Category: Photography

If you’re interested, read part one and two.

After Wat Pho, we made way to the Bangkok National Museum while the day was still relatively bright and almost cheery. We passed along several landmarks (tag). One of them was the palace:

I wonder if those yellow stuff are actually gold. I’d presume they are. This looks inside the inner wall of the palace:

Somewhere nearby, there’s a large open space, much like the Mall in Washington D.C. There’s a university there too and there were many monks, as you can see:

After all these and a few other photos, we reached the museum.

The museum has a large compound and the galleries are scattered all over the place. Despite that fact, we had mere two hours and so, we managed to roam a gallery. There were 20 galleries there and one of the galleries that I wish I had visited is the Srivijayan gallery.

I’ve always feel that it’s wrong for Malaysians to think the Sultanate of Malacca was the most prominent civilization in our history. The truth is, Srivijaya was far larger and lasted much longer than Malacca. I strongly feel Malaysian history book should give Srivijaya more credit instead of over glorifying Malacca. Perhaps, the reason why Srivijaya sat in the shadow of Malacca these days is because Srivijaya was a Hindu kingdom while Malacca was Muslim. I’d imagine many conservatives in Malaysia hated that idea. I believe it’s just history and it doesn’t matter what the religion of any kingdom. Regardless of the religions of Srivijaya, the empire deserves more befitting treatment than it currently receives. It’s part of our history and it’s important we all know it, regardless what these conservatives think. If the country falls to them, they would rewrite our history, destroy our culture like they’re doing in Kelantan and turn us all into Arabs.

There are no photo from the museum. Unlike museums in the United States and Malaysia, photography is forbidden in this particular museum complex.

While I was visiting the Metropolitan Museum in New York, I frequently found myself being left behind by my friends; museums usually fascinate me. That didn’t happen in the Thai museum because I am kind of familiar with most of the subjects that were on display. Nevertheless, it was still taxing. I felt like I was going to lose my legs after we were done with the museum.

When we got out of the museum, which was around 17:30, the bright sunny day had into a gloomy one. It even rained for awhile though it wasn’t too bad. What was bad was the fact we didn’t know where to go and that we were very hungry. My dietary restriction didn’t make the situation any easier. The saddest part was, we opted for McDonald’s. I call it sad because I don’t really like fast food. Well, I like fast food but I have issues with large fast food chains.

Anyway, we asked around for the nearest McDonald’s and three girls directed us to Khao San. We didn’t know the name of the place actually but when we got there, it was like Thai version of Malaysian Petaling Street or Chow Kit Street.

I later found out off the net that Khao San is a backpackers’ haven. The next I visit Bangkok, I know where I’d want to stay. I’ll bring my backpack too just to blend in. While at Khao San, we didn’t get McDonald’s but instead, we got falafel. That was the first time I tasted falafel since I returned to Malaysia from the United States.

And yeah, we did meet Ronald McDonald despite not buying anything from him.

While Khao San looks dirty, it isn’t too bad. Moreover, there are some cool
restaurants with great atmosphere:

Another one:

Some are hidden inside an alley:

Another one:

The distance between the museum and Khao San isn’t too demanding to traverse. What made it challenging was crossing the road. As mentioned earlier, crossing the street in Bangkok isn’t the best of all hobbies. We had to cross something like a busy six or eight-lane street. If jaywalking is an offense in Bangkok, we should be punished with life sentence with no possibility of parole. We came out alive. I suppose living in Kuala Lumpur does teach you one or two things about crossing a seemingly “un-crossable” street.

Once done with Khao San, we headed for the Democracy Monument. I however have a few deadlines tomorrow. Therefore, I’ll stop here for now.

Read part 2 at [841] Of the second day in Bangkok, Thailand.

I’ve been to a number of huge cities in the world and my current favorite is San Francisco. After visiting Bangkok, I came very close to reevaluate my preference. While Bangkok failed to unseat San Francisco, I’m content to put Bangkok within my top five major cities that I’ve visited and I love list (tag).

By the time my airplane approached Bangkok, the sun had already set. In the horizon, darkness was fought by light and I could see light everywhere as far as the window by side allowed me to. The sensation reminded me of my approach to Los Angeles. While Bangkok is not as large as Los Angeles, it was an impressive show nonetheless. Upon landing at Don Mueang, I was pumped up as I’m usually do whenever I get to a new place, ever ready to explore new culture and open up my mind to new things.

The airport isn’t as imposing as the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and it does look old. I’m not sure how the old airport is coming up against the traffic but since the new Suvarnabhumi International Airport due to open up this year, I dare say Don Muang facilities are being exhausted to the limit.

After my friends and I had gathered all our stuff, we headed straight to our place at Ratchadapisek by cab. It didn’t take too long to drive from the airport to Ratchadapisek (it was cheap too). I was caught by surpise to see how busy the streets at the airport are. The airport is located quite near to the city – much nearer than how former international airport at Subang was to Kuala Lumpur. And since it was dark, all I could see is the highway and pretty much similar to those within the Klang Valley. So, the journey to our hotel was uneventful.

