Postcard from Bangkok

Upon arrival in Bangkok, and as I made my way to the guest house in which I was staying, my first thought was, “Wow, it smells like Asia!”  J   But, truth be told, it wasn’t that bad on the whole – and only in pockets like China.

My next thought, as I roamed around, was, “My gawd, there are a SHITLOAD of 7-11s!”  And there are!  There was more than one occasion where I could stand in a particular spot on a street and see 2 different ones on the same street within my line of sight, and even on the rare occasion three.  Weird.

The city is well served by public transit, so much so that I never felt the need to take a taxi – motorbike or regular.  Between underground and skyway, and partly due to the convenient location of my guest house, I was able to get around with maybe a maximum of a 10 minute walk to/from any station. 

My guest house was also conveniently located down the street from an AWESOME and CHEAP Thai restaurant.  I probably like Thai food, on the whole, even more than Chinese, and this place literally had over 200 dishes on their menu, with prices close to street food prices.  Accordingly, I spent about $2 for a meal, and if I spent $3, then I was stuffed.  I would often have dinner there and then order something for takeaway for lunch the next day.  Even though there was a noodle dish I really liked and got a couple times, I tried to get as many different things as possible, and probably ended up trying about 15 of their dishes.  All were very good – oddly enough, the one dish that was not quite as great as their other stuff was a “Chinese style” noodle dish with chicken.  Go figure.

Speaking of food, there was also a slightly more “upscale” restaurant even nearer my guest house that served both Western and Thai food, and my last night I went there to try some crocodile – since I hadn’t had anything else “exotic” while I was in Thailand.  No, it did NOT taste like chicken, but it didn’t knock my socks off, either.  Luckily, the way they prepared it was nice and peppery, which I like, and it tasted fairly close to beef – just a little “chewier.”  I did have a bit of a “psychological” issue knowing I was eating a crocodile, but I’m always glad to try something different when abroad since I’m usually a bit of a wuss when it comes to weird foods.

As mentioned on Facebook, it was effing hot.  Go figure – Thailand in June.  Jesse Pinkman had it right when he said, “What’s that phrase, dude?  It’s like, Thailand hot!”  And of course hellishly humid – I’m not much of a “sweater,” but I was sweating there!   The weird thing was, I saw very few men with their shirts off – compared to, say, Guangzhou, which can get equally hot during the summer.  There weren’t even any guys who would roll their shirts up like so many did in GZ to show off their disgusting gut – like anyone wants to see that (shudder).  And it’s not like they are even fat in China (and even less so in Thailand), there’s just something about seeing a middle-aged guy’s gut exposed under a rolled up shirt that made me just automatically go, “ewwwww.”

The Thai are also – surprise surprise – much friendlier than the Chinese (but then who isn’t?) – they will actually smile at you on the street and the drivers will go AROUND puddles when you’re walking down the sidewalk.  But what surprised me is that I found the men to be LESS attractive, on the whole, than the Chinese – and as most people know by now I generally do NOT find Chinese men attractive; right, Bex?  ;)    And I’ve never been attracted to that whole “Lady Boy” scene and didn’t come across too many of them anyway since: a) there was a curfew for about the first half of my visit, and b) I didn’t really go out.  Thailand – esp. Bangkok – seems to me to be the kind of place you need to go to with others to make it more fun.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my stay immensely – it was cheap, good food, cool architecture, interesting cultural experiences, etc.  There was just a lot of it that would have been more fun to experience with someone else.

Speaking of the curfew (which was lifted a couple weeks after my arrival as it was hurting the tourism business), I saw an interesting sign on the street one day while wandering around that said, only in English: Remain calm, elections to be held after reform.  I thought it would have been fun on the military’s part to have put the word reform in quotes.  J 

Apparently, with all of the recent “turbulence,” the King (Rama IX) remains a revered figure – no doubt due partly to the fact he’s been around for so long (he is currently the longest reigning monarch in the world, topping Elizabeth II’s 62 years by another 6).  He does retain some power, though, and his life is actually pretty interesting – including the slight possibility he accidentally shot and killed his older brother, King Rama VIII, when the King was about 20 and the future Rama IX was 17.  Another fun fact: he was actually born in the U.S.  Really, read at least a little about him:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhumibol_Adulyadej

