Bangkok, A Study in Contrasts

see all photos »

So you know that calm centered polite 'land of a thousand smiles' wistful look that everyone gets when they speak of Thailand? Well I can guarantee you they didn't get it while they were in Bangkok. This place is over the top. Boston, New York and Rome all pale in comparison.

The amount of traffic and the speed at which they travel has elevated crossing the street from a mere sport to a comedy routine. The street vendors, hawkers and food stalls make the Lower East Side look tame. This place is like Chinatown and the Mission District on steroids. And the best of all are the ‘touts’, those attractive and trustworthy chaps on the corner vying for your Baht… “You want massage? We make you happy. Very Happy….No? How about suit? We make nice suit. Very Nice … No? You hungry? We make good food.” I actually turned around and laughed. He didn’t get it. To him it was normal. Clearly the sidewalks were just an extension of the store’s square footage and while you were on their turf you were fair game.

Just how I feel after a day of shopping
see all photos »

And yet I marvel at how Bangkok is such an interesting intersection of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world countries. You can’t drink the water and you don’t even want to know about squat toilets, yet the skytrain is much more modern and way better run than Bart. You pass by neighborhoods of tin shacks where the people are heart-achingly poor, while on your way to shopping complexes that make the Mall of America seem small and strangely outdated.

There is a roaring and raucous nightlife that is driven by a combination of blatantly open prostitution and complete acceptance of alternative lifestyles (many Thais have several gay relationships throughout their lifetime and ‘lady boys’ are actually revered as being more balanced and more creative); and there are monks in their saffron robes chanting for hours at a time in the temple next door. English, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese are spoken everywhere and street side stalls carry papers from Sydney, London & Dubai. People have huge reverence for their King and a total mistrust of all of the politicians, the former Prime Minister’s previous job was as the host of a cooking show. “A cooking show, can you believe that?” a cab driver said to me. “Even Bush had more experience than that” he added with disgust.

Yes, that is a monk smoking a cigarette while haggling with a street vendor.
see all photos »

OK, so much for Bangkok. I'm off to Chaing Mai and Lily comes to join me in just 2 days. I'm sure we'll post more soon. Love.