most of it.

But boy, was it hot.  The heat hit me like a slap in the face with a burning log when I got off the plane.  And not in that good “Ooh, I’m on my holidays” way, instead in that “Oh wow I really have no energy and maybe I can take a little nap right here on the runway” kind of way – I haven’t experienced heat like it since Mangalore in India, and had forgotted what it felt like.  Still, undeterred, I dumped my bag in my room and set right out.  I was staying near (but not on) Khao San Road, the biggest backpacker place in town, and this was immediately obvious – literally everywhere I looked there were young white people – it was hard in this area to see any Thais at all (apart from working in the 24-hour bars and restaurants).  It was sort of fun, but I could have only coped for a couple of days, maximum – not really my sort of place.  It was much more fun to get out and about in the city.

Unintentionally (although, I will of course take credit for it), my trip to Bangkok coincinded with the national celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the King’s accession to the throne.  Yep, he’s been a King for a looooong time, and these guys seemed pretty royalist, and happy to party.  Which was good news for me!  They’d come up with a great idea as well, whereby everyone bought a yellow t-shirt to show their support.  This was slightly confusing at first, when it looked like a uniform, but after a while I was just used to it (although it did take me back to my Lourdes days, when us Youth Service people had to walk about in yellow t-shirts).  I think it’s a marvellous idea though, and I think all us Brits should have waled about in Union Jack t-shirts on QEII’s birthday.  Actually, on second thoughts, that would have made us look like a nation full of Costa Del Sol lager louts.  Which might have been even funnier.

Bangkok public transport is frustratingly limited to the east, and north-south parts of the city.  No help when you’re staying in the west.  However, they do have a regular and cheap ferry boat service (yep, more boats – glutton for punishment?) that run on the river that crosses the west city.  These boats don’t hang about, though, and involve daring leaps onto the moving boat from the moving gangplank, on to a boat that’s about to pull away.  You feel like James Bond for a few seconds, until you look over and see a granny who’s just pulled off the same move with much more aplomb than you.

I headed down river to the Royal Palace (does what it says on the tin), and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which are basically on the same complex.  Being used to Indian temples, I’d thrown my sarong in my bag in case I needed to cover my shoulders (I was wearing a vest top and knee-length shorts).  However, this wasn’t enough coverage, and would have been disrespectful in this temple, so I had to hire a sarong skirt (which was ok), and a lovely sky blue polyester man’s shirt to go over it.  Apart from the grave fashion error (those colours clashed!  What do you mean, it’s about respect and not about how I look?), it added another layer of clothes (man-made fibres, to boot) in the already scorching heat.  Reader, I was not at my most fragrant.

Still, it was worth it.  The temple and palace complex is dazzling.  It was a real joy to see the bright colours, and very distinctive Thai architecture.  How clearly it highlighted the fact that I wasn’t in China any more.  There were so many sloping rooves everwhere, and the colours… wow.  These people like their gold!  Gold leaf covers every temple roof, every statue.  It looks like an explosion in P Diddy’s jewelry box.  Reflecting the midday sun, the light it throws off is breathtaking.  Add to this the bright jewel-colours used to enhance the gold, well, just beautiful.  I saw the emerald buddha (which isn’t actually emerald at all – can I get my money back?), and wandered through the Royal Palace complex, which was just great.  It was especially interesting to see it being set up for the influx of VIPs over the next few days (including the aforementioned QEII), to celebrate with the king.  We were still able to wander around, which I really liked – it’s hard to imagine the same thing happening somewhere in the West.

I’d had enough temples, heat and polyester for the day, so I handed my dripping rented clothes back, headed back up-river to my hotel, and hit the pool.  Yep, it’s a relatively budget place, but the Rambuttri Village Inn has a rooftop pool (makes up for the narky staff, maybe?).  I donned my bikini and dove in, soaking up the last few rays of the day.  I got talking to the lovely and tres beau Sebastien, who hailed from Marseille, and he told me about the Thai version of Party in the Park, happening that evening, so we decided to meet up post-swim and head down there.

