Phil-San In Thailan(d) – Part 1

Prologue

Narita Airport is far. Two and a half hours by train. Which is almost half the time it takes to fly to Bangkok. Me, myself and my two rucksacks boarded the plane. The flight was pretty turbulent; the crew were basically sitting the whole time. However, I was kept amused by all the dumb Americans around me – “how can one flight have two flight numbers? Are two planes taking off at the same time from this departure gate?” and “Are all the flights to Bangkok turbulent or is it the type of plane?”. Bless them.

FNG

The taxi to Khao San Road was incredibly cheap, and I’d come to realise that everything here was. The main advice everyone told me was that the everything’s a scam, it just depends how ripped off you get. Just try and enjoy it for what it is and get a good price. Khao San Road is backpacker central; a huge stretch of guest houses, bars opening onto the streets, tattoo parlours, and clothes, pirate DVDs/Cds, jewellery and food stalls.

I felt like I was looking down on myself and compared to everyone else, I was so obviously new. I was clean and wide-eyed. I headed for the guest house I booked online. It was £25 for the night, which isn’t bad in relation to other countries but for budget living, it was a lot. Still, arriving at midnight, it was a safe option compared to turning up homeless. The Buddy Lodge ended up being the nicest boutique hotel on Khao San. The room was huge, had MTV, ensuite bathroom and air-con.



I wandered around for an hour or two. I tried Pad Thai – a street vendor specialty of noodles, stir-fry veg and chillies with plenty of toppings and sauces to go on top. Amazing. Especially good with sugar. And for price comparison, 20 baht, which works out at about 30p; 70 baht to the pound. I chatted to a few Thais – who generally have exceptional English skills, their main trade being tourism - and people-watched for a while. All nations were there, especially a lot of Germans and Scandinavians. And compared to Japan, I was overwhelmed with the amount of people with blonde hair. I can’t remember that many people in England being blonde. Maybe I’m forgetting or maybe it was the Scandinavians.

Thailand is two hours behind Japan, and six ahead of England, so it was about 4am Japan time by the time I went to sleep.

Roach Motel

I woke up at 6 and after breakfast, a big buffet, headed to find a cheaper place. Khao San was just rising. It was already as humid as Japan at the peak of the day and it was only going to get hotter. This was the closest I’ve ever been to the equator and for that alone, I had a layer of sweat on me the entire time. I think I even sweated when taking a shower.

I know it was a holiday but I wanted the whole masochistic experience of living rough on Khao San. The cheapest I found also had the best name – the Grand Guest House. Had to be bad. But at 150 baht a night (£2.10) it was by no uncertain terms a bargain. It also had one of the more crowded bars on Khao San the night before with a huge TV playing pirated films. Hostel was one of them – always reassuring. The room was shocking, and can best be described by Alex Garland in ‘The Beach’ (which I did read):

“Quarter of an hour later I was settling into a room that was a little larger than a double bed… One wall was concrete, the others were formica and bare. They moved when I touched them. I had the feeling that if I leaned against one it would fall over and maybe hit another, and all the walls would collapse like dominoes. Just short of the ceiling, the walls stopped, and across the space was a strip of metal mosquito netting. The netting almost upheld the illusion of being in a confined, personal area, until I lay down on my bed. As soon as I relaxed, I began to hear cockroaches scuttling around in the other rooms… On the ceiling was a fan, strong enough on full setting to stir the air.”

I was living my favourite book. I had arrived!

Wat’s That?

A “Wat” in Thai means a temple, which can lead to hilarious play-on-words, such as the above. Well, I tried.



My first day was spent exploring the temples and palaces of Bangkok. After passing the democracy monument – four angel wings in a circle, and now a popular spot for protests and demonstrations – the first place I visited was Wat Saket; positioned high on an artificial hill and overlooking the city. At the summit is the Golden Mount. Sadly, perspective is difficult to capture on camera, but take my word that it was massive.




I passed the Giant Swing – where, during the Hindu Brahman festival, participants would swing in ever higher arcs to reach a bag of gold, and many would die in the process.



The route took me down towards the river and Chinatown. Bangkok was not the nicest of cities to walk around. Every five minutes, a man would approach and begin the conversation ‘Where are you from?’ and proceed to tell you that everything is closed until 1pm due to a factory problem and that he can show you a good sight. However, all he is trying is to get you in his taxi or tuk-tuk (which spurt out blue smoke randomly) and take you to a jeweller shop to be ripped off. Once or twice is fine, but every five minutes became extremely irritating. I normally spouted off in Japanese and confused them (a good trick I learnt around Europe, having travelled with someone that spoke Welsh).



