Bangkok Baby!

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We left Koh Samui wishing we had another day or two to relax in the tropical sun. The only thing that made leaving easier was knowing we were heading straight to Bangkok to party like its 1999! Okay, that didn’t happen. In fact we didn’t even set foot in a club- we were just to tired after touring the whole day. But there’s always a next time.

Bangkok is full of exictement. Along with this comes the prerequisite traffic jams, crowdedness, and more than a little smog. (I didn’t notice it as much as in DongGuan city where my throat always has a slight burn but Carolyn definitely noticed Bangkok’s air quality, or lack thereof.) We stayed right on the river Chao Phyraya at a wonderful Sheraton (free with points baby!). Using the boats for puclic transportation is fun at first but they are definitely slower than the subways. Luckily Bangkok’s subway and light rail system is pretty good and you can usually get to the nearest station for under $2 USD. We both enjoyed the city and it has a lot to offer. Highlights of our trip were:

- Chinatown during their biggest celebration of the year. It was a sea of millions of red shirts. They had a good production going on the main stage but the lack of crowd control eventually became unbearble when we were pressed up against some steel barriers as even more peopl crammed into the streets so we decided to get out before being crushed.

- An excellent 9 course meal at the Peninsula hotel, all traditional Thai fair. We ordered the medium level spiciness, and I enjoyed it so that should tell most of you that it was pretty hot.

- Touring the Grand Palace and surrounding areas

- Shopping, shopping, shopping! Bangkok really does have some of the best malls we’ve seen in terms of the size, grandeur and the prices. Emporium and Siam Paragon are almost as nice as the best Hong Kong has to offer, and yet their prices are much much better. Hone Kong still lacks many mid-tiered brands (its either market goods or Gucci with few exceptions in between). Bangkok had a lot more European and other international brands with much better mid-level prices. And because of CNY everything was on sale. So much so that we were thinking it could even be worth the fligh ticket to come here every year and shop. And to top it all off, at the end of the day Caro won the top prize at a drawing at their big department store so she won a 10,000 baht shopping spree. Lucky me, just when I thought we were done shopping we got to go back the next day to shop even more! :)

I will comment and say that our pre-trip readings had led us to believe this sprawling urban jungle was going to be an eye-opener for its debauchery. But we have also seen a few comments that Patpong nowadays draws more sightseers than flesh seekers. We didn’t see any of these more infamous sections of town. And while we did see our fair share of old, overweight weight Western men clinging to scantily clad young thin Asians, it was not as bad as I expected (Caro may want to counter me here). We saw plenty of other mixed race couples of equal age that seemed like a normal relationship. Actually I think Bangkok gets somehwat of a bad wrap for this. Personally I think it is simply a combination of the heat influencing their dress, their more-flirtatious nature, and the fact that in general they were the thinnest of the Asian countries we have visited. So while there are definitely seedy areas, I think you could find the same in many other countries of the world and here it is somewhat overhyped because of its storied past. Point is, there is plenty else to see and do in Bangkok and it makes for a great vacation from Hong Kong.