Bangkok

How do you even start. Bangkok. A massive city that comes with all the massive city joys and massive city problems.

We inexplicably spent six nights in this city over two stints. We only really spent one of those days doing tourist stuff (our last one). The rest were spent running errands, and hiding from the heat.

The heat. Let’s start there.

Its so hot. We had average highs near 35 every day. Bangkok doesn’t employ heat mitigation techniques that other cities use, like trees, white buildings or narrow streets. Instead it’s a chaos of glass skyscrapers that reflect the suns rays onto the dark concrete, creating an unbearable heat island effect. Air conditioning units line the side of ever building, mall, restaurant, and store, pumping even more hot air into the atmosphere. Shade can seldom be found underneath some elevated train lines and parks, but rarely the street. The sun is too directly overhead.

Due to the heat, our original plan of exploration was tossed pretty quick. We were growing tired of sweltering after at least a week of 35 degrees in Cambodia.

The pollution of the city didn’t lend itself to being outside either. The smog from millions of vehicles permeated throughout the city. No merciful wind would ever come to sweep it away. Cam developed a cough through our first time in the city.

We spent most of our entire first stint regretting our time in Bangkok. The environment was just not contusive to our enjoyment.

There were some highlights though. We spent a couple days hanging out with our friend, Pragati, that we had met in Siem Reap. We had some nice meals together at different restaurants throughout the city.

The restaurants. Lets go there now.

So internationally, Thai cuisine is ranked pretty highly. And if you have lots of money, we can see why. Thai food in general uses very strong flavours like kefir lime, galangal, chili, and lemongrass, among others. Subtlety is not their specialty. In the hands of care and experience, these flavours with the right technique can create some of the best dishes ever. In the hands of a restaurant pumping out 50 meals an hour, not so much. It creates a lot of inconsistencies. They also LOVE their capsaicin. The spice got to be a bit too much on our tummies.

The company at the restaurants was lovely though. Here is the memorable restaurants we went to in Bangkok and a short description and rating:

RONGROS: Elevated Thai classics. Strong flavour, very spicy 4/5

Thipsamai: Birthplace of Pad Thai. We got the original and a fancy Pad Thai. The restaurant had a TV with the origin story of the restaurant, Very good food. The Pad Thai is wrapped in a a vessel of egg. Very impressive. 5/5

Kru Apsorn @ Dinso: A very popular Thai joint with the locals, cheap and very good. Really good green curry and Thai tea. 5/5

Boat Noodles: Not sure what the restaurant was called but it was a popular place that sold boat noodles which is a very spicy flavourful soup with noodles. We Got low spicy and were struggling to finish! It was very good and one of my favorite Thai dishes. Definitely try it if you are in Thailand. 5/5

NAM 1608: Another elevated Thai joint. All the classics. 4/5

We also got mango sticky rice from lots of vendors and I got a lot of dim sum. We were finally in a hub to get any international food we wanted. Cam really wanted soup dumplings so we went to a few dumpling places in the malls.

We got some massages as well. Part of the larger effort to be in air conditioned space that was not our hotel room. The Thai massages are wild. They start all nice and gentle, then before you know it, some lady has you in a full nelson whipping you around. Then to congratulate you for your survival of the rag-doll experience, they walk on your back.

You feel great after though. They got a hip joint of mine that’s been locked up for years to move.

The other main escape from the heat was the malls. Normally, Cam and I are not mall people. But faced with such limited options (why are all the main museums half outdoors???), we relented.

The malls are spectacular in Bangkok. Especially in the Sukhumvit area (the expat foreign investment region). Every block around a train stop seems to hold a massive 8 story mall, capped with a cinema. The layouts of these malls make no sense. We ended up on escalators to third floor car parks sometimes. Dead ends everywhere. Very easy to kill time trying to find the exit.

