Bangkok

Bangkok is the largest city in Thailand and has about 9 million people. The city sprawls and merges with suburbs for what seems to be a fifty kilometers in every direction. Bangkok is more dirty, crowded, and busy than any American city. With the blacktop and tropical climate, the city is sweltering during summer (overlaps American Spring). Traffic is a mess and the smog is awful. Public transportation is okay if you can take the few subways or a water boat, but mostly it’s buses in traffic. The sidewalks are narrow or nonexistent. They are often crowded with mobile food stalls, tents selling tchotchkes, and small stores that spill onto the street when open.

I spent nine days in Bangkok. Probably too much time, but I thought I would have to be there 5 business days to get a Vietnam visa. The whole process is a serious hassle. Vietnam now allows visa on arrival at the three international airports, but I was planning on crossing by bus through Cambodia. I learned from another hosteler that it’s cheaper and easier to get the visa in Laos so I decided to change my route to go through Northern Thailand and Laos first.

My first day in Bangkok I used the canal boats for transportation to head towards the center city and then I just wandered for a bit. I ordered food at one of the busier stalls and then sat in the hot shade eating my first authentic Thai meal. It was so spicy that I had to save the rice for last to clean my tongue which had me a little worried about the food. Three weeks later it’s still the hottest meal I’ve had. Most of my first few days I spent wandering. Sometimes I ended up nowhere notable in terms of landmarks. Other days I’d have an itinerary.

Traveling alone makes it very easy to meet people, especially in Southeast Asia where most non-asians are tourists or expats. “Do you speak English” is often all it takes to start a conversation. After my first day of wandering, I took a canal boat home. A white lady sat next to me so I started chatting with her. Liz, was an Austrian working in Thailand for a few months. She invited me out with her friends that evening so after a dinner at a street vendor I went and picked up a second hand cell phone for 650 Baht ($19.60) and a SIM card for 50 Baht. I joined her friends for a night of clubbing in RCA, the acronym is a mystery but the area was mostly college and 20-something Thais with a fair number of tourists. Thais would order drinks and have their own little drink stand to dance around on the club floor. Next door there was spectator karaoke with English and Thai pop. The English karaoke sounds decent until I listened to the lyrics — gibberish resembling familiar lyrics.

I spent a long afternoon in Lumphini park to enjoy the evening weather and watch people: two hundred people jazzercizing (200 brightly clothed bodies moving in synch), 5 foot water lizards, breakdancing kids, and a few games of Sepak Takraw. I happened on the Takraw in a corner of the park. Working class players with an audience of friends, other players, and bettors. Working class players with an audience of friends, other players, and bettors. It’s played with a grapefruit sized wicker ball and a five foot volleyball net, three non-hand touches to a side, block with the body, and scoring much the same as volleyball. The game comes down to a soft touch to slow the ball, a second to knock it high and into position and then a third touch that is either a bicycle or roundhouse kick over the net. I was amazed by the coordination involved in hitting a small wicker ball falling from twenty feet at the apex of a jump kick. I’d definitely pay to watch a professional game.

On my way to the National Palace I overheard an Argentine asking the hostelier about the palace. I politely invited myself along. Luciana and I spent an afternoon in the Palace and then early evening on Golden Mount, a temple in the city center. The following evening I met my first couchsurfing host, Brian, near Victory Monument. I’ve hosted a couple of times in Chicago, but this was the first time I’d enjoyed the hospitality of a complete stranger. Brian is Philippine and has been living in Bangkok for six years. Luciana and I met Brian outside of a McDonalds after he got off of work. We went straight to dinner at Thai Buffet. Thai buffet is a giant open air hall with rows of long communal tables and a buffet of raw meats, vegetables, and other random foods. The cooking is done on a charcoal-heated contraption that looks a little like a bunt cake pan. The middle is a half sphere to cook the meat on, the juices drip into a moat of boiling water filled with vegetables and prawns or other  meats/sausages. Everyone manages the cooking of the food with their chopsticks and then ladles soup out when the vegetables are done. After a round of meat and soup has been served, the water is topped off and new meat is placed  on the sphere. After a few rounds we were full and went for some dessert that I’d be hard pressed to describe. It seemed pretty popular, but I much prefer the mango sticky rice. After dinner, we went to Saxophone, a fantastic jazz club with a better atmosphere than most of the clubs in Chicago. Most Chicago clubs are crowded with tourists and the shows often feel staid. This place felt warm and the show was great. The next night we went out to dinner and spent the evening chatting on his porch with a few beers. With Brian, Bangkok felt more vibrant and engaging than it had in the past five days.

After staying with Brian for a couple of days, I stayed with Pete for a few more days. I wandered a little more and spent some time planning my trip, e-mailing hosts in Chiang Mai, and setting up my blog.

Monday morning, I took a 2nd class bus north to Ayutthaya.

More Pictures of Bangkok