Bangkok, Thailand
We’ve set up camp in a friend’s house in Pathumwan district of town. We’re within a 10 minute walk from the PoenChit skytrain station, and 30 minute walk from Lumpini Park, Suan Lum night market, and MRT station.
We had a day or two to explore the neighborhood before Grant’s brother, Dave, arrived. The Night Market turned out to be a fun place to go eat. They have dozens of food stalls, serving good food at cheap prices, and an equal number of beer vendors, selling local and German draft beer. In front of the massive seating area is a large stage, featuring local up-and-coming (or at least trying really hard) artists singing western and Thai favorites with a backdrop of choreographed dancers. It was quite entertaining, at least in a small dose.
Dave arrived early in the morning on the 20th, after a whirlwind flight from Calgary, through Vancouver with a layover in Osaka. Despite running on fumes, he managed to stay up all day, seeing sights with us. We did the classic tour of Bangkok: sky train ride to the central river station, river ferry to China Town where we got duped into taking a tuk-tuk to the “Happy Buda” temple, followed by a “Silk Export Store”. We walked back to the river, where we took a river taxi back to China Town, walked around the narrow vendor filled street at night, on to the Metro station, and back to the Suan Lum night market for dinner and drinks. By 9:00, Dave was out cold.
We spent the next few days exploring the malls and markets, in true pre-Christmas tradition, as Dave searched for those elusive souvenirs worth bringing back. The Chatichuk market was a fun one to spend the day at. It’s a massive outdoor weekend market, full of thousands of stalls, and dozens of food vendors, yet we still managed to walk away with nothing but a satisfied belly.
To break up the window shopping extravaganza (we rarely ever actually buy anything), we spent a morning learning some secrets of Thai cuisine, at Nipa’s. We didn’t get our own cooking station, but got to take turns assisting the chef. I got to try my hands at making a thai omlet, which is thin like a crepe, and wrapped around fried, curried filling (you could also fill it with fried noodles, aka pad thai). Grant practiced the trick to shredding green mango, using a hand held scraper tool. Dave got to work on the art of making fritters.
After cooking class, we wobbled over to Jim Thompson’s house. He’s the American responsible for rejuvinating the Thai Silk industry. He disappeared mysteriously one day, while on vacation in Malaysia. After that, his home was turned into a museum. It is an amazing blend of traditional Thai and practical western architecture and art. The silk paintings on display, and raw silk fabrics for sale, are equally beautiful.
On Christmas eve, we decided to do something a little different from the travel routine, and enjoyed a home cooked steak dinner with grilled veggies. On Christmas day, rather than succumb to extortion and fork out >$50 for a turkey dinner we feasted on duck, fish, and curries at a high end Thai restaurant (Nipa’s, with our free vouchers from cooking class).
We spent Christmas day getting to, and exploring, the Grand Palace (via sky train + river taxi). They have an excellent audio tour, that makes touring the grounds very informative. The grounds are made up of a truly beautiful ensemble of buildings and art. I loved the colourful, intricate buidings that somehow managed to not look tacky.
On our last day in Bangkok before flying north to Chiang Mai, we signed up for a bicycle tour of the backstreets, with Co Van Kessel Bangkok Tours. Our meeting place was about 5km away, so we gave ourselves a good 1.25 hours to get there by taxi, expecting to have time for lunch when we got there. The taxi ride ended up taking 1hr, 20 mins! This was at 10:50 in the morning! We were literally stopped in traffic 9/10ths of the time. I don’t know how the Thais do it. Sky train, metro, and river taxi is definitely the way to go.
It turned out to be an interesting day of cycling. We went at a very slow pace, as we were stuck with a family of 5 (4 kids). The youngest girl insisted on riding a bike twice her size, so the whole discussion dragged on for at least a half hour. The little girl won the fight. We rode down narrow alleys of Chinatown, across busy streets, through a wet market, up to a temple, and through a school ground (where the youngest boy stopped to play soccer with the locals). We boarded a river taxi, which took us across the Chao Praya river, and up a canal. This part of the tour was through lush, wet, swamp land (on raised paths), past local homes, stopping at several temples. It wasn’t the challenging bike ride that our bodys were craving, but an excellent cultural experience.
While the guys spent a night at the Mui Thai (kickboxing) match, getting closeup views of the spraying blood, I went for my first every traditional thai massage. It was the most intense massage ever, for a mere $7! I can best describe it as a cross between ART (active release therapy), assisted stretching, and chiropractic manipulation. Not the most relaxing experience, but you sure feel good when the pain stops.
