In the Village of Wild Plums

Bangkok, from a 55th floor cocktail bar

Los Angeles means 'City of Angels'. Bangkok means 'Village of Wild Plums'. As one arrives in this giant Asian metropolis one gets the distinct feeling that it's just that - nothing but a giant village. A village with sky scrapers. Something that has morphed into what it is today by random compromise rather than slow deliberate development.

The traffic is loud, the smells are strong and the people are invariably smiley. Everywhere are giant, gold lined poster homages to the much loved King, Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest serving head of state.


Self preservation

We arrived after another marathon overnight bus ride, at a very uncomfortable hour in the morning. Predictably sleep deprived from the 13 hour bumpathon, we checked into 'Takeanap', our aptly named spartan hostel. A quick shower later and we immediately headed out to one of the biggest markets in the world - the Chatuchak Market, arriving so early that most stalls hadn't opened yet. We sat in the shade and observed the setting up of the huge market over a cup of delicious Nescafe.

As one would imagine, a market of this magnitude (some 15 000 stalls squeezed into 35 acres) has lots of fascinating items for sale. As well as lots of not so fascinating items. You name it they had it. Jewellery. Vintage trucker hats. Pencil sharpeners. Carrots by the bag. Caged Labrador puppies. Caged chickens next to caged Labrador puppies. Wheel chairs. Wigs. Guns. And lots and lots of those hand carved wooden toads that make a toad-like sound when you rub their back with a wooden stick.

Every direction you look, you see a vast human sea of hardened Thai vendors and fanny-packed, tube-sock-wearing, camera-wielding tourists. Bargain hunters, fruit sellers and pickpockets overtake each other down narrow, roofed alleyways, in every nook and cranny a stainless steel cart offering quickly whipped together steamy Phad Thais, freshly grilled, glistening satay pork skewers and delicious strawberry slushies.

For all its ancient Asian heritage this signature market has now, inevitably, turned quite western. Areas the size of football pitches selling football T-shirts and zippos with naked ladies and key rings with skulls that have flames coming out of the eye sockets. Almost all of it counterfeit too. Calvin Klein, Emporio Armani and every other brand you can think of are available, at half the quality and a tenth of the price.


Public ferry boat boy

Amongst the next day's list of attractions, we visited Khao San Road, the infamous backpacker street made made even more infamous by Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach. Think Leicester Square but worse. Like a bad headache that despite lots of head ache tablets still lingers in your head. Khao San Road is where clusters of newly arrived, wide eyed gap year students and letchy old vendors mingle in a stink of cheap alcohol and cheap perfume. After declining countless unsubtle alleyway offers of:

'Psst, Ping Pong Show...' we made our escape. Sorry buddy. No table tennis tonight.

Yesterday we explored some more of Bangkok, with the help of a tuk tuk driver clearly trying to break the Thai land speed record. He whizzed us through the city in his souped up tuk tuk (they're all fast here), to wait for us at several serene Buddhist temples. Then, as it goes here, he took us to a number of 'recommended' retails shops, so he could get his pre arranged cut back for bringing in punters. As we got to see quite a bit of the city we obliged.


View from Sky train

In the afternoon we took advantage of the many inexpensive tailors, and Sami got measured up for a nice dark brown hand made suit with funky blue lining. And a baby blue shirt to boot. Then we had some reflexology to care for our hard working feet.


Dapper Dude

In the evening we visited the Bangkok Chess Club at the Bull's Head pub, where Sami came fourth in a blitz tournament of nine rounds. Then we took the express elevator up the 55 floors of the State Towers to the famous Breeze Bar, where, over a Mojito and a Margarita, we gazed at the huge city scape of Bangkok at night. A cautious security guard watched nervously as Mere took some great long exposure night shots from the very edge of the railing.

Overall, Bangkok has been fascinating. An real eye opener of how strangely well organised chaos can be. Despite constant traffic jams, beggars and broken pavements, it's a highly enjoyable place. After all, when visiting a city of 10 million people and 120 000 stray dogs perhaps one cannot have too high demands on functionality and cleanliness.

Tonight we'll take the 14 hour train straight north, to Chiang Mai, the biggest city of the north of Thailand. That, hopefully, will be our gateway to Laos.


The Golden One