The river bank was lined with markets, piles and piles of food and extreme poverty. But people looked content, and that’s the main thing I realised about the Thais. There is so much gold and the Kingdom is not bad off, but for the average citizen, they have next to nothing yet don’t complain about it. They also wear a lot of orange – the colour for purity I was told.



Gold… You’re Indestructible



A few roads down and I came to Wat Pho, the oldest and largest Wat in Bangkok. The main attraction here was the reclining Buddha, at a staggering 46m long and 15m high, which illustrates the passing of the Buddha into nirvana. The feet were incredible, with Mother-of-Pearls at the centre and the 108 characteristics of a Buddha decorating them. If you watch LOST, this is where the all important 108 reference comes from.



Afterwards, I circled the Palace walls and came to Wat Phra Kaew/Grand Palace.



An interesting point is that nothing sounds like how you’d expect it to. In Japanese, everything is phonetic, but here emphasis and stress is seemingly random. The place was nothing other than gleaming; gold whichever way you turned. At the centre is the Emerald Buddha, but you’re not allowed cameras near that area. In fact, one Japanese man took a photo, a Thai guard ran over and smacked him on the head.






This ties in nicely with the two big no-no’s in Thai etiquette. Firstly, the head is the most revered part of the body, being the highest and the feet the lowest. Thai girls in bars will flirt and pinch and slap you but they will never go near to your head. So the guard smacking him there showed how big a deal it was. Secondly, it is pretty much illegal to disrespect the King. The Prime Minister gave a diplomatic answer about something the King had done recently and according to some Thais, this wasn’t good enough. The King is extremely respected. I was told that he’s the longest reigning monarch ever, at 60 years or so. I’m not sure how true this is, but the obvious affection from his citizens was overwhelming. Every road had a display to him.



It’s approaching Buddhist Lent, so at the main park by the palace, Sanam Luang – oblong shaped – Buddhists were setting up stalls. It was like a huge arts and crafts workshop – framing, curtains, calligraphy and so on. Some stalls were further along than others. The strangest thing was that every other stall was in honour of Buddhism and the others were for the King. In this manner, it seemed like a very strange boundary was being crossed and the King is seen as god-like. The other funny thing is that the Buddhists – and there are literally hundreds walking around – were all on phones or smoking. Well, it made me laugh.



I wasn’t sure that the Palace impressed me. I found it strange how much wealth was there yet how poor the country was on a whole. It seemed very skewed and, talking to other travellers, they all agreed.

I took a river boat (for 3 baht – 5p!) across the river to Wat Arun. Named after the Indian god of dawn – Aruna – the temple is covered in mosaic tiles, built on the 17th Century. Very impressive.

Dressed For The Part

I took the river north to a place suggested by the Lonely Planet for lunch. Covered in sweat, wearing shorts and flip-flops, I wandered in, only to find the poshest place I’d ever seen. I was the least dressed up but was made very welcome so I stayed. Strange choice for Lonely Planet. The food was amazing – Thai Green Curry, and Deep-Fried Tofu – but only came to £5. Absolute bargain. I was beginning to wonder if it was even possible to spend loads of money here. Even the people that scam you try to do so for such little amounts, you wonder if it’s worth just going along with it for the sake of 20p or so.

East Side

Strangely, all of the public transport – the Sky-Train and the Metro were over on the East side of town. The Sky-Train was a monorail system and was extremely great for sitting on to cool off – it had the most powerful air-con I’d ever felt; walking off confronted you with a wall of hot air. With all the tourist sites and cheap hotels on the West, it seemed a little strange but Bangkok can only be described as one mess of a city. There is no order to the layout, even as a tiny capital. I only saw two things of interest on the East side – Lumphini Park which was nice but nothing special and an incredible shopping mall in Siam Square: Siam Paragon. Six floors of absolute wealth and luxury, the most impressive mall I’ve ever seen. However, again, it made me realise how out of reach this was for most Thais, and it was only for the benefit of tourists and the elite of the society. The nice hotels were on this side too, so that was out of my budget.




The other main area on this side was Patpong; the red light district. One of the backpackers was telling me how he’d been conned into going into a sex show, due to the beautiful girls outside the bar, only for the show to star old women. I won’t repeat any stories on here, but imagine goldfish, a string of razors, and the grand finale involving popping balloons accurately with darts. A party trick if I ever heard one.

The girls here are beautiful, but not as beautiful as the Japanese. However, it is the male Thais that could be said by some to be beautiful - they are very effeminate looking and since I only properly noticed one ladyboy, I'm sure the others were just overwhelmingly convincing. Thailand has won Miss World twice, but Miss Queen World seven times!

I went back to Khao San and chilled for a while, chatting to other people. It was fun watching FNGs arrive and seeing how much more world-wise I had become in just a day. I also booked a trip for the next morning. The democracy monument was especially nice in the dark.