A Week With ‘The Scalenes’ I: Bangkok

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Getting from Manila to Bangkok was a real haul. In order to save money, I flew on a discount airline, Air Asia, and thus I had to fly through Kuala Lumpur, its hub. Turns out Air Asia doesn’t fly out of Manila’s regular international airport, but rather out of Clark Airport, a former Air Force base about two hours north of the city. Suffice it to say that having left Leticia’s at 5 a.m., I finally arrived at the Atlanta Hotel in Bangkok at 10 p.m. But hey, I saved about 100 bucks, and I had the luxury of taking that day for transit. And I sat next to a British guy on the plane who not only paid for my taxi to the hotel, but gave me all kinds of advice and tips about what to do for my first day, before Andre and Steve joined me.

The Atlanta is interesting – they have large signs proclaiming that they do not tolerate sex tourists, as well as coasters with various quotes from the hotel’s original owner about the hotel's rigorous standards for guest behavior. There were also these cool writing desks in the art-deco lobby, which looks right out of 1960. The pool was nice, if cold, and there were hammocks alongside it that backpackers seemed to like to crash in after a night of partying. When I was shown to my room (which was just for one night, until I could move into our three-person suite), I found a curly hair on the sheet. That was an inauspicious beginning, but I asked for a new sheet and got one, and things were definitely uphill from there.

When I got to the Atlanta I was starving, so I had some pad thai in the hotel restaurant. The waitress spotted me using my hand to sprinkle the crushed peanuts over the noodles, and she rushed over and said “No!” She then looked kind of embarrassed for having made such an outburst (Thais are reputably rather composed) and then proceeded to explain to me how to eat pad thai. You sprinkle the peanuts over the top, then squeeze a lime over the top of that, then add some condiments – a splash of a sweet soy sauce and just a tiny bit of chili powder, then use your chopsticks to mix it all together. It was delicious. Then I went to bed and got up early to embrace the first day I was truly on my own.

Friday, December 15, 2006

This was my day alone to explore the city, and it was maybe also my favorite day. The Atlanta is in the newer, more commericial, more high-rise-y part of the city, which is connected to the city centre by this modern monorail marvel called the Skytrain (which I am in love with). It is speedy and clean and there are little TV screens in the cars that sometimes play music videos. I took the Skytrain to the a dock at the southern end of the Chao Phraya River (sort of the north-south axis of Bangkok), and bought an unlimited hop on – hop off ticket so that I could use the boat as my main transport all day. It cost 100 baht (or three bucks). I rode the boat to the northernmost harbor and got off to wander around, finding an adorable jewelry store and then stumbling onto Khaosan Road, which is the street on which most backpackers stay. It has tons of booths selling sparkly flip-flops and cute knee-length flowy skirts and faux designer sunglasses. It took a ton of willpower not to spend all my baht right there. I had bought a map at the Atlanta, but sometimes I had trouble figuring out where I was on the map. I realized that the tuk-tuk drivers did not want to help me find where I was on the map, rather, they sort of vaguely gestured to a few intersections and kept pestering “Where you go?” So I learned not to take their advice on where I was, since all they wanted was a fare.

I wandered to the Democracy Monument, which was the site of Thailand’s very small version of Tiananmen Square. I walked to the tourist information bureau and booked a dance show for that night, and then peeked into one of the boxing stadiums (Thai boxing is very big – there are no real rules so its generally quite gory). I met a South Korean at the United Nations and we took pictures of each other in front of our respective country flags. I had a pigs in a blanket type thing and a chocolate ball from a bakery along a small canal that seemed to be only patronized by Thais.

After a mediocre pad thai lunch on Khaosan Road, I bargained down a tuk-tuk from 60 baht to 30 baht to take me to the boat ferry. I went to the Royal Barge Museum across the river and was directed through narrow streets dotted with small shrines and altars and filled with kids playing soccer and guys whizzing by on motorbikes, which nearly gave me a heart attack since the roads were so small. I was directed by nice expat man who teaches at an international school. The museum was very simple, eight gold-and-jewel bedecked longboats and tool around with the king when he does a royal procession down the river. The biggest boats require 55 rowers! They are very grand and beautiful. I was pretty wiped at that point, so I had a foot massage at a Let’s Go recommended place. One hour of total bliss for 250 baht, or about seven bucks. Then don’t just rub your foot. They massage it with purpose, and they massage all the way up your calf to mid-thigh, and they use lotion and oils and tools and it is just heavenly. I befriended a couple with an Australian husband and a Bangkok native wife. They gave me some good advice, and I went on to find dinner in the area of my show at the Chalermkrung National Theatre.

