…. and my lovely hotel room for a while at least, as I have to pass through here again to get that flight back to the UK – but that’s ages away, so don’t need to think of it just yet… I have really enjoyed it here, and as I have done all the temples, floating markets and other sights before, it was good to come here and just discover more of the city itself, without the pressure to fit it all in. So I’ve spent days wandering around – going out of the hotel and pointing myself in a different direction each day, and then going where the road takes me. As a result, I feel I have a much better “handle” on the layout and geography of the city than when I have been here before and rushed around going to all the “must see places”. So I leave Bangkok the day after Valentine’s Day – I resisted the temptation to gatecrash the Valentine’s dinner at the hotel around the pool – sunbeds matched up in pairs and covered in white cloths, hearts and flowers, and your own little table at each one for the buffet – how romantic. As you would expect, I retired to the exec lounge instead for excellent wine and free wifi! Where is the romance in that? So what are my abiding memories of this visit? First is the noise – whenever and wherever you are (even on Floor 31) there is the incessant noise – traffic, police whistles, music, it’s a city with no aural peace even in the confines of Bangkok’s answer to Hyde Park, Lunhi Park. Second is the number of beggars – this against a backdrop of a really thriving economy, so many with real physical disabilities, seemingly every few yards and just yards away from Prada, Gucci, Armani. Thirdly, the wide variety of people on the streets – elegant ladyboys, tiny, elegant, beautiful Thai women, tiny elegant, beautiful Thai women holding hands with not tiny, not elegant, not beautiful Western men (and on Valentine’s Day, this seemed even more wrong – a pastiche of paid for romance). The very old “crone” with a one tooth smile, but the most perfectly manicured red toenails, saffron clad monks buying the latest technology in Pantip Plaza and my favourite – “Duri Service”. I followed a particularly offensive smell – it was a man with a bike festooned with baskets, ringing a bell as if he were a leper warning of his approach. And he very well might be, as he was selling that most disgusting smelling fruit of all, the Durian. But that was yet another thing I resisted –perhaps one day………..