But first, the important business of eating!  Sebastien, being a true French homme, was as much as a foodie as I was, and, more to the point, being from Marseille, loved fish as much as I do.  We spotted some delicious-looking red mullet on a street stall, so ordered two of the biggest (naturellement) and some Singha beer to wash it down.  We got on like a maison on fire, and had much fun speaking a garbled mix of French and English that no doubt would have been unintelligable to anyone listening in.  He was horrified to discover that I, apparently, speak French with a Parisien accent (not surprisingly, considering the length of time I’ve spent in Paris over the years), and corrected this by training me in the sing-song Marseille accent – and, although I was loathe to encourage him to drop his French accent for speaking English, did my duty and taught him a few good Mancunian phrases.  My vocabulary of French swear words also doubled over the course of one meal (don’t worry mum, it doesn’t count if it’s in a foreign language).

Full and laughing, we wandered up to the public park where the party was happening.  And it was fun – if ever so slightly odd.  My favourite sight was three giant cinema screens, showing three different films (one period drama, one Will Smith gangsta-type thing, and one cowboy Western), but all the screens were right next to each other, and each was blasting out the soundtrack at ear-splitting decibel levels.  Still, the Thais were happily sitting and watching their film of choice – and no doubt they saved time by catching up on three films at once.  Taking multi-tasking to the extreme!

We spent ages watching a peculiar sport that neither of us had ever seen before, but seemed to be really popular in Thailand.  Two teams of about six men each gathered in a circle and, using a small, bouncy ball (that also seemed to be a bit weighted, like a bean bag), played a group version of ‘keep-up’, but aiming to get the ball in a net, high above their heads.  Basically they seemed to be using every part of their body except their arms, and there were some really spectacular back-flicks and balletic high jumps.  Completely bonkers, but good fun to watch.

After this, we went for a wander down Khao San Road, aka Backpacker Central of South-East Asia.  It was Sebastien’s last night in Thailand, and my first (of two!), so we both wanted to have a nosy.  It was interesting, but didn’t really encourage us to hang round.  There were quite a lot of people there who seem to have been in Thailand far too long – sporting dreads and hippy clothes (who would then open their mouths and speak with such an incongruously posh accent that you just knew they were called Tarquin and were spending the summer away on Daddy’s money).  Still, each to their own, and, just as that’s not for me, no doubt they wouldn’t enjoy what I’m doing.  Different strokes, and so on, Wilson.

We found a cool bar that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Manchester (apart from the cockroaches – we only get those in the dodgy parts of Manchester)(and no, before someone makes the obvious joke, that isn’t everywhere in town), and toasted a new friendship.

Sebastien was leaving the next morning, so we had breakfast and wished each other bon voyage (me with an invitation to Marseille and Courcheval in my pocket, he with an invitation to Manchester – boy, did he get the best deal), and I headed off to buy cheap drugs.  No, stop thinking that, you depraved creature, I was going off to a chemist to buy my malaria meds for Cambodia and Vietnam.  Because of the fabulous buy-anything, anyime, anywhere culture in Bangkok, I could get tablets that would have cost me about 50 pounds at home for 180 bhat – about 2 pounds 50.  Baaaaargain!  And no malaria, to boot!  Doesn’t get much better than that.

I had an insanely early start the next morning – up at 4am for the early bus to the Thai/Cambodian border, so I grabbed a chicken kebab and a portion of pad thai from a street vendor, packed, and headed off to my bed.  And how delighted I was to find that my aircon wasn’t working (I tell you, it’s a good job that hotel has the pool, otherwise they’d have virtually no redeeming features), so sweated my way through the night until I had to get up and head for Cambodia, a country I was really, really excited about visiting.

Tags: Thailand, Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 10th, 2006 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Thailand, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.