Bangkok

March 6, 2015

The Last Days of our Trip

BANGKOK

Several times during our trip we discussed how we were going to be able to deal with Bangkok, our final destination. After spending months in small, rural towns we were not really looking forward to the enormity and bustle of Bangkok. We considered spending as little time there as possible, just long enough to box up our bikes and head to the airport. But that plan never really sat well with me.

Bangkok is like an old friend of mine who, in the 1970's, was a dirty mess but through the decades has somehow managed to clean up quite a lot. I decided I wanted to spend a few days with Bangkok, getting reacquainted, before heading back to the States.

Repeatedly visiting and exploring a city is one of my favorite ways of traveling because it opens a window from which to view its evolution. A repeat visitor is neither a resident or a first-time tourist but has the eyes of each.

Scattered here and there over the miles of sprawling Bangkok are clusters of narrow skyscrapers which strongly resemble the futuristic buildings in the film Blade Runner. We, rather, stayed in one of the oldest parts of Bangkok -the Samsen District of Banglamphu where buildings were more down to earth. Instantly we felt the Samsen district to be mellow and still quite old-style Thai. Yes, there were a fair number of guest houses for tourists but they were spaced and hidden in a warren of side streets which the Thai call sois. Some sois were so narrow and maize-like that motorbikes (and we, on our bikes) had a hard time navigating them. So dense was the neighborhood that we were there for three nights before I realized our guest house was less than a block from the massive Chao Phraya River which bisects Bangkok.

From our secluded room we heard no traffic noise; birds by day - crickets by night. Imagine, being right in the thick of a city of 19 million residents and no traffic noise! Oh, we had a cat in heat being bothered by a persistent male cat right outside our window the first night. I'm a cat lover but I wasn't going to lose sleep a second night so when the cats started up again I moved them along with a little squirt of pepper spray on their behinds. I've carried that can of pepper spray on 9 trips through Asia but never used it. Sorry cats and sorry cat lovers, I much prefer the sound of crickets while sleeping.

We left our bikes in the room everyday and explored on foot. We found soi after soi lined with ancient, two-story, weathered-teak shophouses - living quarters above. We learned that Samsen was the original downtown Bangkok some 200 years ago. No wonder the teak looked so weathered! There is the beginning of an effort to save the relics turning them into offices and boutique hotels but the old, traditional Thai culture remains. A big part of that culture is the cuisine.

The Sam Sen District is full of these ancient teak buildings.

Narrow, accordion-style teak doors are ubiquitous in Thailand. When the shop is closed it is completely sealed off from the street. Teak doesn't rot - good for hundreds of years.

There are thousands of sois like this one in Bangkok. Food is everywhere.

We ate some of the best pork noodle soup of our trip on one corner and delicious traditional Thai street food on just about every other. One afternoon we happened upon an elderly woman setting out stainless steel trays of food, (my favorite Thai cuisine), very near to our guest house. Sitting on plastic chairs basically IN the street we tried several of her dishes. As we ate we watched many customers buy and take away plastic bags full of her food. I noted that an hour after the cook set out her trays she was largely out of food. Obviously it was a popular neighborhood eatery.. The next day we made sure we were waiting at 4:30PM for the cook with her trays of food to arrive. She had a completely different array of delicacies every day. Seriously this is my favorite food in the world and the perfect way for me to end a trip to S.E. Asia.

We also explored the khlong boat system of transportation a bit. Bangkok is crisscrossed by khlongs (canals) and most of them have cheap boat taxis - basically canal buses. The beauty of taking the khlongs is that they can get you far across the city quite quickly whereas the streets are almost always in a state of gridlock. The Chao Phraya River is also a good way to get across town on even larger boats. The Samsen area proved to be a great location since it is close to river piers where the water taxis make frequent stops.

The nice khlong near the Jim Thompson house/museum. Jim Thompson is famous for making the world aware of Thai silk in the 1950's and '60's. His house is the most beautiful traditional Thai house I know of.

