Storyline: Home to home westward
…or was it “One night in Bangkok”. Remember that song from the 80s? It was rather popular in Europe, methinks.
OK we were more than one day in Bangkok. However, the intensity of this one-day typifies our time in the city. It was our second full day, but since we had four more later on at the conclusion of our trip, we were not in a hurry to visit anything in particular.
And so that day started slow. Still not quite adapted to Bangkok’s heat combined with high air pollution, noise and heavy traffic we decided we’d explore the city a bit and try to walk to Chinatown and beyond if we could. We could always take the MRT (their metro) back to Lumphini Park, which is about half an hour walking from home base. We walked to Chit Lom station of the BTS (Bangkok Transit System), also known as Skytrain. Just to know how it works, we took the train for one stop to Siam station. Siam is known as the shopping mecca of Bangkok.
Walking into a mall from the train, I pulled out my map to determine the direction we had to take from there. A guy approached us and with quite good English asked us where we would like to go. “We just want to see which street is best to take for Chinatown” we said. “It is far, you can’t walk to there” he said. Well, have we not heard this millions of times in Malaysia? “It’s OK, we can walk.” “No, no it is too far. Where are you from?” “Canada.” “Follow me. I’ll show you” and off he went up and down escalators and walkways through the mall with us following him through thick crowds. “I work here, in the bank, in IT” We chatted walking. It was his lunch break. We eventually got to the right exit and he showed us the direction we’d have to walk. “It is far, take a tuk-tuk… Do you want me to call it for you.?” No, thank you we’ll walk. And off we went down the street while the guy headed back to his office.
We began walking down the street, sweat pouring out in no time. At an intersection I pulled the map out again. It didn’t take long and a lady approached us: “Where you going?” We pointed towards China town. We expected the “You can’t walk… too far”, but she had other ideas. And she also worked nearby in a bank…in IT. She took the map and circled an area which was on the way to our intended destination. “It is Friday, the last day of sales. There are Thai clothes outlets. Really good and inexpensive. You should check it.” She also offered to call us a tuk-tuk. We politely declined but headed the direction of the sales. A few steps later, with a map still in hand, a third person stopped us: “where are you going?” He also presented himself as working at a bank. You guessed it…in IT. “Thank you, we know where we are going. Other people helped us already” … “OK, sorry to waste your time” and off he went minding his business. “Put this map away or we’d spend the day here”, Alex said, as we continued down the street.
We walked on the nice and wide Phayathai Rd, between University buildings with white and yellow bunting strung along the fences. We’d seen this on many walls and fences. Much later in Chiang Rai our tour driver would tell us that this will be for 4 months to celebrate the new king’s coronation. All government buildings have it and the government workers wear yellow uniforms. That explained it.
We reached the area the lady circled but by that time we had lost the desire to look for sales. We had a refreshment stop in a café at the corner. Those watermelon juices, smoothies and shakes were a life saver during our stay in Thailand! We then continued on a major road Rama IV with mainly me taking photos of small alleys and street vendors. I took a few photos of the train station across from a busy intersection and we crossed one of the busy streets getting ready to cross a canal.
As we stepped onto the bridge sidewalk, I poked my head into a tiny alley we’d just crossed, intending to take a photo of the many tuk-tuks parked there. A guy immediately showed up and with pretty good English asked where we were going. So far, our experience with talking to locals this day had been positive, so we told him. “No, you can’t go there. It’s far”, he said at first. “We can walk”, was our answer. “We’ve walked from here”, and we showed him the Siam BTS station on our map. He was surprised, but not for long. He told us he was from Penang, visiting his mother in Bangkok. We chatted a bit and he insisted that it was dangerous to walk there, crossing out all the possible ways for us to get to the river (our final destination for the day). Take a tuk-tuk. He will drive you to here, and he circled one of the official boat stops.
You can take a boat on the canals from there, go to Wat Arun, then take a ferry back across the river and visit Wat Pho.
