Blending in or Bore-ism? Four weeks in Bangkok

3rd July 2006 - Day 106

Bangkok, Thailand

Today marks two months since we landed in Don Muang International Airport, Bangkok. It's also my sister's birthday (Happy Birthday Shan!). I remarked to James last night that when you add up the time between our stops in Chiang Mai - 1 week, Cambodia - 4 days, Pa Do Tha - a fortnight - and the southern islands - 1 week, we have actually spent almost a complete month in Bangkok. Since we've been unimaginative enough not to have moved our base in Bangkok from Banglumpoo, it was to be expected that by now a languid air might have settled over our attempts to kill time.

Tough life isn't it? Yes we are being lazy, and it's about time we pulled our fingers out and did something with our time in south east Asia before we leave for Australia on 22nd July. To that end we have organised a week in Vietnam of which I will write in due course!

Cards on the table, I've not had so much free time since I was at University. Spending so much time in one place means that we've got plenty of abiding memories; I wanted to record a bit of what we've done in this time because Bangkok has been more than a base to us. James and I have agreed that coming back to Banglumpoo (which we've already done four times) is a bit like coming home.

When we arrived back in Bangkok, James and I had a few plans which took only a few days to fulfil, after that we unintentionally got sucked into the great vortex of consuming for which Banglumpoo has evolved. We have visited other popular areas of Bangkok such as Chinatown, Silom and Siam, but none are more suited to falang nor as vital as Banglumpoo. How have we filled the time? We have spent a small fortune between us on internet access, as both of us keep up with current affairs, stay in touch with friends and compose the posts you are reading. We also buy new T-shirts, torches, plasters, books or anything else we feel we need. We also spend money on beer, transport and good food. I managed to go an entire month in India with out buying anywhere near as much as I have in Bangkok in a week (I have talked about the seedier side of tourist dollars in Banglumpoo and Khaosan Road on Wayward Pilgrimage).

Anyway, here are some things which piece together my mental picture of Bangkok.

This piece of graffitti opposite the Happy House (our guesthouse) on Soi Chana Songkram, sums up the Khaosan for us. The guidebooks say Thai people work hard but everything is done with a sense of fun; that is without doubt true of Bangkok. There's plenty of joke cracking, wind-ups and flirting going on, which means most people have a smile on their face. This particular grin endures by being the current wallpaper on my mobile. What a lucky girl (even if she does look a bit like Ms. Piggy)!

When I've bothered to exercise it has been at Santichaiprakarn Public Park, which lies alongside the Chao Phraya river bordered on the other side by Banglumpoo. Here we have Phra Sumen fort which is on the edge of the park.

On one occassion I tried to dance to an aerobic session down by the river in Bangkok. Frankly it got too complicated. A lycra clad human dynamo lead the class, which most people followed with the grestest of ease. The skips, hand claps, twirls, side-steps and stretches came in ever more complex combinations and I couldn't cope. I nearly fell over twice, my keys fell out of my pocket and eventually I stopped in surprise at my own inept co-ordination.
I suffered a strange sandwich of witnesses. A long line of gorgeous women were sat on benches behind me, relaxing after work. They were all laughing at my 'dancing', which I could just about handle, but not enjoy. Adjacent to me, a girl in her early twenties weeped with a mobile phone to her ear, clearly not disturbed by the sweaty grinning faces around her and the sound of 'Boom, boom, boom, boom, I want you in my room' blasting her eardrums. I didn't find this combination an incentive. The teary girl eventually finished her call, cheered up and started laughing at me as well.

Any running I've done in Bangkok has been at this small park, but I've stopped bothering with my home regime - it's too bloody hot for that. I run perhaps once a fortnight now. I have still managed to turn my trainers red with blood though.

I also saw a short outdoor gig at the park featuring a Thai ska band called T-bone. Not my cup of tea especially, but it was an interesting night seeing as I was there under duress in the pissing rain whilst England were playing Portugal. No problem, I was back for extra time and to watch 'the penalty albatross' which adorns England's neck lose further chunks of plumage from it's rotting carcass.