In movie theaters, near the end of their THIRTY MINUTE previews and ads, they play the king’s anthem and show a little mini-film of pics of his life.  Everyone stands for the anthem.  It kind of weirded me out.  Thailand still has lèse majesté laws that basically makes it a crime to talk smack about the king OR the monarchy – and is the reason that, to this day, “The King and I” has NEVER been screened or allowed to be sold in Thailand.  The Thai Ministry of Culture feels the movie portrays the monarch as a buffoon (I really should break down and watch it, although from what I’ve seen of snippets of Yul Brynner’s performance, I can see the buffoon thing as a possibility).  BTW, Yul was portraying King Rama IV.

Other “Thai tidbits:” As I noted with my Facebook pics, the malls here are amazing.  The one I spent the most time in – Paragon – actually had small car dealerships on one of the higher floors, but of course only for high end brands (Maserati, Rolls Royce, and Lotus).  Their movie theaters are very nice, very large, and as I was there for a month, I was able to see the new X-Men movie, the new Godzilla, Transformers 4, Grace of Monaco, and Edge of Tomorrow.  Yay.

In the grocery store, they actually sell six packs of disposable underwear.  I couldn’t decide WHAT I thought about the concept outside of its environmental wastefulness (depending, I suppose, on how biodegradable they are).  Like everything else in Thailand, they were of course ridiculously cheap (although now I can’t remember what they sold for).

Speaking of eco-friendly, they are most definitely NOT when it comes to plastic bags.  I could go in to a 7-11 and buy a single Snickers bar and they’d try to bag it!  I was constantly telling them I did not need/want a bag – and they weren’t even charging for them!  So here’s somewhere where the Chinese “win” – by god, if you want a bag in China, you’re going to bring your own or you’re going to pay for every single one you “need”/want.

But the Thai “win” over the Chinese with ice.  In China, you’d be lucky to get two quickly-melting cubes in your Coke with lunch, but in Thailand, they FILL that glass with ice first!  And sell bags of it for hella cheap in the ubiquitous 7-11s.  Thank GAWD, too, with that heat!  My biggest “I’m a delicate American” thing is really “needing” ice for my cold drinks.  Wah!

Bangkok traffic is a nightmare.  Although I was generally not in it coz I was always walking or taking mass transit, a tour guide jokingly pridefully claimed that Bangkok recently overtook Jakarta (woo-hoo, coming up!) for worst traffic in the world.  But when you google lists, they are all TOTALLY different (seriously, the first two lists I saw had NO matches in their respective top tens).  But it seemed to me from general observation that traffic was worse in China, and the drivers in China are MUCH worse/dumber. 

The Thais seem to operate, in general, more efficiently than the Chinese, as well.  They queue up like normal human beings, they don’t fight to get on the metro/skyway, and so things seem to run more smoothly.  I did have a “China experience” when I had to send some stuff via DHL to DC for my (never-ending) Peace Corps clearance process.  I went to the closest DHL drop off and got there just after 1pm.  A sign on the door said, “Out on break.  Back at 2pm.”  Since I figure an hour is pretty long for a “break,” they meant lunch, so I went and ate lunch myself, tooled around for a bit, and came back right after 2 pm.  They were still closed with a new sign that said, “Out to lunch.  Back at 3pm.”  Yes, very Chinese.  So I sent a pissy e-mail off to DHL and then felt SLIGHTLY guilty about it the next day coz the woman working there was very nice.  But still, the whole back to back hour break thing was pretty ludicrous IMHO.

For those who missed my FB post, their written language is quite “distinctive.” Guess what this says:  กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะ วิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์  Give up?  It is the full, official name of the city of Bangkok - listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest place name:  Krung Thep Mahanakorn Amorn Rattanakosin Mahintrara Ayutthaya Mahadhilok Phobnoppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udom Ratchanivet Mahasathan Amornphimarn Aowathan Sathit Sakkhathattiya Vitsanukamprasit

Kewl!  J