One Week in Bangkok

Bangkok is a city that grows on you. I really disliked it at first...or, rather, just thought "here is another Asian mega city"...with an extra dose of prostitution & sex tourism thrown in for good measure.

The main tourist area is Khao San Road which is just wall to wall stalls of t-shirts (same same but different), fishermen pants, knock off DVDs and the like. I decided not to stay there but did visit - once I got my fill of beet red English backpackers and flashbacks to Kathmandu I left. Silom, the area I stayed in, was a strange mix of mid range hotels plus my backpacker hostel and I suppose is best known for its proximity to the Patpong area and corresponding ping pong shows (don't Google that at work). It would be fair to say that my hostel oversold its location on the website.

Walking around Friday and Saturday I just thought...really...I do not want to be here longer than I have to. The place struck me as unnecessarily expensive (200 baht for mango sticky rice!!) and lacking of character. It just didn't hold a lot of appeal for me, but as I was arranging a Vietnamese visa and getting things sorted to head off again I needed to pause there.

Strangely though Bangkok started to grow on me, particularly as I watched the sun set from the 64th floor (open air!) Skybar. Walking around the temples on Sunday I began to acquire an appreciation for the place. It is possible to meet Thais in Bangkok that do not want to sell you a tuk tuk ride or an evening with a prostitute. Street food is still cheap at $1 ish for a plate of fried noodles. The city is modern and the infrastructure is really quite good all things considered.

The last evening I went with a friend to a street fest with food & horrendous Asian pop music, plus things like kickboxing exhibitions (I can now say I've seen two 9 year olds beat the shi*t out of each other). It was a great evening wandering around watching locals have a night out, and what I noticed is that to decorate for the street festival, the median strips were practically paved with orchids & other tropical flowers. The Thais really do like to make things beautiful.

(And then we went down the Patpong street to be handed menus that we initially thought were the names of performers but soon worked out it was a list of their performers tricks: ping pong, banana, chopsticks, and...I *really* don't want to know...razorblades)