After two days battling the tourist hordes, doing the culture innit, and gasping in the sun, we decided it was time for a day of (at least partial) rest. Also V needed a new t-shirt.
So off we went to the Paragon Centre – a massive complex of not one but three vast shopping centres, right in the heart of town – temples, you might say, if you were feeling pretentious (and when am I not) – to the religion of our age: consumption.
At first, we found ourselves, on the ground floor, in the distinctly de luxe department – all Patek Philippe and Breitling and other watches so posh and costly I hadn’t even heard of them, in stores of staggering (if tasteful) opulence, each with a very bored looking man in a suit at the door. Customers seemed not so much thin on the ground as non-existent, but I suppose when you’re selling watches that cost a year’s good salary apiece, you can afford to wait.
Eventually we found our way to relatively-normal-ville, wherein Virle found the Uniqlos and H&Ms and the like she was after, and I left her to it while I went off to find somewhere to sit and read for the duration. I’m not much of a shopper. But failing to find anywhere in the whole joint where one could simply sit and read a book for a bit, I decided to wander around and take some pics. And found it to be a gratifyingly pic-rich environment.
After Virle had found the t-shirt she wanted, along with a skirt that it turned out she wanted too, we headed down to the food court in the basement – a cornucopia of brightly coloured consumables of every kind, with punters consuming for all they were worth. It was all very gay and lively. I lasted about five minutes: “Sorry, V, but I just hate places like this. Can we go?” What a spoilsport.
So off we set to catch a bus to the park – the only other thing on our day’s itinerary – only to watch it as it drove away, ten seconds before we reached the stop. Since no other was indicated on the board, we decided to walk it – “It’s only 20 minutes, and we need the exercise” – so off we set. In the blazing heat. Along two of Bangkok’s busiest roads. With nothing to relieve the tedium or the noise or the pollution. It was like walking along the north circular for 20 minutes, and we were both much relieved when the park hoved into view.
After an abortive visit to the food court flagged on Google, which proved to be closed, we returned to the street food stalls we’d seen when we first arrived, where we both feasted from an all-you-can-eat-for-50-bahts stall – clams, pork, chicken, morning glory and radishes, noodles, even duck (“Delicious!” – V), then returned to the park for a lie down in the shade, Virle very nearly stepping on this feller en route:
Sizeable beast – a good couple of metres from nose to tail-tip – and according to the signs we saw after encountering him, they bite, so not actually stepping on him proved to have been a good move.
Then back to the bus stop, where we arrived just in time to see the bus pulling away, having missed it by a good 10 seconds (goldarn it, we said, more or less), then caught the next one and returned in the start of Bangkok’s rush hour. I wouldn’t want to have to do that every day. Three lanes each way, all but stationary for minutes at a time, scooters dodging in and out, the foul metal taste of pollution on your tongue.
And to top it all, when we got off the bus, disaster struck!
My faithful flip-flops! I’ve only had them six or seven years. *sob*.
I must have looked quite a sight walking back from the bus stop: panama hat, shades, one ancient flip-flop and one bare foot….
Definitely beyond repair this time. RIP.