Due to the heat, most of our outdoor exploring took place at night. One of the best things about Southeast Asia is it is very safe with a vibrant night life scene. One of these nights we went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market. Apparently, the market opens for different things depending on the day of the week you go. The day we went was the clothes market. Cam really wanted some new stuff, especially some longer pants and long sleeves so we could visit the temples. We got some mango smoothies, some chop sticks, and some new outfits. A very successful shopping adventure.

Another night we went to the infamous Khao San road. Its known for partying, loud music, bars, crowds, streets food, and lots of tourists. To our surprise, we found this to very a very underwhelming experience. Yes, there were lots of bars but only one had a huge crowd out front. We did go there early in the nigh but compared to the party streets we saw in Vietnam, this was very tame. Cam spent the majority of time looking at bathing suits and clothes.

What else did we do? We ran some errands! I got an ingrown toenail removed. We retrieved a new debit card (lost it in Cao Bang) from a frustratingly unhelpful embassy. We bought new hiking boots (can only stay away from the mountains for so long). Bangkok is a foreigner friendly city for errands.

Onto our one tourist day now. We did the classic Grand Palace circuit, making sure to arrive as early as possible, to try and avoid as much of the heat as we could. The first stop on the grand palace tour is Wat Phra Kaew (The Temple of the Emerald Buddha). (The history of the Emerald Buddha is quite a fun short read. Long story short, the speculation is that it was created in India in the 5th century, and spent some time in Sri Lanka and Angkor Wat before being discovered in Chiang Rai in 1434 after a lightning strike. It then was taken to Laos by Setthatthirath, a Chiang Mai citizen who inherited the Lao throne, and took as a souvenir. Thailand then invaded Laos some 250 years later and put it in its current home, where it has bene for 250 years.). The Buddha itself is likely made out of jade (or jasper), and not emerald. It sits upon a tall pedestal, its small stature wearing gold clothes depending on the season. The temple itself is regarded as the holiest in Thailand.

The grounds of the temple were spectacular. The outer walls featured full paintings of all sorts of battles, legends and victories. The buildings were all perfectly symmetrical in their design. The colors bold. The spires wrapped in their gold leaf. It was a gorgeous place to explore.

Outside of the Wat complex was that of the actual Grand Palace. Most of these grounds are not accessible to tourists, as the king still lives here. But the front gardens were very well kept.

On the grounds are two museums as well, both of which we checked out to escape the heat. The first was the Wat Phra Kaew museum. Here we could see the Thai demon statues and temple ornaments that have been replaced due to degradation. Much to our surprise, they are generally made out of wood! They are then covered in coloured ceramic, paint or gold leaf, depending on what was needed for the art.

The second museum was the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles. Queen Sirikit of Thailand apparently had quite the wardrobe. All of her dresses were on display here. The highlight was the design your own outfit game in one corner. You could choose patterns and colours and then it would project your outfit on a mannequin. Good fun.

We went to Rongros for lunch, which is apparently the place to be for a good Thai meal. It was quite good, but if this is the mid-upper echelon of Thai food, then I think the collective cuisine is lower on our list than we initially thought. Cam did take a solo cooking class while in Bangkok, and we got to taste the upper echelon that way. That was great food.

We wandered through the heat in the afternoon through another temple complex, Wat Pho, home of the reclining Buddha. The star of the show is a reclining Buddha, 15m tall and 46m long. All precisely covered in gold leaf. The rest of the grounds were full of other buildings and spires, all in that all to familiar colorful style.

Our hostel for our second stay was a space themed pod hotel that was good fun. They had two hairless cats patrolling the area. The one named Yoda and I got along swell.

We are done with the heat and the smog now. We need to go somewhere with water to cool down, maybe a nice breeze, somewhere south. We will see you there!

Epilogue: A film review of Poor Things

While in Bangkok, we watched the new Yorgos Lanthimos film Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo, among others. It was a wild story about everything and nothing all at once. The film I think sparks good discussion about discovering the world, and challenging social norms through the eyes of a child. 4.5/5.