Bangkok Bustles
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008Rach writes again, and plagiarises a few children’s words
“It’s a wonder your eyes don’t fall out of your head at the end of each day due to the amount of new things they see. Today was no exception!” (J14)
Would Bangkok’s be Just Another Chinatown? Off we set to find out. Through the train station, under the subway (where your bags are inspected before you are granted permission to enter), around the corner (where a helpful Thai man tries to tell you which way to go – but we have already mapped out a route), across the bridge, up the road, back down the road again to look for T4’s sunglasses (“I didn’t drop them; they just fell out of my hand”), around a couple more corners…..and there it is –
the gate to Bangkok’s Chinatown. Across the road is a gleaming Wat; actually it seems there’s a Wat on every street and too many What Wat? jokes to go with them. Indeed, by the end of the day we will not even be stopping to look, let alone take pictures!
The first road we traverse is obviously the “industrial” part of town. Each shop is full of heavy machinery. Being a Sunday morning, most are closed and the place has a decidedly sleepy feel.
Until we hit the main street. The change is dramatic. Cars, busses, trucks, tuktuks, motorbikes and pedestrians fill every space of road. Pedestrians, motorbikes, tuktuks, barrow-pushers and sellers vie for a spot on the pavement. The incessant throb of traffic doesn’t manage to overpower the clashing metal-on-metal sound as large spoons turn over the contents of sizzling woks. Horns toot. Sellers entice you to sample their goods…and even shout angrily when you try to discuss price before eating the sour prune offered on a stick. In the frantic bustle we forget how hot it is – or are we just used to the trickle of sweat down the back now?
If you want to buy shoes or handbags or food or miscellaneous sundries, you’ll find something right there on the street. If you prefer gold (and there are plenty of merchants selling it) or dried seahorses, you’ll need to enter one of the shops. We go for freshly-cut-in-front-of-you (so you know it’s clean) pineapple and a couple of straight-off-the-burner (so you know they’re safe too) sausages and spring rolls and ice cold waters. We could have lingered here all day, but we wanted to head for the river.
“takeaways”
bringing a new meaning to bulk foods – that’s too much even for our family!
The map informed us that while it would be a bit of a hike in terms of distance, it was a straightforward uncomplicated route of two roads to follow. What the map failed to show were all the extra roads and bridges and junctions, which left us feeling we were trying to escape from a maze. Stopping to ask people proved to be fascinating, but rather unhelpful. Either they “No English” or they wanted to tell you where you should – in their opinion – be going. The scribbled note added to our map, half in English, half in Thai, did not aid our quest at all. Neither was the scribe’s information that there would be a dancing concert in the temple at 4 o’clock of much use to us at midday when we were looking for the river.
After wending our way through a streetside flower market we found a PIER sign and followed it like Alice after the White Rabbit. Unlike Alice, who hurried, we stepped gingerly on the planks suspended over the surging brown sludge. With it feeling more like a trampoline than a walkway, I wondered how much more than a Chinaman I weighed, and whether the boards would hold me. While the destination turned out to be incorrect (boats don’t stop at Pier Seven on Sundays), the journey was not in vain. Sitting there nibbling non-stop on peanuts as he spoke, an elderly man with impeccable English, directed us to Pier Six and advised travelling up the river on the public express ferry. Interestingly, while he could speak well, he could not understand the Roman script on the map – but with my attempts at reading the words out, we managed to establish where we were and where we needed to go. Just a five minute walk.
The most direct route was through a fresh produce market, where I would like to have stayed for bit longer with lens cap off, but we were anxious to get the children to the ferry to give their legs that had been walking for three hours straight a wee rest. Little did we know just how many people would be on the ferry and that sitting down would not happen for another four hours for some of us! Although we were relaxedly hurrying (ie not stressing at all, but not wasting time either) we did detour to avoid this two inch deep puddle:
At Pier Six the adventure began. Leftovers from the nearby market littered the ground and waves splashed up between the cracks. As the boat pulled up we considered politely waiting for the next one as there were so many of us. But we were signalled on and crammed in tightly. Spotting lifejackets overhead did little to ease my apprehension that if the boat went down we were history. I guess you don’t get a luxury liner for 15 baht (NZ$0.75)
There were interesting things to see along the riverbank if you could tear your eyes away from the sluggish brown waves that broke against the ferry, sending up splashes that it seemed prudent to avoid. Not everyone agreed though. A man sat *in* the river with a big red plastic bowl, apparently cleaning something. Some almost naked boys repeatedly jumped from the steps of (what I presume to be) their house, submerging themselves completely in the sewer-like liquid. These images stick more clearly than the frequently-appearing wats, occasional monument, similarly named bridges or any of the so-called tourist attractions.
To cut a long story short (because there really is more we could say), by 4pm we were ready for a light lunch of nutritious freshly-made noodle soup! Scrummo.
PS. One more quote from the day. After eating a superbly flavoursome juicy NZ$1 pineapple (and going back for a second one….and we’d get some more later in the day), L8 declared, “That was worth more than it cost.” So true.
rayres