Probably my favourite way that the international nature of Bangkok manifests itself is through the food. Restaurants there seem to be owned by nationals of that country, whereas in Korea they often seem to be Koreanized. This means you can get pizza without potato wedges (actually not bad) and curry that hasn’t had half a dairy poured in it. Even better, you can get a proper breakfast with real black pudding, and rather disappointing steak and ale pie. It also gave me a chance to revisit the all you can eat Japanese meat fest (ooh-err) that is shabu-shabu. When the waitress brought out our 17th tray of meat, I was finally able to put aside the disappointment of Tokyo 2006, when I made a foolish decision not to order more meat with 10 minutes of our all-you-can-eat time remaining.
It’s also well worth mentioning the Thai food we ate. Bangkok is one of those wonderful cities with a proper street culture, and the food to match. Wherever you go in the city, you pass food stands selling a variety of meats on sticks, fried chicken or for a more substantial meal, noodle soup or rice with duck or pork belly – you choose (we chose both). The curries and coconut based soups are also spectacular – I’ve returned armed with some packs of pastes determined to recreate some. The only thing I didn’t manage to eat was Pad Thai, which loses me 100 tourist points apparently.
Being exhausted from a month of hard MA work, and several months of teaching without a break, we wisely decided not to spend all of our time whizzing around Bangkok in a tuc-tuc trying to see everything the city has to offer, figuring that drinking lots of beer in the evenings was a better way to relax than tourism. We managed to stick to the more legitimate bars in Bangkok. I don’t think I even saw a ladyboy, and disappointingly the midgets on motorbikes sex show I was promised by the guidebook never really materialized.
We did do some touristy stuff, checking out the Grand Palace (proving that the Thais are a little more decorative in their buddhing than the Koreans), Khao San Road (surprisingly only one set of dreadlocks) and a large market which sold almost everything, as long as it was what I’d classify as “ethnic sh*t”. By far the best thing we did was visit the “Ancient City”, a huge park in the shape of Thailand, with models of buildings both standing and destroyed in the position they hold/held in the country. It’s an awesome way to see a lot of Thai architecture in one place, as well as to spend your time zipping about between monuments using either a bike, golf cart or car as you choose. The only downside being that when we went it was full of obnoxious children all on bicycles, a recipe for disaster wherever you are.
On my last day I sampled a last little bit of Thai culture before getting on the plane, the Thai massage. I don’t know about you, but when I think of a massage in an exotic land, I imagine nubile young girls, candles and lots of oil. Thai massage, be forewarned, is a little different. It starts with a rather nice footbath, where the guy washing my feet does well to hide his horror at the nuclear sunburn on my legs I managed to pick up on the only day of this Korean summer. Then I get led to a darkened room, where he proceeds to sit on top of me, crack every joint in my body and dig his fingers into my muscles. Not really what I’d imagined beforehand I must say.
As an Englishman, my natural territory is not a darkened room being manhandled by a male masseur, thus I tense up. At one point he has to actually tell me to relax. My problems are compounded by the fact that having just put away a lot of thinly sliced meat swished in broth, I now need to pass gas quite urgently. This doesn’t help with the relaxation, particularly when he pumps my thing up towards my torso, almost receiving a face full of fetid air in the process. The massage ends with him sitting on my calves with me lying on my front, and grabbing my arms and pulling them back so I’m bent completely the wrong way in the middle. Twice. “Don’t worry Grev,” says Kathryn, “You might feel a bit sore now but in the morning you’ll be able to move everything and it will feel great.” Some hours later, I awake after an hours sleep crunched into an economy airline seat. I can’t move anything, and I feel rubbish. So much for Thai massage.
So lots of whinging, but I did actually have a great time. I’d definitely go back to Bangkok, there seems to be a lot to explore there and it would definitely be an interesting place to live. It’s probably where I’ll end up when I’m 40, balding and lonely, as that seems to be the type who does well with the ladies there. Thanks loads to Adam and Kathryn who put me up, showed me around and annoyingly refused to let me pay for anything. I took your advice guys and bought myself a trendy new wallet at duty free.
There’s a Flickr album of my photos here.
I’ll try to put a few more adventure photos up soon. Until then, it’s back to the kids.
Alex
