Bangkok, Thailand
5 March 2006 (Looking back to January 2)
Bei and I emerged from the airport in early January into the hot, steaming city of Bangkok, Thailand as our bodies tried to adjust after having left a considerably chillier Yunnan two hours before. We trundled our ridiculously heavy baggage (loaded with climbing gear and everything else we might need for an anticipated 7 weeks of travel) onto the taxi stand just as the big orange orb of the sun began to set behind ornate Thai rooflines visible from the elevated freeway that takes you from the airport to downtown. By the time we reached the Khao San Road area where I had stayed 10 years before it was dark but still oppressively hot and I trudged through crowds of young tourists with a tired Bei in tow trying to find my way to the guesthouse that I had frequented in 1996. The thought occurred to me, as I acknowledged the huge increase in tourist traffic during the intervening decade, that Bei and I might find ourselves sleeping in some alley. What kind of parent was I—flying into Bangkok with a 4-year old and no hotel reservation? But after a surprise encounter with a Laramie (Wyoming) friend on the street (see my February 9 post) we managed to find our guesthouse (the New Siam), which miraculously had a room available, and we settled in for a sweaty night atop clean sheets and beneath a ceiling fan that churned the hot air ineffectively.
For me, after 5 months in China, the most appealing aspect of Bangkok, aside from the opportunity to warm up my chill-blain plagued toes, was the huge variety of available food. In the one day that Bei and I spent there before heading north to Chiang Mai, I enjoyed Indian and Mexican food and a truly good western breakfast complete with toast, bacon and coffee. And the Thai food in Bangkok isn’t bad either. Imagine the culinary delights if one were to stay in a more upscale part of town.
Collectively during our time in Thailand we spent little more than a couple of days in Bangkok, but here are some photos from our outings up and down the river, to Buddhist temples and into Chinatown and Indiatown.
Khao San Road, 2006. Emerging from an airport taxi into this scene on a hot and humid Bangkok night after spending 5 months in a relatively repressed Chinese culture was, well...stimulating. And Bei and I, laden with luggage, lacked a room reservation. Miraculously, we found our way through the crowd, traversed a monastery and secured a simple but clean room at the New Siam Guesthouse in a somewhat quieter alley. I had stayed at the New Siam in 1996 when things were a wee bit less busy (though not quiet).
Khao San Road is the inevitable endpoint of "backpacker tourism." Souvenir shops multiply and specialize, restaurants devolve from local kitchens to Starbucks and everyone (including Bei) gets their hair braided or rasta-ized before heading to urban techno-bars or one of the tropical beach resorts further south. The result is a cultural microcosm found only on the travel circuit and in U.S. spring break towns. Need some beach sandals?
Or some 'Drum n Bass' CDs to burn onto your IPOD? Come to Bangkok!
Is she mocking me??!!
Along Khao San there is an opportunity every 20 meters to get your hair braided or to get pre-made dreadlocks attached with some black sticky goo that apparently provides a semi-permanent bond between the artificial hair and your head. Bei was fascinated as apparently was this little girl whose parents, like me, relented at least enough to allow braiding. I drew the line on dreadlocks though, fearing the reaction if Ellen arrived a week later to find a dreadlocked daughter with her hair mired in tar or wax or whatever the hell that stuff was.
Travel is exhausting, even for a 4-year old with seemingly boundless energy. Bei sleeps in the lobby of the New Siam as I engineer an escape to the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.
The sign (We Buy Anything) says it all in Bangkok, where I've never experienced less than 90 degree tropical heat with humidity and snow is an obscure 4-letter word. But can they sell anything? I suspect that one could make an excellent deal on skis if so inclined.
Later in our Thai stay and after Ellen's return from the U.S. the three of us explored markets near the river. Fresh seafood (not represented here) was a great treat in Thailand. In Lijiang, the fish of the day is always small and requires more calories to remove the bones than are gained by eating the 3 grams of resulting flesh. Thai fish are larger and less skeletal, in general, though dried fish (and other fauna) like these are sold everywhere.
A woman tends her wares on a Bangkok street.
A Bangkok business--open to the street as are many in a city where it never gets cold.
A scene from Arun Wat in central Bangkok. Spectacular Buddhist temples are everywhere in this huge metropolis and throughout northern and central Thailand. In the far south of the country the influence becomes Muslim.
Offerings at an altar in the Arun Wat temple complex. Unlike in China, where religion is present but not ubiquitous, in Thailand there are temples and worshippers on almost every city street and in every small village.
Even Ronald MacDonald nods to Buddhism in Thailand, as he promotes the enthusiastic eating of cows in his namesake establishment.
Bei was taken by the Buddhist faith and enjoyed making of offerings--here draping flowers over a temple statue.
But for her, temples also offer large, carpeted areas in which to run as fast as she can...
before resting.
This Buddha keeps watch under a temple thermostat.
A sleeping truck driver props his feet up on the dashboard, beneath a mirror adorned with religious paraphernalia.
Bangkok is full of surprises, like this beautifully painted flower above a sink in an otherwise stark alley leading to the water taxi dock.
Bei ascending stairs at a Bangkok temple.
A stone statue at the Arun Wat.
Monks in Thailand are everywhere and the river taxi displays signs giving seating preference to them as they make their way up and down the river.
Ellen and Bei explore the crowded Chinatown markets in Bangkok.
Pigs await the grill in Bangkok's Chinatown.
Fish processing in Chinatown.
Bird flu in Thailand? Don't worry about it!
Soup's up!
The seafood market is rich in dried fish...
and crabs.
A Bangkok train stations (one of several) where Bei and I caught the night train north to Chiang Mai for the next leg of our Thailand travels.
