Bangkok Revisited

It was our fourth time in Bangkok and we decided to spend our time getting to know some of the areas we’ve previously neglected. We checked into a hotel in China Town, right next door to the hotel we stayed in on our very first visit.

We had three objectives for our two night stopover in the capital: visit the embassy for additional pages to be added to my full passport; visit the Grand Palace; and explore China Town.

As it turns out, British citizens aren’t entitled to extra pages and I’ll have to apply for a new passport instead. So that was crossed off the list easily.

Next was the Grand Palace, Bangkok’s biggest tourist attraction. For an extortionate ticket price of 500Baht (£10!) you get access to the Palace grounds (you unfortunately can’t go inside), the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the textiles museum and an exhibition of old coins. We passed on the latter two subsidiary attractions; I feel they’re added on to the ticket to justify the high price. To put that price into context, Bangkok’s Palace is more expensive than the Taj Mahal (£8), the Great Wall of China (£4) and pretty much any other attraction in Thailand. It was even more than our hotel room.

We went to the Palace on our first trip to Thailand but were put off by the huge crowds and didn’t go inside. This time round the crowds were equally intimidating but we decided to bite the bullet and see what all the fuss is about. To cut a long story short, it was overcrowded, over priced and boring.

First of all, it wasn’t enough that I was wearing long trousers and had a shawl wrapped around my upper body. Ric wasn’t allowed to cover his exposed legs with a sarong because ‘they’re for ladies only’. In a country famous for its gender ambiguity, Ric was forbidden to wear a sarong. We queued to hire the Palace-issued appropriate clothing but didn’t have enough money for the deposit (it was 200Baht/£4 per item). The end result was that I had to wear the sarong, Ric had to wear my trousers and I had to cover my top half with a hideous polyester shirt that made me look like a dinner lady from the 70’s. We entered the Grand Palace looking and feeling ridiculous.

Unstylish, even by our standards.

We entered the complex, arriving first at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and the heavens opened. Every available sheltered space was suddenly packed with Asian tourists wearing matching tour group caps and badges, the occasional guide waving a flag and shouting to be heard above the crowd. It was hectic, cramped and annoying. I was grateful to be a head and shoulders taller than most of the other visitors as I at least had some breathing space. As in independent traveller I can’t think of anything worse than following 40 other people around all day, piling in and out of a tour bus and following a strict itinerary. I often wonder if the opposite is true; do these Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese busloads look at us and mock us with a our oversized backpacks, guide books and sweaty brows? We pushed our way through the coloured hats to peek inside at the sacred statue of the Emerald Buddha. The statue was discovered in 1434 and was originally covered in plaster. It was mistakenly named the Emerald Buddha by an abbot who noticed the plaster was flaking off to reveal a green stone. It is in fact made of jade.

Around the jade/Emerald Buddha there are many ornately decorated chedis (stupas), gold gilded paintings, carvings, and sculptures of elephants and mythical creatures. This was the most interesting part of the Palace.

Crowd outside the Emerald Buddha Temple.

The actual Royal Residence and throne halls are not spectacular, however; we did see the king in a totally random unrelated incident…

The morning we arrived in Bangkok we were wandering the streets in the early morning heat, tired from the overnight train, waiting to check into our hotel at midday. As we walked around the neighbourhood, half in a daze, we were stopped on a street corner by a soldier. He told us only to stop, we no explanation, and shouted at us when we attempted to continue our stroll. More people arrived and they too had to stop, as did all traffic. As the crowd grew the bystanders motioned for us to stand with our arms by our sides and the soldiers insisted we remove our sunglasses. Then somebody whispered “his highness, his highness”.  A few moments later we glimpsed a balding King Bhumibol Adulyadej speed past in a shiny cream BMW, surrounded by an impressive police convoy.

Last on our concise to-do list was China Town, an endlessly interesting and delicious area of Bangkok. Back in June we visited the gold Buddha at Wat Traimit and popped into China Town for some cheap eats at the night market; after sampling just a tiny portion of the food on offer we knew we had to go back and do some serious eating.  

By day China Town is a bustling market place where you can buy just about anything; from spectacles to sex toys, sunglasses to illegal weapons, iphone speakers to traditional Chinese medicine. The Thieves Market was once the place to go to buy back your possessions that had been stolen on the streets on Bangkok. Today, the sale of stolen goods is frowned upon and the Thieves Market is more what Ric and I call a Shit You (Don't) Need Shop. We love SYDN shops and have enjoyed browsing them around the world. All you need is a sheet of material or a piece of cardboard. You go to that drawer in the house where the whole family dumps the things that have no proper place. Every home has this drawer: batteries, celotape, odd stamps, a screwdriver, a packet of tissues, an old lipstick... random items. Then you arrange them in no particular order, on a sheet, on the floor. Voila, you have a SYDN shop. They're great places to browse and we usually end up buying something that we really don't need but might need, some day.

Monk browsing the SYDN shops; perhaps he'll impulse buy a second-hand saw along with that antique book of Buddhist chants?

In the evening China Town's streets are jammed with steaming food stalls: dim sum, noodle dishes, home-made ice cream, fruit, sea food, fried vegetables, and some more questionable dishes such as shark fin and birds nest soup.

Um, no thanks.