A shrine sprang up next to this khlong. We never found out what the reddish liquid and new dresses meant as offerings. We saw several of these shrines on our trip.

The serious business of making bike boxes in our room finally commenced on our third day in Bangkok but was often broken by our need for iced coffee, mango drinks, exotic food or more exploring. It was mango season after all! Every time we went out into the Bangkok heat we walked on a different street so we could see new things. For some reason, years ago, my brain programmed Bangkok to be on a nice and easy north-south grid but in reality nothing follows straight lines - not the streets, sois, river or klangs. So, each time we went walking I got completely turned around. Somehow Andrea usually knew the way.

Andrea has the kind of brain that can figure out how to make a large piece of flat cardboard into a three dimensional box of an exact size. My brain, on the other hand, freezes and all I can say is, "Isn't it time for some ice coffee?"

A ripe papaya and ice coffee. It doesn't get much better than this.

Thai merchants take over sidewalks to sell anything and everything. Here is was so packed that it was difficult just getting inside the post office.

One night in our room I went online researching where the "best" Khao Soi was in Bangkok. That led to searching for the "best" Som Tom, "best" noodle soup, "best" Phad Thai and the most luxurious movie theater. I made a list and we had great fun seeking them out. Invariably, en route, we either got confused as to where we were or we saw such delicious looking street food that we ate along the way abandoning our quest for "bests". We concluded that "bests" are everywhere in Bangkok.

The only Thai food as good as "tray" food is "pot" food.

Walking down sidewalks can be a challenge but interesting.

A cafe in the Sam Sen District of Bangkok.

Trays and pots of delicious food and the beauty of Thai street food is that we never get sick from it. This is not always true in other S.E. Asian countries.

Andrea looking forward to her noodle soup.

We also were stopped in our tracks about every ten feet to gaze at all the textures, colors, juxtapositions and jumbles of stuff everywhere, our brains straining to make sense of it all. Amidst the clutter and randomness often there were gorgeous orchids or a ceramic water barrel blocking the sidewalk filled with blooming water lilies and guppies. What a world Bangkok is! - a rich city for the curious and especially for photographers. Everywhere we wandered people were quick to smile, rare for such a large city. We had had a fascinating trip biking a couple thousand miles through four countries but I could be just as happy next trip spending months exploring Bangkok.

Graffiti is a fairly new thing in Bangkok.

Screening the street from the shop with tiny origami.

Tiny sois (alleys) sometimes have gorgeous orchids tucked here and there.

On the last day of our trip I went in search of a bottle of Mekong whiskey to bring home. It's not that I'm an alcoholic but that this is my silly tradition for each trip to Asia. Mekong whiskey is terrible rot-gut stuff but it reminds me of the old days, my old days (1974), when I was a student briefly at Chiang Mai University. It was pretty much the only liquor in Thailand back then and much cheaper than beer. Ah yes, Mekong! It was cheap and sweet and if there is one thing Thais love it's sweets. Thais have one big collective sweet tooth so it wasn't surprising to learn that the correct way to drink Mekong whiskey was to always mix it with 7-Up, Sprite or Coke which basically made it into a soft drink liqueur. The bottling date was stamped on the label and never did we see a date that was more than six days old! It got to be a game we played - to find a bottle of Mekong more than six days old. No matter how far away we were from the one bottling plant in Bangkok we never found a date more than six days old! It accurately describes both the great quantity of Mekong being drunk in Thailand in the 1970's as well as the incredibly efficient delivery system.

Now days the easiest place to find a bottle of Mekong is at a 7-Eleven store. To find a 7-Eleven store in Thailand all one has to do is walk a block or two in any direction in any city or town. I think there are more 7-Elevens in Thailand than anywhere on earth. Just a couple of blocks from where we were staying were two 7-Elevens and they were across the street from one another! No need to cross the busy street!

