As a tropical thunder storm sets in across the island of Koh Chang, I sit in an almost deserted beach shack/bar, awaiting my pancakes with little but time on my hands.
This is a story for another day though, inevitably Thailand seems to give you tales to tell faster than you are able to tell them. Why, it was only a few days ago I was still in Bangkok.
Speaking of which...
My second day in Bangkok was less eventful than the first night. Thankfully. You could fairly argue that I started at a somewhat unsustainable pace and given the length of time I have out here, I felt no sorrow in joining my room mates by spending a day in recovery as opposed to excursion.
The evening came though and it was time to venture beyond the hostels comfotable confines and back out in to the sticky night air. This however would be a night of a different class to the one previous as this was our chance to visit Sky Bar.
This truly was another view of Bangkok, figuratively and literally. Boasting (apparently) the highest open air bar in the world, this is place for tourists to indulge themselves in the opulence of a 5 star hotel bar and look down on the city below. Inevitably the drink prices rise proportionately against the floors you ride up to get to it but you could well argue, Mastercard style, that the combination of cool night breeze, unqieuly delicious cocktail and majestic vistas was kinda priceless.
I ended up, purely out of chance, visiting this location two days in a row. Sure a view is a view, especially a city view. Whether you are looking out over Bangkok, London, New York or any other illuminated metropolis, you seen one dark city lit up by building lights, you seen them all right? Well obviously no, but especially here. Given the palpable character teeming out of seemingly every doorway on every street block, to an almost smothering degree, to seperate yourself from it on such a scale yet still observe it from a gilded distance gives the feeling of being in such an artificial reality that it makes it easy to forget where you really are. Given the looks of a lot of the touists who frequent it, you almost get the impression that this is half the appeal.
Escape doesn't always come so easy though, take two days later for instance.
Having been in Bangkok a couple of days, it was only right that I got my backside round to visiting some temples. Given that the city is awash in them it was not hard to accomplish, so with the delightful and very practically informed company my half Thai travelling companion from the hostel, I set out to achieve this.
I will discuss the experience of the temples in more depth on another post, the story of this occasion came after the fact.
You see we had found ourselves at the Golden Buddha temple by the city's famous Chinatown gates. A glorious temple, not so well connected for public transport links though. Not a problem right? You are in Bangkok, the city runs on the back of its Taxi service, you can barely walk past a shop let alone a block without one stopping past. This is all well and good, assuming the traffic in your part of town hasn't been shut down by a protest. If that happens, you are on your own.
Thus we find ourselves.
Armed with a hostel provided street map that appeared to have been drawn by a jobbing cartoonist looking for a quick paycheque, a map that has also been conveniently torn in to three pieces, we set off on foot.
Given the amount of sweat exuded on this mini urban hike, it felt almost like we swam home. We of course made it entirely unscathed, we even managed to return on the opposite end of the main road the protest was on which was a bonus. That didn't change the fact that I was clearly a long way outside of my comfort zone. This was not the tourists Bangkok we were walking through. Mostly evidenced by the fact that the only western face we passed for a long time was my own reflected in shop windows.
It wasn't a bad area of town, just a different one. It seems there is an entire district dedicated to shops selling only motorcycle parts and ceramic tiles. Not in the same stores but all within the same radius. Block after block of shopfronts stacked floor to ceiling with one or the other. In Bangkok you can buy anything, this was where you bought those.
With a wing, a prayer and a reasonable grasp of the Thai language provided by my friend we walked for what felt like the longest 30 minutes of my life through the streets that supported all the institutions that made palatable Bangkok escpaes such as Sky Bar possible. The sites that make the sights.
It certainly wasn't the days plan, it started off so comfortably in a shiny dim sum restaurant by a high end shopping mall, but it was a fascinating impromptu excursion. You realise very quickly in Bangkok, trying to plan what happens next is so often an excercise in abject futility.
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