I've visited a lot of cities in my life. I have also lived in a small village all of my life, so maybe I naturally clutter my thoughts with a certain bias. I remember some of these urban monstrosities... as being big and vibrant, noisy and intense, London, New York and Singapore especially so, whereas places like Wellington, Vancouver and Amsterdam felt more mellow, friendlier perhaps. I thought Cairo and Los Angeles by night both felt quite cold and eerie, juxtaposed by their more lively daytime personas, Vatican City and Jerusalem I'd describe as overbearing and ironically exploitative.
Bangkok I can only describe as "
severely confused".
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| They gotta get around some how I guess... |
I, like all backpackers, washed up on Khao Sarn Road. Often described, with what I can only suppose is heavily laden with irony, as the 'Backpackers Mecca', it is the most intense tourist trap that I have ever encountered, and I daresay it is probably unique in this world for the sheer maelstrom of activity that it offers.
Imagine a road, a slightly dilapidated road lined with cheap hostels, bars/restaurants, travel agents, gift shops, atm machines and money changers. Sounds perfect for any traveller! And indeed it would be, but let us continue.
Take this road and fill it with people from all over the world, now line road on both sides with stalls selling every bit of fake merchandise that you can think of and compress the people into the remaining space, now add food carts, tens of them selling anything from mango on a stick to roasted insects, phad thai and kebabs. Now let's up our game, add several hundred aggressive street sellers, trying to talk you into buying a suit (so many offers of suits!!) or maybe a laser pen, if you don't look interested enough, then maybe shining the laser at you will help whet your appetite. If you've managed to now find space for the original number of people in our imaginary road, (it'll probably look like a freakish social experiment testing people's tolerance levels) you're probably imagining something close to Khao Sarn Road.
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| World, meet Khao Sarn, Khao Sarn, World. |
This might sound like a rant to you, and you're probably right, but despite its horrors, Khao Sarn Road is great. The travel agents are helpful, the accommodation is basic, but perfectly acceptable and outrageously cheap, you can pick up a room to yourself for around £4 if you like. Some of the street food is even quite nice, Phad Thai, a noodle and egg dish, mixed up with various bits and pieces might set you back 55 pence for a plate, and then wandering down the street fighting noodles with chopsticks suddenly gets you a lot less attention from the street sellers. Perfect.
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| Food and Colour EVERYWHERE |
Further towards the centre of the city, Bangkok's financial power looms out of the darkness, the beggars and slums melt away into fantastic malls and booming markets. They were amazing to wander around, some of them vast enough that you could easily get lost for days if someone covered up the exit signs. One particularly vast indoor market called 'MBK' was just mind boggling, six stories of boutiques, stalls and tiny shops that spread over a vast area, but packed together like sardines but each selling something totally different to the last. A man selling replica swords next to a girl with a sewing machine who would make you a baseball cap, next door maybe laser etched glass blocks with the 3D likeness of your favourite footballer in.
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| Neatly aligned withing their lanes |
Two friends I'd travelled to Bangkok with were ending their holidays and so had checked themselves into a rather fantastic hotel called 'Aloft' and as my holiday has further to go, I checked into a less expensive alternative down the road. After a sunset swim in the swanky hotel's rooftop swimming pool, we met up with some friends of friends for drinks in this trendier part of the city. In a wealthy area of a city renowned known internationally for its lack of morality, I probably should have been less surprised by its brazen nature. It's not even remotely hidden and nor is it confined in anyway, there is not a street or bar that you can visit without prostitutes with suspiciously large hands lingering around westerners.
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| Temple Guards |
But all this is just another juxtaposition of Bangkok, a deeply devout Buddhist city, littered with giant golden temples, ancient relics and beautifully ornate statues of Buddhist icons and symbology. I visited the National Museum, a large complex that I believe used to be some kind of palace that has been converted into, basically, a storeroom for any Thai archeology that they could find. As I strolled through the gleaming, gilded buildings past sculptures hundreds of years old, I couldn't help but get the feeling that it was only there because they had nowhere else to put it. But I think that works as a good paradigm, Bangkok has a rich tapestry of history, it has a cultural identity as unique as any, but somewhere it's gone horribly wrong, it feels like a disorganised swarm rather than a society.
Next stop: The Bridge over the River Kwai...
