“Tuk-Tuk”, “Where You Go Today?”, “Same, same”

STATS: Day count=44; Current Illness count=0 (still in full health); theft count=0; rip-off count=0.4 ; tourist screw-up count=0.7 (no change); Chris’ photo count=480; Emma’s photo count=15

Those of you who have been to Bangkok before may recognise the title of this post. Phrases we hear about 30 times a day as we wander round the streets of Bangkok. Why a tuk-tuk driver thinks we want a ride in his tuk-tuk, having watched us walk past about 20 identical tuk-tuks without any indication of need or desire to get in one, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t seem to deter them. On day 1 in Bangkok we smiled happily and engaged them in conversation for a while – it was all very pleasant. By the end of day 2 we were just walking past them, ignoring them. I don’t like doing that, but to be polite every time would mean we wouldn’t actually get past the end of the road we were staying in.

I think that sort of sums up how we felt about Bangkok. It’s a bit draining. There’s lots to see and do – it is a big city, after all, but you can’t really relax there. We spent 8 days there and are currently travelling on a bus for 7 hours to our next destination (it’s Thu 18th Feb). We’re glad to be leaving Bangkok – 8 days was a bit much there for us – unfortunately we had to stay that long as we were waiting for our India visas to clear.

A couple of words spring to mind when thinking back to Bangkok. Temples (or Wats) is one. There seems to be a temple on every street corner – each one with a story to tell (albeit most histories are fairly dull – built in the year xx, renamed in the year yy…). Even in the most run-down area, you will come across a large, pretty, gold, red and green temple or shrine.  All in constant use by the Thais, who pop in regularly for a quick prayer and incense burning ritual. Buddhas everywhere. Good job his image wasn’t copyrighted. Then again, copyright isn’t exactly honoured round here, judging by the blatant CD/DVD/Game stalls which are just copies of the originals, and even stalls that will create a driving licence or ID card for you!

The other word is traffic. It’s a nightmare in the centre of Bangkok. As an example we jumped on a bus at about 7:00pm one evening and it took 1.5 hours to travel the approx 4 miles back to our hostel. Yep we could have walked it (and on a different occasion we did, after not moving on the bus for 40 minutes – I kid you not!) but we were in no hurry and the bus was air-conditioned.

This seems to be one example of the patience of Thais. Bangkok is a busy city. Tuk-tuks and motorbikes mount the kerbs, use the pavements and the concept of a pedestrianised road seems alien to them. But people seem to just deal with it all without fuss. No road rage (or pavement-rage) no annoyed beeping of horns (lots of beeping of horns, but generally used for their original purpose to let others know you are there, rather than to complain about being cut up or similar!). In fact, the only two times we have seen someone get annoyed with either driving or being cut up by pedestrians was by westerners. It does take a little bit of getting used to, but is quite refreshing.

Of course, they are probably all late for work every day.

And all the cars are clean! No idea how they keep them so clean – not seen anyone washing a car in all the time we’ve been here. I guess the lack of rain helps, but Bangkok is a bit dusty and certainly has air pollution. The city itself though is very clean – lots of street cleaners around and very little rubbish on the streets.

After spending so much time in the laid-back countryside, Bangkok is a bit of a shock to the system. A typical busy city, lots of people, lots of cars, motorbikes, buses and tuk-tuks clogging up the inadequate roads and lots and lots of tourists, especially in the ‘backpacker’ areas that we stayed. These areas felt like a beach resort on the Costa Brava or Ayia Napa or similar. Bars, cafes, T-shirt stalls, peddlers, loud music, street food. All good fun, but got a bit wearing after a while.

What with visiting all those temples we felt we were lacking in a bit of culture, so we went to see the film Avatar at the big cinema complex in the city – got to see it on the big IMAX screen in 3D. Average plot, good effects.

Bangkok seems to be taking full advantage of it’s reputation as a good place to visit. However, I think it runs a big risk of quickly becoming known as an expensive place to visit. Thailand itself is cheap, as we have been finding out over the past few weeks. Bangkok seems to have rocketed the prices of many of its tourist draws over the past few years. The guide books we have (not all that old) list prices in the order of £1 - £3 or so for the big Wats, the Grand Palace etc – but these prices have much more than doubled in the last few years. We decided not to go into the Grand Palace, simply because we weren’t bothered enough to see it to pay £7 each to go in (doesn’t sound like much, but that is a total of two nights’ accommodation for us). A trip to see Thai boxing, which I was planning, would have cost £30 each (it’s cheaper for Thais).

I guess I was expecting a city of temptation and debauchery, given the way Bangkok is portrayed elsewhere in the world. I was disappointed mistaken. There are only a few roads containing the ‘go-go girls’ speciality interests, and they were miles from where we were staying, so we never actually bothered going there (honest!). I expect prices have rocketed there too, anyway.

