Bangkok

Invisibable

Golden Mountain

Mastering the public transit system

Our death-defying Tuk Tuk ride

!

If leaving New Zealand had only been so simple!  We arrived at Auckland International about four hours early, prepared for anything.  Well, Air Malaysia refused to check us into our flight to Bangkok, explaining that they could not fly us into Thailand without an outward ticket.  So we could spend $1000 on some random advance ticket out of Thailand so we could check-in in Auckland, or we could fly to Kuala Lumpur, as far as they would send us and our bags, and hope the Malaysians would be more relaxed about this policy, which seemed to us to be an issue with Thai Immigration, not the damn airline that agreed to fly us there in the first place.  A few hours of cursing, panicking, and strategizing later (we may have forged an onward ticket to present to the airline), we decided to board our flight to KL and take our chances.  Sure enough, we exited and re-entered customs and transferred in Malaysia without a problem, and upon our arrival in Bangkok Thai Immigration couldn’t have cared less, and we walked through customs and out the airport door without stopping.

And here we are in Bangkok, population 11,000,000 - nearly three times that of New Zealand's human population, though still only a third NZ's sheep.  If I had any expectations of Bangkok, they were to be overwhelmed, awed, confused, and satiated.  It has not disappointed.  Bangkok is an amazing city.  It is ultra-modern, with skyscrapers, public transit, and architecture that appear newer and brighter than anything I’m familiar with (not to mention luxury shopping centers that shit bigger malls than the Natick Collection).  And beside this enormous metropolis is the “Old Bangkok,” where we are staying, where you can view the Grand Palace as it stood 200 years ago, explore more gorgeous wats (temples) than you can handle, and travel down the canals off the Chao Phraya River, gaining a view into the Thais who still hold onto parts of an older way of life, using the canals as home, livelihood, bath, and sewer all.  (Bangkok used to be known as the “Venice of the East,” its residents “River Gods.”)   The neighborhoods of Bangkok are unified by a few features, perhaps, including crowds, heat, unbelievable traffic, food carts (more later), and in my case, perspiration.  You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost in a city whose street signs don’t use Roman characters, whose street maps don’t include street names, and whose polluted air is painful to breathe!

Yet the heat, chaos, and air quality are small prices to pay for a city so stimulating.  We have been tenderized by Thai massage and awed by the sparkling wats and towering golden buddhas.  We’ve seen the city lights from a night river cruise and we’ve eaten our way through Chinatown.  We’ve had the dead skin on our feet picked off by hundreds of hungry minnows (“You!  Fish Spa?”) and we’ve explored Bangkok’s contemporary art scene.  We've seen paper lanterns released in celebration of King Rama IX's 84th birthday and we've struggled to find the hidden Taling Chan floating market.  And we leave the city tomorrow having barely seen a thing.