I saw the bottles of Mekong behind the front counter and I asked the clerk for one. She said, "No. No sell today." I was a bit taken aback and asked her, "Why?" She repeated, "Why?" and looked confused. Her co-workers near her concurred and also mumbled, "Why?" softly. There was a blank look on each of their faces and we all stood there in a kind of suspended confusion. Workers from the rear of the store sensed something happening up front and they filtered up to the front counter. There was discussion among them. I heard each one of them saying, "Why?" in English amidst a lot of Thai. It was the strangest thing. I was completely baffled. Did the Thais not have a concept of 'why'? I counted seven workers all with confused looks on their faces and all they could say in English was, "Why?" Finally one of them remembered a few other English words. She gathered her courage and addressed me, "Today, Buddha." Oh, well that explains it! Why bring Buddha into this, I was thinking, but instead I just stood there looking more confused. I was starting to get a bit irritated. The bottle of Mekong was just out of my reach.

Then I remembered something I had occasionally thought about the entire trip - our flight back home was going to be on the night of a full moon. The full moon day is the day Buddhist countries honor Buddha. Although I had never experienced it before, apparently liquor is not sold on full moon days in Thailand. I don't know if it's a new edict from the new dictator or if I simply had never tried to buy alcohol on a full moon. So, for the first time ever I was going to return to America without a bottle of Mekong whiskey. It was sad but actually I'm better off.

I have never encountered this rule in Thailand in the past.

Walking back to the guest house I saw a shop owner set a large tub of shaved ice on the sidewalk for some unknown reason. Maybe he simply had too much shaved ice? A traveler in S.E. Asia is never totally sure of why something is done. As I mumbled under my breath, 'Why?' I watched a street dog become interested in the tub of shaved ice. Thai dogs are always interested in anything put on sidewalks but I didn't think ice would be one of them. First he pawed at the ice. Feeling that it was cold he then chomped it. That must have been refreshing but he wanted more. He looked around and then very carefully and very slowly he climbed atop the mound of ice and nestled into it. He had a look of pure bliss combined with "Don't look at me." on his face. I photographed him repeatedly and other passersby quickly joined with their cell phones. Everyone was enjoying the moment. It was attention he would have preferred to avoid but he knew what a lucky dog he was and he was going nowhere.

It was quite the opposite dog experience I had the last time I was in Bangkok (2009) when I was simply walking down the street on the very last day of our trip and a dog shot out from under a table and nipped my leg. I looked and looked at the spot and thought I was out of the doghouse so to speak. But then a tiny drop of blood arose. He had broken the skin and it was off to the hospital for a rabies shot. One doesn't mess around with rabies. Our last day of a four and a half month trip and we had to spend some of it at a doctor's office.

But this time Bangkok was fun to be with all the way to the end. A near disaster was narrowly averted when Andrea slipped while getting into a khlong boat taxi. One leg was already in the cesspool khlong water but I, and at least three Thais, instantly grabbed her. It would have been a rude end to our perfect trip had she gone all the way in.

Thais now love having dogs as pets - a new concept in Thailand. Dogs always used to be for kicking since they are considered the lowest reincarnation. Affluence has helped change people's minds.

Although the air pollution is nothing like what it used to be, shop owners try to keep dust off their wares.

Rings of flowers are sold on sidewalks or in gridlocked streets to drivers for their rear view mirrors - natural air fresheners.

Folding Chinese bikes are popular now, whereas six years ago we saw none.

It had been a good decision to spend a little more time with Bangkok. It's still rough around the edges but quite fascinating with ever revealing facets. As the sun went down and right before we hauled our boxed bikes out to where a taxi could actually drive to, the old cook was again setting up her delicacies. We sat down for one last meal. Squash curry, my favorite. I moaned with pleasure as the entire trip floated through my mind. I was like that dog on ice. It had been a perfect trip and now it was finished. There was only one remedy for that; asking for more squash curry. "Ow eek" in Thai - literally "want more." At least I know those words in Thai! The cook laughed and repeated what I said to the group of men lounging across the street. There were "Ow eeks" from each of them and much good-hearted laughter. It's easy to make a Thai person laugh. Maybe that's why I enjoy them so much and always want more.

Lovebruce

Our final meal in Thailand - squash curry.

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