Exploring Bangkok

My travel into Bangkok was quick and fairly uneventful. It began with a morning boat trip to Chumphon, a shorter distance than my route out to the island, and on a significantly faster boat. After about 2 hours the boat arrived at a transfer station where I waited for another hour before boarding one of the buses. This bus ride took much longer than the boat, but I managed to nap for quite a bit of the journey. By the time we arrived in Bangkok, it had begun to get dark, revealing beautiful views of the skyline, in particular a beautifully lit bridge. Eventually, the bus stopped on the side of the street where I stepped off and proceeded to make the short walk to my hostel through the Bangkok night. After I arrived, I found the hostel fairly empty but did manage to settle in and meet a few people, including a nice German man named Aaron who had just come down from the north of Thailand where he had been training in a Muay Thai dojo for two months and would shortly be returning home. I went out to explore the nearby backpacker mecca of Khaosan Road. After the stories I had heard, I was fairly shocked to find it significantly calmer than Phuket’s Bangla Road (this may have been related to the Songkran festival). Khaosan was, unsurprisingly, lined with street vendors, massage parlors, bars, and dispensaries. It also had lots of beautiful trees and other greenery making it quite a bit more scenic. The road curves back and forth through the city, keeping the throngs of people largely out of view from each other and allowing for little corners where it almost felt secluded. After a little exploration, I settled on a couple of food stalls to sample and returned to the hostel for a good night of rest. The next day I decided to go out into the city with a girl from the hostel named Emma, in order to visit Lumphini Park, famed in part for the presence of numerous monitor lizards. Our journey began with a walk to a nearby bus station, taking us past the victory monument and allowing me to appreciate the first of many large gilded photos of the royals, situated in the middle of the major streets. When we arrived at the bus stop, we had a long wait before the bus arrived and took us to the park.

When we arrived at the park it was instantly impressive, though the lizards were not immediately visible. We walked around the park for some time, admiring the nature juxtaposed against the looming urban backdrop. Eventually, towards the far end of the park, we spotted our first lizard swimming lazily in the water. We continued walking along the river’s edge, and somehow from this point on every turn brought a new beautiful lizard into view. We meandered through the park for a few hours, admiring the wild flora and fauna, before beginning to walk back through the streets, hoping to see more of the city before returning to the hostel. This brought us to a massive mall, spanning multiple city blocks and both sides of the street. Intrigued and eager for air conditioning, we stepped in and explored the mall for a little while. The inside was quite varied, with all sorts of shops and even a complete high-rise apartment building contained within. Eventually, we had seen enough and decided to grab some food before continuing back to the hostel, admiring the streets and canals all the way.

I had another beautiful evening walking around the city and enjoying food from bustling street stalls before eventually retiring, tired from a long day walking around in the heat. The next morning I awoke surprisingly early and was lucky enough to stumble upon a morning market, serving breakfast food and far less inundated with tourists than those in the evening. Without much language in common, I was able to request a meal from one of these stalls, and for only about $1 ended up with a full plate of freshly fried fish (they eat the bones, so I gave it a try– not too bad!) and a delicious bamboo curry over rice. This was accompanied by a house mixture of fish/soy sauce and chopped chilies that I really enjoyed. It was a delicious meal and somehow having to mime my way through ordering only helped to improve it. I was also lucky enough to be joined by another tourist, a Vietnam native named Santana. We chatted while we ate and exchanged information, along with an offer to show me around Ho Chi Minh City when I arrive there. Maybe she will pop up on this blog again! After I finished my meal and parted ways with my new friend, I began to walk around in the neighborhood near my hostel and found myself following along the sides of the Bangkok canals. The small walkways were filled to the brim with plants and local happenings, seemingly a little more off the tourist path than some of the main streets. I saw my first candid cockfight, families drying laundry, cats and dogs lounging in the early morning sun, and restaurant employees cleaning fish and breaking down meat for the day’s business. After a little exploration, I found myself at a museum concerning a king of Thailand, Rama VII or Prajahdipok. Unsure of what I would find, but interested in taking a look at the museum (and taking advantage of the AC), I stepped inside and began looking through the exhibits. The museum was almost entirely biographical, and very clearly from the perspective of loyal and passionate followers of the king. There was a whole exhibit detailing the life of his wife, and the entire rest of the museum traced the kings life from birth, to assuming the throne with little warning after the unexpected deaths of several of several of his brothers in short succession. It also discussed his status as Thailand’s last absolute monarch, and his role in the transition. Ultimately it was a fascinating glimpse into the Thai perspective on an important but long gone figure in the country’s history. After an hour or two at the museum, I continued walking around the city for a little while longer before buying a beautiful mango (maybe the best I’ve ever had) in a small side street and retiring back to my hostel for a little rest in the hottest hours of the day.

That evening Aaron and I had planned to go to a local Muay Thai fight, which seemed particularly appropriate given that it is a Thai martial art, and Aaron was particularly knowledgeable about it after his recent training. The stadium was across town from our hostel and the fight started during rush hour, so the best option for us to get there was ordering individual Grab bike drivers to take us across the city. We both ordered them through the app, and before too long my driver appeared, handed me a helmet, and I hopped on the back. I was then treated to an impressive exploration of Bangkok traffic through the eyes of an experienced rider. The amount of motorbikes in the area allows for a complete set of parallel rules and traffic flow for the bikes, including tons of lane splitting and weaving between cars in the lane. After the impressive but at times scary ride, I found myself saying goodbye to my driver at the stadium and waiting outside for Aaron as the flow of people into the stadium grew and grew. After a few minutes he arrived and we both got our tickets before entering the stadium and finding our seats. The fight itself was interesting but to me a little underwhelming. It was certainly impressive to see some clearly talented fighters, but by the end of the 4+ hour event, I found myself dozing off a little bit. That said, there were absolutely some exciting moments and it was nice to learn a little more about the sport from Aaron. When the event ended just a little before midnight, the two of us walked out onto the streets and decided to try to use public transport to return to the hostel. This took quite a bit longer than expected with a few transport stops shut down, but we eventually made it within walking distance and enjoyed a final evening stroll back to the hostel, making it to bed a little after 2 am. The next day featured more walking around the city, enjoying delicious food (rice soup and pandan cakes w/ brown sugar syrup pictured) and the beautiful views.

After another day of exploring the big city, I was still having a great time but starting to feel anxious to get out and head further north. In booking my ticket to Chiang Mai with a local travel agent, I was also convinced to go on a trekking trip that the agent claimed she could get me a discount on. Either way the price was good enough for travel and a couple days of exploring in nature outside of Chiang Mai, so I went ahead and booked the trip, excited and curious to see how it went. I tried to make the most of my last day in Bangkok before my sleeper train in the evening, but eventually the time came and I took a tuk tuk to the station before boarding the train and making my way north in a slightly-too-small train bed.