[838] Of first and second day in Bangkok, Thailand

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.