Bangkok Beginnings
Saturday, November 1st, 2008by Rach
The countryside became littered with small wooden shacks…and then more and more of them. There were to be no more rice paddies. As we travelled alongside a canal – or was it an oversized drain? – we wondered if we were experiencing our first taste of Bangkok, the Venice of the East. Three words that had already woven through the last few week’s images over and over, now resounded constantly.
PEOPLE LIVE THERE.
At one of the earlier stations I had wondered what was sold at a particular stall with a thatched roof and only one wall. As I let my glance turn to a stare, and as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness under the roof in the breaking dawn, I spotted a mattress lying on a low platform. Suddenly I looked with intensity to take in all I could before we pulled away on our journey, likely never to see these people’s lives again. This was not simply someone’s place of work; this was their home. A rickety rattan rocking chair stood to one side, unoccupied. A line strung between a post and a tree held three t-shirts. A large silver bowl and well-used wok waited for the day’s work on an upturned wooden crate.
PEOPLE LIVE THERE.
And people live in abject squalor on the outskirts of Bangkok. Houses hover over thick brown canal sludge. A higgeldy-piggeldy assortment of roofs is suspended over the buildings and wooden walkways. It’s not just a handful of people living this way…the buildings kept coming past the window in quick succession…..minute after minute. In the distance high-rise buildings came into view, but still the poverty persisted within touching distance from our carriage.
“Bangkok Bangkok!” The call comes through the carriage…yes, those had been our first sights of Bangkok….and we disembarked to a new somewhat unpleasant smell, pressing noise, bustle of people and different tastes.
Soon we are on the street asking someone where to find food. He explains that although there is food right at the end of the road, it’s only good for locals. We would need to get a taxi to find suitable eating for us. We figure what’s good for the locals is good for us. And it’s cheap!! Lunch is delicious so we return to the same stall for dinner, augmenting our plates of fried rice with some satay sticks from a man’s cart on the side of the road (that would happen to be the very same side of the road that we are sitting on – literally – we notice we have become used to traffic racing past as we eat in the next lane…..although it must be said that *this* intersection right in front of the train station is ESPECIALLY busy). Anyway, the pork satay are fine; a bit chewy, but edible. The chicken are……..good for the locals! We are used to chicken being a light-coloured meat. These are dark gray, even in the middle when you bite through the charcoaled black outer. Methinks they are chicken livers or maybe chicken hearts or perhaps chicken giblets. We are not hungry enough to eat more than one mouthful each.
Tomorrow we will be out wandering the streets feeling a little peckish and we will come across a satay stall. We will order just three sticks, causing the lady-seller to laugh raucously, pointing at all the children, and obviously insisting that three sticks will not feed so many hungry mouths. We will each tentatively nibble at a stick…and go back for a dozen. She will throw in a couple more just coz those little girls are so cute (like the sausage seller earlier in the day and the pineapple seller we were about to meet and many other food sellers across Asia!!)
rayres