Flashback: Bangkok 25 years ago

 Bangkok is very different from the rest of Thailand. It has a population of six million and a totally dysfunctional transportation system, which they are trying to fix by building raised freeways. As if that had helped any anywhere it was tried... During Bangkok's extensive rush hours, car exhaust forms a swirling smog in the main streets, and the noise is deafening. There is lots of construction, but the noise of the jackhammers is drowned out by the traffic. Crossing a street becomes a matter of courage, timing, and good judgment of the potential homicidal tendencies of the drivers. Unless everyone is hopelessly tangled again and nothing moves. Policemen wear smog masks here.

The easiest way to move here is one of the water taxis on the Chao Phraya river. They cost almost nothing and are very efficient, always either running full throttle forward or full thottle backward to slam against the ponton stations to let people on or off. I stayed at the Oriental Hotel, considered one of the best hotels in the world, which has its own water taxi station.gold spire.

The Oriental is impressive. They average three employees per guest and right after I checked in they all seemed to know my name. Everyone is smiling, bowing, rushing to open doors, making up my room whenever I wasn't looking, and are generally helpful with everything. Finally, a hotel with noiseless air conditioning. They actually have a dress code, but then so does the Grand Palace, some water taxi stations up the river.

The latter is overwhelming in its gold and mirror mosaic splendour. (So are the touts outside, preying on tourists like vultures.) The palace and the adjoining Wat Pho are huge, full of temples, shrines, buddhas from finger-sized to 46x15 meters, and tourists and their desperately beeping cameras that know that their flashes don't have a chance in front of the 46-meter Buddha. No matter where one turns, there is another group of palaces and chedis, covered in gold and mirror mosaics.palace statue.

The picture to the left shows the central chedi, covered entirely with gold. It is possible to enter some of the temples, but only after taking one's shoes off. They have long rows of racks to store them. Taking pictures inside is not allowed. There is a row of over three hundred golden buddhas, hundreds of meters of wall paintings, statues and gates and stone temple guards and chedis. In another temple eslewhere they have a three-meter Buddha made of pure gold, weighing 5.5 tons.

When I couldn't stand it any longer, I left the temples, fought my way through the ubiquitous touts trying to sell cab rides, gems, girls, or custom-made suits, and wandered all over the city's markets. It is actually possible to see Bangkok by walking; the interesting part of the downtown area is not large, only a few square kilometres garbage dump.

Of course, not all of Bangkok consists of golden temples. They have deceptively scenic canals, called Klongs, that are said to be so polluted that nobody who falls in gets out. There is a modern part of town near the university that contains some shopping centres, but it is not worth visiting. There is construction everywhere, mostly those raised freeways but also new office buildings. The picture on the left shows the other side of Bangkok.

Walking by a Thai dumpster is a truly stunning experience. Guess what happens to garbage, especially meat, real quick in hot and humid weather?

Retrieved from Travelhog.net. Originally published January 2000