Bangkok - the land of many tuk tuks

Trip Start Feb 08, 2007

Trip End Jun 12, 2007

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Flag of Thailand Bangkok, Thailand
Thursday, February 22, 2007

Big city, here we come . . . Bangkok, Thailand, the land of smiles and ten thousand wats and a very loose interpretation of what makes one driving lane yours and another theirs. Tuk tuk drivers and taxi drivers mostly disregard the lines that designate lanes while driving in, out and around traffic that is stopped or simply going too slow. With personalized taxies sporting racing tachometers and special markings, which we can only assume help give the taxi and its occupants some divine protection in this traffic crazy city, each taxi is unique on so many levels. We know now why Bangkok boasts a well deserved record for gridlock and traffic jams . . . It is each tuk tuk for himself so look out and remember that pedestrians do not have the right of way even in a crosswalk sporting a green walk signal!
We descend into this chaos around midnight and need to secure a legitimate taxi that knows where our hotel is. By we I mean of course Kelley, myself and our two friends Case and Nicole

Buddha's toes

. One would think that traffic at this hour would be mild to nonexistent but not in Bangkok, where most taxi drivers are fresh off the farm and know nothing of the incomprehensible street "system". Cell phones are a must but it is a little disconcerting to watch your driver weave in and out of traffic while trying to type in our hotel's number to ask for directions. We eventually arrived safe if not a little out of breath from gasping now and again and again.
We sleep very soundly (surprisingly, as our bed is little more than a styrofoam block with a mere half inch bit of batting on the top) and are ready to tackle this strange city . . . Wats, Grand Palace, food venders, here we come. We hale another taxi and hope for the best. This young man is sweet and appears very honest. Kelley tries some Thai phrases to see what happens . . . nothing. He asserts that he doesn't speak English. We all persist. Finally we get an impromptu Thai lesson and a bit of sight seeing information too. He points, while the taxi weaves around a tuk tuk, to a monument in the road but we have no idea what he is saying but he is now very enthusiastic. We point to the map and say Wat Pho . . . Oh Wat Pho. "Jogging, jogging, click, click (mimicking a camera), jogging, jogging" (this is obviously how he views sightseeing). He points to another monument or building that simply must be on our jogging route. We also learn that "dee ma ma" mean very good (thumbs up) and "ma dee" means bad (thumbs down) as well as thank you , "Korp Kun". In Thai it is polite to end a request or thank you with either the masculine word "kup" or the feminine "ka". This gets us all messed up and sometimes the boys say "ka", which gets a few Thais rolling with laughter and mimicking a girly voice and overly loose hand motions (homosexuality), but they seem to appreciate the attempt.
We spend the next two days visiting a few wats and take many taxis (but only one tuk tuk ride as the first one we took had a scamy component along with the gagging exhaust fumes and the too variable prices) including a few river taxis which were fast and fun

Here a tuk tuk, there a tuk tuk, everywhere tuktuk

. We also chartered a hour long khlong (canal) trip to see more residential living. The water was a strange, un-natural pea green and we even witnessed people bathing in it! Everywhere we go we are solicited by someone for something usually a taxi or tuk tuk driver asking "Where you go?". We learned the Thai phrase for "no thank you" (Mai oa korp kun ka) out of near exasperation and it certainly payed off as the tout's (people trying to get you to do something for a fat commission) persistence usually wavered if the response was in Thai and not English.
On our only full evening in Bangkok we decided to check out Thai boxing. The ticket prices were greatly inflated for farang (westerners) so Nicole and I decided to watch a Thai puppet show instead while the guys watched muay thai. After rejoining, we tried to upstage the other's evening and realized how similar our experiences were. We both enjoyed the Thai national anthem. We both saw Thai dancing (before the fight and all during the puppet show) as well as live music. We even saw displays of affection (puppets kissing spectators and managers slapping their boxer's behind). We also determined that each of our respective evening was the best of the two options (good thing). The only disappointing thing from Nicole's and my perspective was that the fight was very well attended while the puppet show was not (it seems that some things don't change even halfway around the world).
We found that getting around the city was much more challenging than we anticipated; so we did not get as much site seeing in as we wanted, but that was OK as the assault that is Bangkok was beginning to wear on our small town nerves. We secured a combination bus/ferry ticket to the small island of Koh Tao and wandered down the backpacker mecca (Khoa San street). Here westerners outnumber Thais. We ate some of the best Pad Thai yet from a small street vender as well as some sweet fresh pineapple, yum!
Next stop Koh Tao.