*One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free You'll find a god in every golden cloister And if you're lucky then the god's a she I can feel an angel sliding up to me
I just up and bought a ticket to Thailand, booked a hotel and it was done. I was off to Thailand! Well, not quite that simple. I actually planned the trip based on some friends I got to know online who lived in Thailand. The full story is in the, “Thailand trips” part of my website.
Bangkok is a very interesting place and can be an eye opener for the westerner. It was for me anyway. The first thing I noticed when I left the old Don Muang airport, they have a new airport now, was the weather. I was hit in the face with a kind of tropical heat. It was 1:00am in the morning! Yeah, this was going to be my kind of place.
One of the things I saw that impacted me right away when I got to my hotel was that there were open food carts all over the place. I’ll call them vendors because, well, that’s what they are. They lined the sidewalks all up and down Sukhimvit. They were selling all kinds of food and booze to the locals. The locals at that time of night for the most part are bargirls and foreigners (Farangs) as the Thai’s call them. I have actually sat down with one buddy at one of these outside places on soi 7 and I’ll tell you something, these places are quite entertaining and friendly. I’ll write more about some of the things that go on at these outside food places in future articles. The big thing to me was that there were so many of these vendors and so many people patronizing them. I never saw anything quite like this before going to Bangkok.
As most people know or have heard about, Bangkok has horrific traffic problems. There are times when you hail a taxi, climb in and tell the driver where you are going and then sit there for 15 minutes because traffic isn’t moving. Let me rephrase something I should have mentioned first. You hail a taxi and ask him if he will go to so and so place first because sometimes, and I don’t really know why, he will say no. But let’s assume that he says yes. Now, you’ve sat in a taxi not moving for 15 minutes with the meter running. Traffic begins to move and you think, “Finally, thank God.” You ever so slowly start making your way as you get to an intersection and see, with horror, that the traffic light is red now and reads, “160” as it counts backwards, 159, 158, 157 etc. I think these timed lights were put in to help drivers and passengers a like somehow think that the time was passing more quickly? Time goes by faster if you can see the seconds slowly clicking away? Maybe, but for me it almost seems cruel.
I prefer to take the sky train if it isn’t passed 12:00 midnight. I say this because the sky train closes down after 12:00am. I’m not so sure that I understand the reason for this, but that’s the way it is. The sky train is clean and runs on a fairly regular schedule (I know these things). It has automated voice mapping that tells you what the next station will be. And it tells you in Thai and English! The weird thing is that each station has a security guard on it standing there for the sole purpose of blowing a whistle if anyone crosses over the line towards the edge of the platform. I’ve never seen this before. It may be to keep or remind passengers away from the possible danger of falling off the platform?
Running the length of a portion of Sukhimvit way up high dividing the street in the middle is the sky train. I mention this because in order to cross from one side of Sukhimvit to the other, you have a few choices to make:
1. You can cross at one of the “over passes” located here and there along Sukhimvit which go up and over the traffic.
2. You can walk to one of the few streets, like soi 4, that have a traffic light (remember those?) and wait up to what seems like 15 minutes for the light to turn green.
3. You can take your life in your hands and try to walk across Sukhimvit dodging cars, motorbikes and tuk-tuks.
Most people choose the first way, up and over. And for sure I do unless I’m at a soi with a traffic light. I do this because I’ve seen a few people clipped by cars chancing their way through traffic. Anyway, on these over passes you will many times find a poor person sitting there with a cup next to them for donations and their hands in a “wai” position. They will say nothing and kind of look up towards you and then down towards your legs. I believe they are being humble in your presents. Most times I have seen that it was either an older lady or a mother with her children on these over passes. Thailand does not to my knowledge have a social security system for the less fortunate. They depend on others to get food, money, clothes etc. You will find many of these less fortunate people on the streets as well.
Unfortunately, out of this poverty, I’ve been told, has sprung up scams. Little children that should be a sleep at 2, 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, walk up to you and cutely smile as they ask if you want to buy some flowers. Rumors are that these children work for some kind of crime organization and most of the money goes to these organizers. There are a few blind people that walk up and down the soi’s with a sighted person behind them for guidance. The blind person sings into a microphone hoping for handouts. Scam or not, I always give to these people because it is clear that they are blind. You can see their disfigured eyes. Apparently there is a lot of poverty in Bangkok, even Thailand as a whole. My point is that poverty is the same in every country; it sucks!
There are small things that can be annoying to visitors and quite possibly to Thai’s as well. One such thing is that there is so many vendors in the daytime lining the streets where you need to walk that it can be daunting to just walk a few blocks. People walk both ways and because of vendors on one side of the street and stores on the other all trying to sell you goods, you need to have patients sometimes. Whether you meet eyes with a vendor or not makes no difference, they’re still going to ask you if you want something to buy. “Hello sir, would you like buy shirt”? “Hello sir, I have special price for you.” Etc.
The tuk-tuk drivers are always asking you if you need a tuk-tuk. Ride, “Where you go? Need tuk-tuk?” They’re only trying to make a living, but hearing these same things day in and day out can get to you a little. Besides, they don’t have meters so you have to barter the price and if you’re a Farang, they may try to swindle you.
There are also these young ladies that try and get you to sign up for a possible free hotel stay the next time you are in Thailand. They try to take all of your information and e-mail address so that they can notify you if you have won. Ok fine, but whether I participate or not doesn’t seem to matter because there are these young ladies on the next street, and the next, and the next. So, you just learn to smile at them and say no thank you and keep on walking. There are other little things like these, but I’ll get to them in another article. If you want to read about scams in Thailand, here’s a link for you:
The Thai people are warm and friendly and pretty respectful. I have found that no matter what help I may have needed that a Thai person was always willing to help. And they help with a smile. They do have a way of making you feel welcome. I have been to many clubs and discos and although it happens, I haven’t seen any trouble. Most people just want to have a good time.
I always get a kick out of the way a Thai will smile at you when you speak Thai to them. At least in my case because my Thai is pretty bad. Maybe they smile because they feel sorry for me and I sound ridicules? They do seem to appreciate the effort that you put into it though. They’re always willing to correct you, of course, with a smile on their face.
All in all I like Thailand and the people. I am just pointing out some differences that I’ve noticed in Thailand compared to my country. You do tend to get a warm feeling around the Thai’s. Warm weather and warm people? Yeah, I like Thailand!
*Murray Head-one night in Babgkok