In the event, it ended up being not too bad a night on the train. Some long sleepless patches, but I’d expected that, and overall I probably got a good six or seven hours, which is about as much as I could have hoped for. Can’t fault the train, which was fast, smooth, clean and comfortable. It even still had toilet paper in the morning, and toilets that weren’t a gag-inducing nightmare.
So we left for our hotel in good heart. And got there in good time, thanks to Grab, though it turned out to be a lot further from the station than we’d anticipated – map scales are just on a different scale when you’re back in the smoke. When we arrived, it all looked very promising. We’d chosen a hotel right on the river – an old style place, all wooden, and built out over the water. And very picture skew it looked. We had a quick cup of tea/coffee, and decided to head for the Grand Palace – one of Bangkok’s must-sees.
This involved taking a water bus along the river. Which left from a pier about five or six minutes’ walk away. We soon discovered that out hotel – relatively chi-chi, at least by our standards – was in a decidedly shabby neighbourhood – which suits us just fine. En route to the pier we found ourselves passing through a fish market – all large shallow baths and trays, squirming with fish of every size and type (‘goldfish?’), along with exotica like turtles, and even frogs.
We stopped at a little corner cafe and got breakfast – bowls of delicious chicken noodle soup, packed with chicken, along with raw beansprouts, shredded cabbage and other greenery, all in a tasty broth. 50 baht a bowl, that’ll do nicely.
Off to the pier, and a boat arrived soon. We quickly discovered the form – the boat pulls up at the pier and a young bloke jumps off and ties up; they release the ropes, the passengers step off, the new ones get on board, the main rope is unlooped, and off we go. All this to a cacophony of peeping whistles, obviously communicating to the skipper up front, and the entire episode taking no more than 20 seconds from start to finish. Elf ‘n safety wouldn’t like it, but it works, and no-one fell in the water.
When we arrived, the route to the Grand Palace was just a torrent of humanity: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people all heading one way. We suddenly realised (one loses track) it was Sunday. Oh. Probably the worst of all days to hit Bangkok’s #1 tourist destination. Then we saw the dress code: no bare shoulders, no shorts, no exposed feet. Home James!
Or rather, off to the Museum Siam – also on our list – which in the event proved quite interesting and entertaining, and I got in free, on account of being over 60. Result! The Museum was dedicated to investigating ‘What is Thai-ness?’, with rooms looking into things like the history of the very notion of ‘the nation’, the influx and melding of foreign influences, and various overt efforts by the authorities to inculcate a national consciousness in a country which for the most part had previously lacked one.
It all struck a chord, not least after our experience a couple of days earlier, when our green curry munching at Surat Thani street market had suddenly been interrupted by a strident public broadcast of what we suddenly realised – as life stopped around us, and people got to their feet – was the national anthem. One room was dominated by the figure in the pic above – a popular feature of many stores, inviting people in to spend money. Somewhat portly, and with a big bag of lucre under her left hand, she’s a potent local symbol of happiness and – particularly – prosperity. Maybe, I mused, the increasing portliness of so many Thai women reflects, at least in part, its status as a mark of success and wealth, just as a tan – once spurned among Europe’s wealthy, for its association with having to actually work in the fields for a living – has turned full circle, since it now suggests leisure and a healthy outdoorsy lifestyle.
In the evening we decided to take a walk down to Khaosan Road, which Virle remembered fondly from her time here back in the ’80s as a cheerful, scrappy hippy hangout, but which unsurprisingly turned out to have morphed into an undeniably buzzy but overall rather tacky collection of cheap t-shirts, ‘street food’ staples, and hawkers for massage joints and comedy clubs. With cannabis emporia everywhere you looked. It was ok, but you wouldn’t go twice. Also, we received surely the smallest meal ever put on a plate. Ok, it was only 70 baht, but even for that you do hope to get a meal, rather than what barely passes for a snack.
All in all, a most satisfactory first day in Bangkok.