We knew very well we could walk all the way to there. We knew he was bullshitting us with “it is dangerous, here, here and here”, building a danger zone fence. However, it was getting late and we would not be able to do a boat tour, visit Wat Arun and then cross the river with a ferry and visit Wat Pho. At that point we knew it was a hard sell, but we didn’t sense any danger and decided to give it a try. After all we didn’t have to take a boat, we could just go to the dock and decide there. For 40 baht (less than $2) we’d advance in our itinerary. So off we went on our first tuk-tuk ride.
You know me and boats – I was quite negative about taking any of those. I told the guys that were selling the boat tours that I have motion sickness. I told them literally, I am afraid. But as I looked to Alex, I knew he wanted to do it. “It is up to you”, he said, “I’d do it”. We negotiated the price down and as we didn’t have enough cash, we paid by credit card.
They told the boat driver to take it slow so I don’t get sick. “Most of the trip will be in canal with calm water”, they assured me. And it was. The driver was very careful, navigated slowly and we enjoyed an hour’s ride on a canal, me taking photos and Alex taking videos with his phone.
For some reason he hadn’t taken his camera this day (Alex – I was tired. It was hot and I wasn’t motivated to lug the camera along. Besides, I wanted to get a feeling of the safety of the city first).
The boatman was pointing out places and things that might be of interest,
like monitor lizards, iguanas, birds and temples. He stopped at a place that was teeming with of fish and gave Alex a bag of bread with – “feed fish, feed”
The fish were jumping out of the water fighting for the bread as I was trying to take some photos of it. With the bread finished, we continued down the canal.
As we reached a floating market, a boat came alongside and the guy in it tried to sell us some cheap tourist stuff. We didn’t want any trinkets. So he tried to sell us beer. We didn’t want that either.
Not sure if it was because of this or because our hour was approaching its end, but our guy turned the boat at that point saying – “Now turning”.
We disembarked at the dock of Wat Arun, where we were unexpectedly presented with a 30-baht “landing fee”. At a little over $1, it wasn’t worth arguing over it, and we forked over the money and headed onto the shore.
We spent some time at the grounds of the Wat, but there was nowhere there to sit and eat, not a café, or anything we could find.
Alex used Mr. Google and confirmed that the best way was to take the ferry to the other side of the river. It was about 3pm and we hadn’t had lunch or much of anything since the last refreshment way back when…
There was a ferry boarding at the dock and we rushed on. This is where Alex’s phone was stolen. He has covered that part in his post.
Needless to say, after that all went blurred. We are very careful with things we carry. We’ve been to so many places and never had any problem. We don’t carry much anyway – some cash in well-protected pockets, perhaps a credit card in an underwear pocket, cameras in our hands and a phone well velcroed in an inner pocket of Alex’s trousers. If I carry a purse it is mainly to replace the little backpack Alex carries for things like Kleenex, water, raincoats or ponchos. I don’t carry a wallet there either.
Weary and disturbed by what just happened, we sat in the first café on our road and had some juices (Alex – that is, if you classify G&T and a beer as “juices”), while discussing what to do. Without a phone we only had a map in my hand, but no way to tell where we were located. So we had to use the old good fashioned approach and ask. The staff in the café showed us where we were and how to get to the MRT stop (this is where we met the guy who sent us on a boat trip). It was too far to walk, they said. Take a tuk-tuk. No way. We would walk. And so we did, looking at the name of the streets and trying to locate them on the map that was lacking the details of the area. We periodically stopped and asked for directions. Funny, no one approached us with “Where you go?”. There were many jewelry stores around and the sales people looked at us with horror at first, entering their store, apparently ignoring the guards and going right up to them with our map. It would have been fun to watch if it wasn’t for our distress. After some trial and error, we eventually reached Hua Lamphong MRT station. Then we walked another half an hour or so from Silom station to home, where our hosts, all packed and ready for their early morning departure the next day, were waiting for us with dinner ready.
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