Let the SE Asian Games Begin! Welcome to Bangkok

Welcome To Bangkok!

Okay, this first shot isn't actually in Bangkok.  YVR is all decked out for the Chinese New Year, so we got a little flavour of Asia before boarding our JAL flight to Tokyo Narita.  

One ten hour flight and another seven hour flight later, we landed in Bangkok around midnight the next day.  Happily, it was surprisingly easy to grab a taxi and make it to our guesthouse. We woke up the next day somewhat refreshed and ready for a day of exploring.  Like Buenos Aires, Bangkok has received mixed reviews from other travellers.  Some love it, some hate it.  Where would we fall on the spectrum?

Our first stop was at the massive MBK mall across the street.  A bunch of massive mega-malls (and, conveniently, a transit hub) were right next door to our guest house, and were interesting places to window shop and people watch.  Not to mention they were air conditioned and thus great places to cool down in the AC after braving the 35 degree heat with really high humidity.

Chad just bargained himself a deal on cheap knockoff iPhone earbuds!

The mall also had a food court, but this wasn't just any food court.  No, when we arrived it was packed with Thai people getting their lunch and it was easy to see why - loads of tasty (advises Chad) cheap food everywhere!

This plate was $1.50 Cdn - and delicious!  Chad has fallen in love. [Note from Chad: Green Curry, some stir-fried spinach and rice.]

Lots of new sights and sounds were encountered as we wandered about the city.

Tuk tuk drivers await their next fare. All are blinged-up for tourists, and are way more expensive than cabs.

In the local park, this guy uses his blasting hose both to water the bank and to propel/steer his boat.

Oh, great - Thailand also has gigantic monitors!  This guy is fresh out of a swim in the water.

Chad makes a new friend outside the mall.

All travellers to Thailand rave about Thai massages - awesome and cheap.  Chad tested out the place across the alley from our guesthouse, which was pretty good and cost about $14 CDN for a 90 minute massage.

Soi 38 Night Street Food

Our friends Grace and Luke who were recently in Thailand raved about the food on Soi (side street) 38, so we of course had to check it out.  Particularly since it was located just a few BTS (Skytrain) stops from our place.

The view from above - what tasty treats await?

 

This mango sticky rice pudding stall has Chad's name on it.

American style hot dog weiners are popular here for reasons I cannot figure out. [Note from Chad: I believe it began with American military rest visits during the Viet Nam war.]

How about you eat all that delicious peanuty food, and I'll just have a beer?

You either eat on a small table at the side of the street, or like us you can pop into an open-air building behind the food stalls.  Chad had a hybrid Thai-Chinese noodle soup dish with fish balls.

Dinner!  Fish balls and other delights lurk in the peanuty broth.

[Note from Chad: The soup was fantastic - I ordered it "spicy," which put it pretty high on the white-guy spice meter.  Thai cooking seeks to balance four aspects - salty, sweet, sour and spicy (hot).  This had all four.  And the fish balls were surprisingly good - totally uniform like German wurst, and mildly fishy.]

For dessert, Chad had to try the mango sticky rice pudding.

[Note from Chad: this came very highly recommended from Grace and Luke.  And it was good.  Fresh mango, sticky rice, coconut milk, and some homemade rice crispies on top.  Slurp.]

Just one more gigantic building going up nearby.

 

Sightseeing Round 1 - Wat Po

The next day we had planned to get up early to beat the heat and the other tourists to the Grand Palace, perhaps the biggest tourist attraction in town.  Sadly we were a bit slow going, and the heat was on by the time we rolled out of our hotel around 10 am.

I'm sure these lines are totally safe...

We caught a river ferry to our destination - very cool to check out the action on the banks.

We arrived at the National Palace about the same time as every other tourist in Bangkok.  Waiting in line to rent wraps to cover our bare shoulders and legs we realized that we didn't have enough baht to cover our rental gear and entry.  Or exact change, which was apparently required.  And also that, really, every other tourist in Bangkok that day was swarming around us.

It's deserted outside because EVERYONE is inside

So we ditched the National Palace and headed for Wat Po, home to the world's largest reclining Buddha.  This guy is HUGE, and the grounds of the Wat are pretty amazing, as well as being serene and sporting crowds of manageable size.