While I was finding my way to the theatre, I passed through the flower market, which was stunning at the particular moment I came across it. It was dusk, and there weren’t really any more tourists there, so it was just the vendors packaging up their flowers for the next day. Rows and rows and piles and piles of newspaper-wrapped bouquets filled the street, filled with roses and other flowers that I couldn’t identify. Maybe marigolds. Whatever it was, it was beautiful. A produce market adjoined it, and it seemed to me that a Thai man would drive a motorbike down the alley with a Thai woman on the back of it, and then the man would slow down and idle while the woman, still straddling the motorbike, performed the transaction – the one I saw was a few baht for a few onions. That’s pretty convenient shopping, right there.

I found dinner at the street stand with little plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk (all the furniture at these sidewalk joints seems to be for kindergarteners), so I got hot soup with noodles and wontons and scallions. It was stellar. I saw a traditional Thai dance show but was too tired to absorb most of it – the take home message was that the story was basically the Thai version of the Hindu Ramayana story. After an initial Garden-of-Eden indiscretion, Hanuman the monkey saves the wife of a high-up person in the military whose name I forget, and thus gets exalted and promoted. There were intricate masks and sparkly costumes and a lot of fluid meaningful hand gestures. I took a cab back to the Atlanta and waited for Andre to arrive…

Saturday, December 16, 2006

… which wasn’t until 2:30 a.m., when I was fast asleep. We started talking in an excited stupor about our travel plans. Not five hours later, Andre woke me up because he thought he saw a mouse high up on a wall. It turned out to be an electrical outlet. Since we were awake, we jumped into the pool, scaring some backpackers in the hammocks. We had a leisurely breakfast and decided to go to the teakwood palace, which was built around the turn of the twentieth century by Rama V (but we’ll get into the Ramas later). It is billed as the largest teakwood palace in the world, but later on Steve and Andre brought up an interesting point – are there other teakwood palaces in the world? What is our frame of reference here? We had to take off our shoes before entering the palace and we also had to rent a covering for my shoulders and also a pair of drawstring pants for Andre, who was wearing shorts. And it’s interesting that the palace isn’t even a religious building, but the Ramas just command such respect!

The mansion was uneventful, some nice rooms with a lot of photographs. The guides made a big deal out of everything in the house that was a gift from another country – the Spanish this and the British that and the Italian this and the Japanese that. Thailand has never been colonized, thanks mostly to Ramas IV and V. Rama IV was the king in Anna and the King, and Rama V was one of her students. I think that by adopting Western practices and household objects and taking initiative in foreign policy and forging diplomatic relations with the West at its own pace, Thailand was able to keep its autonomy, unlike every country adjacent to it save China (Burma/Mynamar and Malaysia were British, Laos and Cambodia French).

As we soon realized, the king is fervently revered in Thailand. The current king is Rama IX, and on December 5 he celebrated his 60^th anniversary on the throne. He is about 79 years old or so. His visage (and that of HRH [her royal highness] is EVERYWHERE. On arches over main boulevards. Framed at every dock along the river. Plastered across billboards on the sides of office buildings. Propped up next to cash registers and hotel front desks across the country. In honor of his 60^th anniversary, people all over Thailand wear this yellow polo shirt with the royal crest on the left chest. At first, I thought that everyone around me was part of this massive tour group that I wasn’t a part of, but the couple at the massage parlor set me straight. Thais wear the shirt even after December 5 has passed out of honor and devotion and love. Even when we took the train out east to the Cambodian border, rural Thais sported the yellow shirts. In this worshipful vein, at the teakwood palace there was an exhibition of Rama IX’s photography. The current Rama apparently has a passion for documenting the common folk as well as his wife. Andre and I learned from the photo captions that he shuts off the flash in order to photograph his wife in a flattering way. There were also photos of Rama IX jamming with Louis Armstrong in America. He apparently plays a mean trumpet. We joked about Thailand’s future Rama XVII and what qualities he would have.