This lady has a huge bowl of our new favourite Thai dish, Khao Kha Moo, ham shank stew. Locals and tourists alike sit at a few plastic tables and stools to eat the melt-in-your-mouth pork, served in a rich soy gravy, with rice and chickpeas. 

Khao Kha Moo

Any other China Town specialty is peking duck and hoi sin gravy. We discovered a corner cafe right near our hotel that served this dish with rice for just 60Baht (£1.20) and we ate there at everyday. The sweetness of the sauce, the saltiness of the skin and the subtle flavors of the meat... I'm drooling just thinking about it. 

Peking duck, China Town.

I love China Town, it has so much character, so many hidden gems, so much food! We enjoyed many an afternoon wandering its narrow markets, its bright shiny shops and its endless food stalls. This was the highlight of our stay in Bangkok. China Town is much less touristy than the Khao San Road area and I'd definitely stay there again. 

Temple squeezed into a row of shops.

How To Get To...
The Grand Palace: The easiest way to get there is on one the river taxis; they're cheap fast and the views along the river are endlessly interesting. Just don't join one of the annoying tour groups!
We Stayed At...
S.K Boutique Hotel: $20/£12 for the cheapest room. Nicely decorated and great location but overpriced really. 

Amazing Bangkok, Amazing House!

We finally made it to Thailand, home of the bum gun, gender ambiguity and my favourite kind of food. It may have taken us six months longer to get here than originally planned, but we're here, I'm excited to get back into some writing. 

Our Egypt Air flight was comparable to Ryanair. It sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half at Manchester Airport, leaving us with only 30 minutes to dash for our connection in Cairo. We flew to Bangkok where we stayed three nights in the ironically named 'Amazing House Guest House'. The only thing amazing about it was the price, at £5 per night.

I love Bangkok, in spite of its stifling humidity, for its distinct neighbourhoods that are so different to one another that you can feel like you're in a different city just by hopping across town in a taxi.

Bangkok, from the Chao Phraya River.

To get around we mainly used the river taxis that run up and down the Chao Phraya, at only 15Baht (30p) a time they're far cheaper than any tuk-tuk or meter taxi and it's a great way to see some of the sights along the river, such as Wat Arun, the Grand Palace and numerous other temples. There are four different lines that operate on the river, each with a different colour flag, we used only the orange boats as they seem to be the most frequent. 

River taxi.

We took a river taxi to China Town (Yaowarat), one of the city's oldest districts. Be warned that the boats don't hang around; you have to fight your way off during busy periods, else be stuck at the back and miss your stop - like we did! From the boat pier narrow winding streets lead past mechanic's work shops and heaps of engines to Wat Traimit. On the top level of the four tiered temple is a 5.5 tonne solid gold Buddha, the largest seated, solid gold Buddah in the world! (Entrance fee: 40baht, no short sleeves/short pants)

Solid gold Buddah at Wat Traimit

6% beer and duck noodles, mmmmm!

From the gold Buddah we crossed the road through China Gate to one of the cities most vibrant night markets. Both sides of the street were lined with food stalls, the pavements packed with groups of friends and families packed around plastic tables and chairs. It was so bustling that passers-by had to walk on the road. The market was a dizzying mix of bright lights, delicious smells and mystery foods. We settled on a bowl of hoi sin duck noodle soup from a stall conveniently set up outside a 7-Eleven shop, where we could get cold beers from inside and enjoy a blast of aircon every time the door opened! After that we had pork noodle soup - some of the nicest pork I've tasted, and finally finished with a scoop of home made tamarind ice cream. Most of the dished are priced between 30-50baht (60p-£1).

China Town food market.

Another famous Buddah of Bangkok is the 32m high gold-leafed statue at Wat Indraviharn, about 20 minutes walk north of backpacker central Khao San Road. We managed to get in for free as it's low season and the ticket office was closed! Outside the temple there are women selling tiny cages stuffed with birds, "Give freedom to the birds for good luck", and nearby there are similar women with plastic bags containing terrapins "Give freedom to the turtles for good luck". It's hard to know which is worse, paying the £2 to set the animals free and financing the cruel trade, or not buying them and allowing them suffer on.

Signs indicated that we should leave offerings of "eggs, flowers and fish of the mackerel kind" at the feet of the giant Buddah.

Big Budddah at Wat Indraviharn.

The clouds cleared on the day we visited Wat Arun, and the temperature reached a scorching 40 degrees. We used the river taxi again to get to the temple and paid the 50baht entrance fee. I'd come prepared with my sarong to cover my exposed legs but that wasn't enough for the prudey guard who insisted I cover my shoulders too. Unprepared to hire a scarf, I not-so-discretely whipped off my skirt from under my sarong and used it as a shawl. I don't know if the guard was amused, impressed or offended at my resourceful technique but he let me in with a sly smirk. The temple is really beautiful, decorated with a porcelain mosaic and depictions of the Buddah. We climbed the very steep stairs up to the top and enjoyed the beautiful view.

Wat Arun.

Looking north from Wat Arun.

Once the sun had started to sink behind the sky scrapers we venture out again to the Siam district where my parents will be staying in the New Year. Siam is the modern, expensive area of town where we cooled off in air conditioned shopping malls and felt drastically under dressed compared to the city's upper classes. On the streets surrounding Central World shopping centre we found a Korean market!  We felt strangely at home surrounded by Korean food stalls, clothing and make up.

Siam district from outside Central World.