Bangkok gets a bad rep, I think. We went out of necessity, and booked 3 nights which seemed generous. I was expecting something smelly, polluted, unrelentingly busy and horribly tourist-ised (a bit like Kuala Lumpur, which we did not much enjoy on a previous trip, or Mumbai). Not really. At this time of year it's like London on a hot August day, which is tolerable, the cars are mostly new so neither badly polluted nor as congested as I'd expected, and there is clearly a booming trade in Western tourists (contrast with the half dozen white faces we saw in Mumbai) without being in-your-face. We had a great time, probably left too soon, and didn't get time to blog anything while we were there so we must have been having fun.
We arrived on the King's birthday, which seemed an auspicious sign - he's 82 and checked out of hospital the day before so, like Tendulkar, this could be his last appearance! They either genuinely love him or are told to because the celebrations go on for ages and everyone seems involved - more than half the locals are wearing pink because it's supposed to be good for his health. Note to the Queen: maybe if you only had one birthday, people would care more.
I spent ages trying to find a good hotel here and came up trumps with the Centrepoint Silom - the only location that is handy for both the new Skytrain and the riverboats (which you need to get to the old part of town), river view, kitchen and a handy washing machine, gym and pool, free wifi, for less than 40 quid. Very pleased. Only downside was that it was above a department store (and one hotel entrance was by the watches and handbags), but Lilly seemed sated from Dubai's malls so disaster averted.
Since we'd had next to no sleep on our night flight we took it easy the first day - lunch, stroll in the very tranquil park, surprisingly brief pop-in to a mall. We kicked into proper tourist mode the next day.
I capped the day with a swim in the outdoor pool on the eighth floor, Bangkok skyscrapers around me and a few fireworks going off overhead for the King. Very relaxing.
Next day: we jumped on the boat bus first (ignore the expensive tour buses), then a dedicated river-crosser to get to the stunning Wat [temple] Arun.
Then a giant reclining buddha and other fine decorative temple features at Wat Pho:
Lilly can't believe it's not (reclining) buddha
The King's "propitious" birthday backfired slightly as much of the royal palace grounds were closed, but the main fancy-pants temple areas were still open and, by way of compensation, free, so we still saw Wat Phra Kaew and the Emerald Buddha (he's actually tiny and jade), along with some stunning murals, some OTT gold and a model of our next destination Angkor Wat (which kind of makes sense given the shared history of Thailand and Cambodia but I still found it a bit strange).
Lunch on the famous backpacker haunt Khao San Road, which really is over-touristy - glad we didn't bother staying there (though we did spot a rip-off of my legendary men-from-boys-sorting Space Invaders T-shirt so not a total waste).
Just time for a couple more temples, one with a Giant Swing (the seat and ropes appeared to be missing so I'd be annoyed if I'd bought it at Homebase) and sunset on the Golden Mound, which I think is the only hill - albeit artificial - in Bangkok.
Part of this swing seems to be missing...
Taxi drivers in Bangkok obey one universal law, i.e. they speak less English than anyone else in town*, can't read a map and don't know where anything is. Somehow we managed to direct ours to Tawandang German Brewery, which is rather brilliantly shaped like a beer barrel (visitors should note that there are now two branches and I think only the Rama III is shaped like a barrel, so don't kick yourself - imagine how cross you'd be to find yourself in a non-barrel-shaped German brewery). When we got near enough for our destination to be obvious, the taxi driver beamed and let out his one word of English: "Beer!" As if all we needed to do on the far side of town was say this word and we would have been brought here.
This was a great place . It is huge, full of locals, had 3 bands playing a mix of Thai songs and, um, American soft rock (one of the girls did a great Karen Carpenter impression) and a juggler/unicyclist/knife-thrower who managed to mess up each part of his act once but was phenomenally good at pecking thrown fruit out of the air with a skewer in his teeth while unicycling. They say that everyone has one thing they are great at if only they can discover it. I would love to know how he discovered this. Anyway, good food, decent beer, good atmosphere, nutty neighbours: first a woman who turned up with half a bottle of Johnnie Walker, paid the corkage, bought some mixers, ate a meal and then moved on. Then a group of three locals, one of whom persisted in trying to start conversations with me even though the only common ground we could reach was frequently clicking glasses and toasting the King. I think his name was Alan, unless that's Thai for "Can you believe we're drinking German beer in a giant barrel in Bangkok?"
* I'm not for a minute suggesting that everyone should have to speak my language, but it would surely be handy for taxi drivers to learn a tiny bit.
Next day we headed over to Muang Boran Ancient City, which is a nutty concept: a huge stretch of land (shaped like Thailand I think) filled with large-scale recreations of - or in some cases moved-and-repaired originals of - Thailand's historic buildings. You get free bike hire (or you can get a golf cart or drive a car), which is handy since the place is huge.
Some of these buildings are vast and stunning. One model temple recreates the hill it was on top of. There's a village and a floating market. (NB this is the type of place where, in England, you'd get ripped off for everything because you're trapped. We had a great lunch in the floating market for two quid. Lilly's was cooked on a tiny boat.)
I guess they didn't quite have the finest craftsmen in the land working on these reproductions, so up really close some are only ok (some of them have lovely detail), but from 5 yards or more most of them look amazing. A great way to sample old Thai architecture if you don't have time to tour the country. (A practical tip: you can have an exiciting adventure getting here via Skytrain, bus and minibus and it costs very little and you get a gold star for effort. But we were in a hurry on the way back so got a taxi for only £5-6. Probably the better option.)
Lilly wanted to check out a proper floating market (lots of little boats moored together I think) and we also wanted to try out the high speed long tailed boats on the river. I seem to recall thinking around this time that we hadn't been ripped off for anything yet.
We found a chap who quoted us 20 quid to go to a market, shop for an hour, and get brought back. Expensive by local standards but I don't know the going rate and I'm willing to pay a tenner each. So we pay, he hands us over to someone else, that guy hails a boat, and we're off - at a decent high speed. Great fun.
When we turn into the side canals a woman pulls up in her little boat, asks if we're heading for the floating market, and tries to sell us tat. No thanks. Brilliantly, she lifts off the top layer of tat to reveal a cooler and asks if we'd like a cold beer. Well, yes I would, and a very nice aid to river touring it is.
Unfortunately this is as close as we get to a floating market. We get driven (if that's the word) around canals for 40 minutes, it's great fun, we see shacks and desirable river-side property, temples and stalls, but by the time we hit the main river by Wat Arun with the sun about to set we realise that we ain't going to a market. I'm not even sure if they're on during the week. The driver speaks no English and the vendor has vanished. But we really enjoyed it - in my case at least more than we would have enjoyed a market - so we're happy.
In the evening Lilly gets a Thai massage, and we have dinner at a little street cafe. Very pleasant. Wish we'd stayed longer and/or seen more of Thailand. But tomorrow we're off to Angkor, so pretty excited.
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