Feeling fully acquainted with Ramas past and present, Andre and I went back to the Atlanta to meet Steve, who was, as he joked, a day late and a bag short. Over the course of five flights from South America, his luggage got lost. But we were in good spirits and happily talked a mile a minute. We chatted for awhile, then decided to go out to see if we wanted to see a Thai boxing match (Thai boxing doesn't have the rules that American boxing does -- biting and kicking permitted). We got a free peek at two sweaty men in a ring with some folding chairs around it, and decided we didn’t.

Thus began a night of misses. We passed through a bustling night market. We decided to take the MRT (the glorious SPOTLESS futuristic subway) and Skytrain to the Oriental Hotel and a rooftop bar on the second-highest building in Bangkok. We got turned away from both of those things for sandals and shorts, and felt like paupers when the Oriental called us out of their ferry boat and made us get off at this decrepit dock while the rest of the properly-dressed passengers continued along to the dock with the light-up sign and jazz music accompaniment.We bought some beers at a 7-Eleven and walked east along Silom Road (one of the main drags going east-west).

We hit up Patpong, the red light district, and, after catching sight of many scantily dressed women through not-really-closed-but-on-purpose curtains, got a free peek at one of the famed ping-pong shows. We saw a girl pop open bottles with her special place, and then decided we didn’t need to see any more of that. (But questions are still burning in my mind -- did she have a bottle opener in there? Either way, it's impressive. Also, did she need special training to do that? Who was her teacher? Do Thai women make a living teaching other women skills for these shows? Other women can throw darts that pop balloons, or project ping pong balls...) I almost bought all the seasons of Gilmore Girls on DVD for 30 bucks, and Andre and Steve bought cufflinks. A taxi home, a brief swim, and then to bed we went.

Sunday, December 17. 2006

We spent most of the day with this wonderful couple who teach at the school Andre works for in Hangzhou. Henry and Nancy and Nancy’s daughter Emma (who is a senior in college) accompanied us to the Grand Palace and the emerald Buddha, which are all on the same compound. They are the two most famous sights in Bangkok, and I know I can’t do them justice here. I’ll try to post a few photos. Let’s just say that the amount of gold-painted wood and sparkly colorful things adorning every single inch of the multi-building compound – if converted into wattage based on sheer luminescence – could probably light up New York for a week. It’s that bright and overwhelming and over the top and yet really beautiful and regal at the same time. The Royal Barge Museum, which I saw before the guys got to Bangkok, was like the Grand Palace divided by a million.

We then went to Wat Po (a wat is a temple -- what? a wat? wat? was our brilliant joke...), which is the largest wat in Bangkok. We saw a GIANT (fifty meter?) reclining golden Buddha there and wandered around the premises. Then we all had a foot massage like the one I had on my first day. We crossed the river to go to Wat Arun, a wat built to honor Rama II which is made out of shards of china, so looking at it up close is pretty cool. We had a hilarious dinner at Cabbages and Condoms with Nancy, Henry, and Emma. The restaurant promotes safe sex in Bangkok and has various things made out of condoms, like pillows and lanterns and clothing.

Quote of the night: Emma recounted a story about a bachelor party her friend attended at which a woman dropped mints into guys’ mouths using her special place. After we all wrinkled our noses contemplating this, someone said something to the effect of, “That’s gross.” Without missing a beat, Andre says: “I know. I’ve been there.” Needless to say, we laughed really hard. We successfully got into the rooftop bar and had a drink there -- the view was beautiful and i had really good watermelon juice -- and then took two tuk-tuks who raced back to the Altanta. We unsuccessfully tried to get full body massages, but “the girls were busy” at most of the places. Oh, well, maybe in Phuket. We headed to bed for a few hours of sleep before our early train.

An observation: everyone says that Thais are very mild mannered, which I guess was seen in hotel staff, but the red light district at Patpong and the one, called Nana, near our hotel, certainly weren’t at all composed. An odd contradiction.

Things I Love About Thailand: The food. It's amazing. The use of basil, peanuts, lime, noodles, and meats is just outstanding. The weather. The really snazzy temples that just glow in the sun because they are bejeweled and golden.

Things That Took Some Getting Used To: The fact that the sex trade in Thailand is so open took some getting used to. On my way from the airport that first night, I looked out the window and saw a white guy with a Thai woman walking a few paces behind him. Were they a couple? Had he hired her for the night? I want the Thai woman to make a good living economically, but is her self-confidence or her self-worth affected? Does it affect the self-evaluation of Thai women not involved in the sex trade that it is legal there? All interesting questions, and I have no answers...