Pad Thai with egg for 20 baht? The answer has been yes time and time again. This picture is instantly recognisable to anyone who has been to Banglumpoo as these vendors line all the main streets with a Westernised version of the real Thai street stall.
Yes, the food in Thailand is very good. Having spent so much time in these areas, it feels like we've eaten in every restaurant/cafe in the vicinity. Whilst Tim and Kate were here we even went to May Kaidee's vegetarian restaurant to learn some Thai recipes from the maestro herself. We all really enjoyed this, and I can now cook up some mean Thai grub in a matter of minutes assuming I can get hold of lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves and sweet basil at short notice. If not it's still cheese on toast Chez Morton. We all managed to produced something tasty under May's tutelage and the morning flew by. It is fair to say that May is fierce self-publicist and she frequently took the opportunity to remind us of the awards she'd won, and famous people who had taken her cooking courses. I can understand this seeing as she started the whole thing herself aged 15 in 1988, but it did start to grate a bit when we'd rather have been concentrating on the cooking. Regardless, she was pleasant and possessed an unflappable magnetism. Even a dubious text message she received whilst teaching (which she asked James and I to translate with red faces) did not ruffle her feathers. Like the others Thai people you'll meet in Banglumpoo, she works damn hard.

Pete Doherty gets a new job on the Khaosan, 'Punch my face!!... skiddley, diddly, dee'. Really, though, another reason to be repelled by your local 'Maccy D's'. Fortunately, it's not indicative of Banglumpoo, which has survived a mass onslaught of chain stores. They can be found but they haven't yet totaly smothered the local traders with a blanket of bland produce and promotion. People like May and the street food vendors are testament to this. Nowhere, however, is immune from the clutches of the Coca-Cola company whose red insignia is ubiquitous. I've bored plenty of people with my views on Coke in the past, so I won't add to them here. It does make one wonder for how long this monopoly has been established? I know it was in place long before my birth across all continents. I have done my utmost to boycott their products wherever I have been, but of course they always have a franchise covering one of the popular local bottled water brands, which means that - to my dismay - I've occasionally noticed 'a product of the Coca Cola company' etched on the bottle I'm clutching.

In this photo our friend Kung stands next to a traditional Thai house, by the Suanthip Restuarant, Bangkok. We met Kung soon after we arrived in Thailand, and a more pleasant baker you couldn't wish to meet. We've seen plenty of extra bars and parts of Bangkok which otherwise would have remained hidden thanks to her. Aside from the good will on her part, this has a lot to do with the transport around the city; Kung has a car. Bangkok is easier to get around than Mumbai, but apart from that it's composition and lack of an underground infrastructure or clearly posted bus system mean it's more difficult than any other city I've been to, to get around. Silom, Siam Square, China Town and Banglumpoo are little pockets isolated from each other and are all as yet unconnected by the sky train. Still, we've had enough time on our hands to get around, and we have used public transport as much as possible.

To the left you see someone crafting a new image of 'laughng boy' Ganesh, an example of the pottery at Ko Kret Market, which Kung suggested as a break from central Bangkok. Ko Kret is renowned as a center for kwan arman, a style of Mon pottery. According to Wikipedia, 'the island continues to serve as a refuge to the Mon tribes who dominated central Thailand between the 6th and 10th centuries and have retained a distinct identity in their flavor of Buddhism and, particularly at Ko Kret, their pottery.' We found it a pretty chilled out little place that was a pleasant boat ride heading north up the Chao Phraya river. It was the kind of place you might go on a Sunday afternoon with your parents as a child. It gave James a chance to get to grips with his new camera and me a chance to eat deep fried flowers. Indeed, Kung has coerced us into eating plenty of novelty Thai nosh lately, some of it a hit, some of it definitely not. She even made me drink a spinach and water cress sugar smoothie, which was almost as cruel as supporting Portugal in the quarter final penalty shoot out.

In this shot, James thinks on near the Happy House guesthouse, Soi Chana Songkram. We've done a lot of sitting and pondering recently, but sometimes we've run out of ideas. Perhaps we resort to having a few drinks too often, but I think we have taken the opportunity to fill some gaps in our knowledge on historical, anthropological and economical issues. That and turning stream of consciousness nonsense into an art form. Who can guess what fruits another eight months of this crap will bear?!