Once we got to the hotel, we did the usual stuff – unpacking. Things were made a tad harder since some of my travelling mates brought their golf sets. I pity the porter.

Our rooms were alright; nothing to shout of except for the fact that there is a glass shield separating the bedroom with the bathroom. If I were with a girl, I probably wouldn’t mind with that see-through effect. But there was no member of the opposite sex and exposing myself to people of the same gender is not my idea of fun. Thank goodness for the wooden shader!

There were five of us and we had two rooms side by side for us. The connecting door between the two rooms were opened and so, it was, for me at least, felt like an upscale dorm – that just brings up old memory.

After settling down, it was time for dinner. We wanted to eat at somewhere near and cheap and so we got a cab and told the drive just what we wanted – near and cheap. I’m not sure what that Thais think and near and cheap but the ride felt like an hour and we ended up eating a BHT 4,000 dinner. That my friend is MYR 400; approximately USD 115. We could have cheaper dinner at a hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur for crying out loud! That asides, The tom yam was superb and dinner as a whole was delicious. Painfully delicious. Bottomline is that we were probably screwed by the driver. A friend of my told us that we shouldn’t be too trustful of Thais in certain industries but his advice came a little bit too late. But it’s a lesson to remember. We spent the time back cursing the driver. But it was late and it wasn’t long before we had some shut eyes.

I only woke up around 10 in the morning. In retrospect, I wish I had woken up earlier. This is because I only left my room at Ratchadapisek after 11 and later discovered I really hadn’t too much time to spend at Bangkok. But I did go out and took a ride to downtown Bangkok via its trains.

Anyway, three left for a golf game at 11 while the two – me and a friend – decided to treat ourselves with Bangkok. I still don’t understand why people play a game as lame as golf. Even cricket, that boring game, has some excitement in it. Golf? Why? Only the devil knows.

Back to our main story, Bangkok’s transit system is somewhat better than Kuala Lumpur though it didn’t look as extensive as the latter. I said somewhat better because the train is wider than the widest carriage available within the KL transit system. Still, just like KL, their system isn’t too integrated, just like ours.

This is how their “skytrain” looks like:

Since this was our first time in Bangkok, we really had no idea where we wanted to go. I suggested that we go to Menam Chao Phraya and see what needed to be done over there. There was some more discussion among us as we further improvised our already improvised plan. But that wasn’t until we met a cute – I mean, really god damn cute! – girl trying to help us with cute accent and helplessly broken English. As she was trying to explain to us how to get to a place we wanted to go, I didn’t hear anything she was saying. I was simply entralled by her cute. She spoke terrible English anyway and I probably wouldn’t get anything for her instruction. I’m not sure if my friend really was paying attention to the girl instruction too but regardless of that, we did survive our journey rather well on our own.

Apart from cute, I’m impressed at how she was really went out of her way to help us despite having trouble conversing in English. She was really sincerely trying to help us. I soon found out that Thais in general are helpful and extremely polite to strangers. Or at least to tourists.

Alrighty. Enough about the girl. Let’s rewind a bit and start over.

The adventure started just after 11 in the morning at Ratchadapisek – obviously – and we rode two trains to get to a place called Siam in the middle of Bangkok. Once we got off the train, we were still pretty much clueless though it did seem that Siam was Kuala Lumpur’s Bukit Bintang, Singapore’s Orchard Road, Chicago’s Michigan Avenue or New York’s 5th Avenue. But we were uninterested in shopping and were more into sightseeing. I personally was more interested in improving photography skill. So, from there, we walked to the National Stadium, something to see something interesting. I, at least did witness the city’s notorious congestion.

Realizing that there was nothing attractive – save the angels! – along this stretch of road and still clueless, we reached for a map and went straight to the great Menam Chao Phraya, one of the greatest rivers in Southeast Asia. The train didn’t stop immediate by the river but rather, we had to walk from Saphan Taksin station to the river.

Like I said earlier, Bangkok is a dirty city. One of the reasons why I say Bangkok is a dirty city is the fact that many of its canals or khlongs are being left uncared for. The water in it is stangant and murky; cholera is probably common enough occurance to the unwary. In spite of that, there were people fishing!

This is one of the khlongs in Bangkok though it isn’t exactly the khlong I’m referring to:

Nevertheless, this particular klong is still unsightly. I like the effect of still water but I wouldn’t take a dip in that thing.

The walk from the station to the river was a short one. The Central Pier greeted us upon arrival. I wasn’t impress by the condition of the pier but neither had I expected anything grand. Once Menam Chao Phraya was before us, we decided to go up and down the river by boat. And so, we hastily got on a boat without asking anybody, ignoring any notice board hung somewhere, if it had existed. If it were written in English.