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.