Bangkok
Friday, June 6th, 2008I’m starting to think this is my favorite city to be visited or at least the favorite of the big ones. The Thai people are wonderful. This is the only large city I have visited where the people are so easy-going and laid back. They are genuinely friendly and it is unfortunate that so little English is spoken being a hindrance to really meeting anyone. Tourists are here, but tourism is a minor part of what is this city. It is vibrant, hard-working and active. I find it to be much cleaner and quieter than I expected based on writings. It’s another one of the many cases where I don’t find a place to be what it is said to be. It’s quite possible that some of the notoriety for Bangkok is based on the past and things have changed. It’s also probable that the notable things get exaggerated. For instance, Bangkok is known for pollution. While the canals are pretty gross, the air seems very clean for 10,000,000 people. The government built a subway system and my favorite mass transportation system – skytrain. They are so heavily used that it is quite possible that they have helped. Many people also drive scooters. The craze here is the modern scooters that look like full-blown motorcycles. Being that they have four-stroke modern engines their noise and exhaust levels are very low. Marrakesh could use these new bikes!
vagabondrick