Bei and I emerged from the airport in early January into the hot, steaming city of Bangkok, Thailand as our bodies tried to adjust after having left a considerably chillier Yunnan two hours before. We trundled our ridiculously heavy baggage (loaded with climbing gear and everything else we might need for an anticipated 7 weeks of travel) onto the taxi stand just as the big orange orb of the sun began to set behind ornate Thai rooflines visible from the elevated freeway that takes you from the airport to downtown. By the time we reached the Khao San Road area where I had stayed 10 years before it was dark but still oppressively hot and I trudged through crowds of young tourists with a tired Bei in tow trying to find my way to the guesthouse that I had frequented in 1996. The thought occurred to me, as I acknowledged the huge increase in tourist traffic during the intervening decade, that Bei and I might find ourselves sleeping in some alley. What kind of parent was I—flying into Bangkok with a 4-year old and no hotel reservation? But after a surprise encounter with a Laramie (Wyoming) friend on the street (see my February 9 post) we managed to find our guesthouse (the New Siam), which miraculously had a room available, and we settled in for a sweaty night atop clean sheets and beneath a ceiling fan that churned the hot air ineffectively.
For me, after 5 months in China, the most appealing aspect of Bangkok, aside from the opportunity to warm up my chill-blain plagued toes, was the huge variety of available food. In the one day that Bei and I spent there before heading north to Chiang Mai, I enjoyed Indian and Mexican food and a truly good western breakfast complete with toast, bacon and coffee. And the Thai food in Bangkok isn’t bad either. Imagine the culinary delights if one were to stay in a more upscale part of town.
Collectively during our time in Thailand we spent little more than a couple of days in Bangkok, but here are some photos from our outings up and down the river, to Buddhist temples and into Chinatown and Indiatown.
Khao San Road, 2006. Emerging from an airport taxi into this scene on a hot and humid Bangkok night after spending 5 months in a relatively repressed Chinese culture was, well...stimulating. And Bei and I, laden with luggage, lacked a room reservation. Miraculously, we found our way through the crowd, traversed a monastery and secured a simple but clean room at the New Siam Guesthouse in a somewhat quieter alley. I had stayed at the New Siam in 1996 when things were a wee bit less busy (though not quiet).
Khao San Road is the inevitable endpoint of "backpacker tourism." Souvenir shops multiply and specialize, restaurants devolve from local kitchens to Starbucks and everyone (including Bei) gets their hair braided or rasta-ized before heading to urban techno-bars or one of the tropical beach resorts further south. The result is a cultural microcosm found only on the travel circuit and in U.S. spring break towns. Need some beach sandals?
Or some 'Drum n Bass' CDs to burn onto your IPOD? Come to Bangkok!
Is she mocking me??!!
Along Khao San there is an opportunity every 20 meters to get your hair braided or to get pre-made dreadlocks attached with some black sticky goo that apparently provides a semi-permanent bond between the artificial hair and your head. Bei was fascinated as apparently was this little girl whose parents, like me, relented at least enough to allow braiding. I drew the line on dreadlocks though, fearing the reaction if Ellen arrived a week later to find a dreadlocked daughter with her hair mired in tar or wax or whatever the hell that stuff was.
Travel is exhausting, even for a 4-year old with seemingly boundless energy. Bei sleeps in the lobby of the New Siam as I engineer an escape to the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.
The sign (We Buy Anything) says it all in Bangkok, where I've never experienced less than 90 degree tropical heat with humidity and snow is an obscure 4-letter word. But can they sell anything? I suspect that one could make an excellent deal on skis if so inclined.
Later in our Thai stay and after Ellen's return from the U.S. the three of us explored markets near the river. Fresh seafood (not represented here) was a great treat in Thailand. In Lijiang, the fish of the day is always small and requires more calories to remove the bones than are gained by eating the 3 grams of resulting flesh. Thai fish are larger and less skeletal, in general, though dried fish (and other fauna) like these are sold everywhere.
A woman tends her wares on a Bangkok street.
A Bangkok business--open to the street as are many in a city where it never gets cold.
A scene from Arun Wat in central Bangkok. Spectacular Buddhist temples are everywhere in this huge metropolis and throughout northern and central Thailand. In the far south of the country the influence becomes Muslim.
Offerings at an altar in the Arun Wat temple complex. Unlike in China, where religion is present but not ubiquitous, in Thailand there are temples and worshippers on almost every city street and in every small village.
Even Ronald MacDonald nods to Buddhism in Thailand, as he promotes the enthusiastic eating of cows in his namesake establishment.
Bei was taken by the Buddhist faith and enjoyed making of offerings--here draping flowers over a temple statue.
But for her, temples also offer large, carpeted areas in which to run as fast as she can...
before resting.
This Buddha keeps watch under a temple thermostat.
A sleeping truck driver props his feet up on the dashboard, beneath a mirror adorned with religious paraphernalia.
Bangkok is full of surprises, like this beautifully painted flower above a sink in an otherwise stark alley leading to the water taxi dock.
Bei ascending stairs at a Bangkok temple.
A stone statue at the Arun Wat.
Monks in Thailand are everywhere and the river taxi displays signs giving seating preference to them as they make their way up and down the river.
Ellen and Bei explore the crowded Chinatown markets in Bangkok.
Pigs await the grill in Bangkok's Chinatown.
Fish processing in Chinatown.
Bird flu in Thailand? Don't worry about it!
Soup's up!
The seafood market is rich in dried fish...
and crabs.
A Bangkok train stations (one of several) where Bei and I caught the night train north to Chiang Mai for the next leg of our Thailand travels.
posted by Ken, Ellen and Bei | 5:00 PM
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