One Day in Bangkok

The toilets were playing up at work the other day. Nothing major, we could still use them, but a leak somewhere meant the place had a distinct 'stagnant water' odor. The strange thing was; I kinda liked it. Because every time I walked in there, I was instantly transported back to Bangkok. Bad smell, good memory - go figure.

In Asia, your olfactory glands are assaulted from all sides, every moment of the day. Not the just the ever pervasive stagnant water smell, but spices, and grease, and animals, exhaust fumes and damp vegetation. Some people found it made them queasy. I found it intoxicating.

It was my first day in this most exciting and exotic of cities and I was utterly lost, with a dangerously out of date guidebook and a bandage on my arm having already been biffed by a bus. I was jet-lagged and hungry, and had no clue as to how to find any of the tourist landmarks. I was having a ball.

Someone had told me the only place to buy an English translation map was at the Tourist Authority (not true) but despite the best efforts of the Thais I accosted, nobody could tell me how to get there. It was too far for lefts and rights, and the Thai script of the street names was untranslatable. So after a while, I gave up and resorted to wandering aimlessly. That wasn't as easy as it might sound, because Thais have a habit of falling into step next to you, engaging in conversation and then attempting to persuade you to "visit a genuine silk factory", "meet a nice young lady" or "tour a gemstone factory:. Naïve little twit that I was, I actually fell for this last one and you can read about it here.

However, I took advantage of all my new friends and used them as unpaid tour guides, having them direct me to the places I wanted to see. Using this method, I found the famous Grand Palace, a display of Thai dancing, and ultimately, a river barge tour. In Thailand, every purchase involves haggling, a process many enjoy but which I found wearisome, particularly after several months. ("It's a bar of soap and I'm not paying $20 for it. Just tell me the real price and I'll pay you that and get on with my life!")

The big challenge of course, is that when you've just arrived, you have no idea what the 'real' price is. Apparently $7 is way too much to pay for a river barge tour, or so the German tourist, one of my fellow passengers, told me in smug tones. He was also horrified at how much I was paying for my hotel and completely shocked that I had yet to purchase a map. I felt so ashamed.

But still, a river barge tour is something every visitor to Bangkok must try and in my opinion, it was well worth $7. The Chao Phraya is more than just a river to the people of Bangkok. It's a highway, a home, a grocery store, a Laundromat, and a toilet. (It's astonishing to me how every Thai schoolchild is immaculately turned out in snow-white shirts given that their clothes were washed in water the color of milky coffee.) We saw it all as our barge weaved us up and down the 'streets' on which countless thousands of Bangkok's residents live.

Our first stop was the National Barge Museum, which consisted of 6 barges lined up in a row, all very ornate but not exactly exciting. The next was a snake farm, to which I was looking forward, being something of a snake-ophile. However, the $2.50 entrance fee was "a rip-off" according to our German friend and as nobody but me was willing to pay; the consensus of the boat party was that we should give it a miss. Damn democracy.

Things livened up a bit with the next stop; the temple of Wat Arun. This is an unmistakable Bangkok landmark with a tall, multi-tiered pagoda, up which it is obligatory to climb. One heckuva workout for the calf muscles but the top was crowded with locals, tourists, school tours and pilgrims. I have very fond memories of the place after being swarmed by a troupe of breathtakingly pretty schoolgirls who wanted to practice their English. They each had a questionnaire and frantically scribbled down my answers to their questions.

What's my name, where am I from, how do I like Bangkok etc. Standard stuff but when the conversation turned to sports we learned that like me, they were all fans of (real) football. Now we're talking the same language.

At the time, Liverpool were the undisputed top dogs of the English leagues so I told them that was where I was from, (OK, so that's a fib - sue me), and they were in raptures. Sure I've been to the stadium, many times. Squeals of joy erupted. My German friend desperately tried to get in on the act, but it was me they fancied. He was crushed but I cared not a whit. Hah! Serves him right for not letting me visit the snake farm.

All too soon we were back on the barge and wending our way back to the pier. Pangs of hunger were reminding me that I hadn't eaten since the British Airways fodder over 24 hours ago and while I'd so far resisted the fly-infested charms of the Bangkok street vendors, I knew I was going to be here for some time and needed to eat. I didn't come all this way to seek out western restaurants so local food it was. Carefully, I selected a vendor based on his stall looking marginally cleaner than the others and perused the menu. Naturally, it was in Thai so I resorted to pointing, selecting some green stuff and some white stuff, swimming in some gray stuff.

I don't know if you've ever been to Bangkok yourself, but if you haven't, allow me to pass on the most important lesson I learned on that, my first day in Asia. If you forget everything else I've ever told you, remember this:

If a street vendor ever serves you some green stuff and some white stuff swimming in some gray stuff…whatever you do…

don't eat it!