Do you have mother of pearl inlays on the soles of your feet?  I thought not.

Dropping coins for good luck.

Chad totally looks like a warrior in this shot, right?

Temple looks cool, right?

How cool is it now that you can see how intricate the tiles and overlays are?

Golden glass tiles shine brightly in the sun

Khao San Road & Around

Thoroughly impressed with Wat Po, we headed for Khao San Road, Bangkok's notorious backpacker ghetto.  We figured we should check it out, and it was here we discovered why some travellers hate Bangkok.

Tourist crowds, Irish pubs, American fast food chains... just some of KSR's delights.

The best part was this 20 baht (about 75 cents) orange juice.  Also, see that guy in the blue shirt on the right?  He's frantically moving those display boards on the left so that they obscure some of his counterfeit "designer" brand name goods, and so that you don't see the fake university degrees, drivers licences, and so on, on offer.  The juice guy nodded at him and explained "police are coming."

[Note from Chad: not only can you drink hangover-inducing Chang beer with a bunch of European Caucasians at this Khao San bar, you can also run the risk of being electrocuted by this incredibly byzantine transformer wiring job - especially when it rains. Good times!]

After about fifteen minutes of Khao San Road, we figured that was enough and moved on, heading slowly towards home.

Flower peacock along the side of the road.

Just when I thought I would literally start melting, we saw a sign for the 27th Annual Asian International Art Festival.  It was air conditioned, had clean toilets, and was free!  The perfect place to wile away an hour looking at art from the artists of 21 different countries and cooling down.

Chad walks away from what could have been a much better shot.

The Golden Mount & More Megamalls

The Golden Mount is a Buddhist temple that sits atop a hill, affording great views of Bangkok (not to mention the golden temple itself).  Unfortunately we both missed shots of the really cool gongs they had there.

Old, new, and really old.

 

At the bottom of the Mount, we decided that rather than spending a whole $3 on a taxi home, we would wander back and get a taste of Bangkok at street level.  It was hot, but experience has taught us that sometimes the best way to get the feel for a city is to wander the streets where most tourists don't bother to tread.  We ended up walking through the wood and door district and the office furniture district among others, and weren't disappointed for local flavour.

So how do I get to the other side of the road?

Of course, you are never too far from anything Western in Bangkok.  Almost home we came across a GIGANTIC Tesco (seriously, Walmart Supercentres are smaller) where we ducked in for some AC and to see whether we could find me anything non-nutty to eat.

Insert any of the thousands of possible jokes here...

It had been a big day in sticky weather.  What better way to relax than some street food (for Chad, of course), and a Thai beer?

This is a little crispy/sweet pancake with some tacky-but-savory white stuff, green onion and coconut, etc.  A nice little amuse-bouche, especially for 14 cents CDN.

Our guest house helpfully warned us to keep a close eye on our stuff while drinking a cold lager curbside

Exhausted, that evening we wandered around our neighbourhood.  We stopped along the way to watch some mediocre (but free) Muay Thai boxing outside the MBK (file under 'You Get What You Pay For').

We each had dinner (more later on how I am faring in the nuttiest place on earth - check that - nuttiest place on earth after Gaziantep, Turkey).

Which of these cost more?

[Note from Chad: on the left we have your standard 6-inch Subway veggie sandwich. On the right we have pad thai thalay, featuring classic pad thai plus prawns, oysters, baby mussels, squid rings, and your choice of garnishes such as hot dried chilies, scallions, surprisingly tasty bean sprouts, spicy/sweet sauce, etc.]

We then wandered around some of the smaller market lanes between the megamalls.  At night, the food carts are reduced in number, and the clothing markets come out of hiding in this area.

Why is this park decked out with Frosty the Snowman and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?  Are we missing something?

After three days, much to our own surprise, we decided that we actually really like Bangkok.  Which is good, since we'll be transiting through there several times as we flit about SE Asia.  Maybe we are city people after all!  To be fair we spent a lot of time in the nice shopping districts, but I think we're going to like most areas of Bangkok.