So I bet you’re wondering what we’ve managed to do in Bangkok for over a week if we have shunned the ‘expensive’ tourist spots and the flesh-pots. Well, other than the temples (and all the Buddhas), and getting as far as the ticket office of the Grand Palace, we have had a cool white-knuckle ride on the canal with ferries that move around the canals as recklessly as the tuk-tuks move around the roads. Great fun though. They only stop for about 2 seconds at each pier, so you have to be ready to jump off, and hope you land safely! We walked a LOT in the city – not ideal in this heat but we did our usual thing of thinking it wasn’t all that far to the next thing we wanted to see. We were wrong. Busses are great, but finding out which one you need isn’t easy. Their skytrain thing is really good, but has very limited coverage – same for the ferry boats on the canals and the river. But we have used them all. In fact, the only thing we haven’t done, which is unusual for a tourist, is use a tuk-tuk! After a couple of discussions where we were offered a ride really cheap, but only via a shop we couldn’t be bothered to walk around with some pressure selling, or much more expensive without that shop visit, we have just taken cheaper options – usually busses.

Visited a massive weekend market just north of town. Very hot, very busy and very big! Lots of stuff there though, and lots of Thai people seem to go there too – not just a souvenir market for tourists! The pet section wasn’t all that nice to see, but to be honest was better than I expected. However we did see some caged cats in very poor condition, and some really cruel treatment of captured squirrels and chipmunks :-(

Talking of monks (chipmunks –> monks, the links are getting very tenuous now!), Emma’s having a fun time trying to dodge the monks. They are apparently not supposed to touch women – they have to perform some great cleansing ritual if they do get touched by a woman – so Emma tries to steer clear of them when passing on the street. However, that’s not always easy on a really busy street or bus - “monk-dodging” has become our new game!

   Chinese New Year. This was the big thing we wanted to be in Bangkok for. There’s a big Chinese community here, so we expected a big celebration on 14th Feb. Well, it wasn’t quite as expected – a bit of a let down really. The main road in chinatown was closed off on Sun 14th and market stalls lined the road. Was interesting walking down the street, but with so many markets around in Thailand normally, another street market wasn’t so different (“same, same” as they would say around here!). It was very busy though, and the decorations were pretty – chinese lanterns across the road in places and many people wearing the lucky red colour. Some families had come dressed in traditional chinese clothes, looking very smart. This was obviously the place that everyone (especially the Chinese community, obviously!) came for the afternoon / evening as a family. There was some Chinese dancing and acrobatic type stuff on a stage at the end of the road in late afternoon / evening and there was one Chinese lion ‘act’ but not much else. We had no idea what time to arrive, so just turned up about 1pm which meant we were pretty burnt out by about 8pm so wandered back. I’m sure there were a few more things going on later in the evening, but nothing seemed to be ‘gearing up’ for a big finale or anything.

It may have been made a bit less interesting by the fact that from about 3pm the main road was cordoned off in the middle. Lots of police and military. It seemed that a big dignitary was visiting and people lined the streets waiting for them. For hours. Some shops had been selected for a visit and they were all standing and waiting for the visit. For hours. We thought it was probably someone big like the king (given the numbers of people patiently waiting) – from reading papers the following day I think it was the Princess. It did mean much of the road was almost inaccessible for much of the day, though, and the crowd was packed to the sides of the road.

Still, it was good to see Chinese New Year celebrated in a big way. We did see a large group of Chinese Lions and Dragons perform the day before in one of the city squares, which was cool (that’s where the photo is from).

More Wats, more Buddhas and more traffic over the following days. I visited a snake farm – not yet having seen a snake in the wild here, I thought I’d get my fix at a educational, breeding and anti-venom facility nearby. Excellent place to visit, despite getting in on the act and increasing their fees by 300% over the last few years (grrrr!).

We wanted to see a Thai film (with English subtitles) but couldn’t find one. So we saw a Chinese one instead – “Confucius”. I thought it was good, Emma thought it was rubbish. You can see why we get along so well. Getting used to standing up for the National Anthem now – they play it before every film, and at 6pm in all the parks. Respect for the King is absolute here – I cant help thinking the place will go into a major period of mourning when he dies (he’s about 80 years old) – plus it will cost the country a fortune to replace all the pictures of him that adorn every single shop and main road in the country (seemingly) – I’m even looking at one now at the front of our bus. Not seen so much adoration for one man. Not since my leaving do at work anyway ;-)

India visa sorted (finally) so we’re leaving Bangkok for Sukothai up north. Phew!

Emma has pointed out that I sound really fed up in this post. Well, rest assured, I’m not.