Bangkok 30 Years On

I’m not entirely sure why was affronted that Bangkok had changed. After all, hasn’t everywhere – and everyone – changed since 1987?

It’s been a while since my last blog post, largely because being posted to Croydon, south London, didn’t inspire my creative juices. But this summer, I was fortunate enough to be posted to Bangkok, capital city of the land of smiles. Not only is it an excellent jumping off point for all sorts of destinations I was itching to visit – more on these in a later post – but Bangkok itself, being a city of over 5 million inhabitants, is a fantastic place to live for a while. I was staying right in the heart of shopping-mall land, sleek silver skyscrapers popping up like mushrooms, cranes littering the skyline. The only reminders of what used to be there are pavements curving round to where once was a road, and a network of tiny lanes on Google maps, showing were whole communities have been gobbled up to build the latest smart condominium. I fear that the city is losing its character, becoming like every other high rise Asian city. But who am I to decree that the good citizens of Thailand, with their considerable buying power, be denied their swanky malls, rooftop restaurants and squeaky new serviced apartments?

There are still echoes of the Bangkok of thirty years ago to be found. The traffic is still crazy, despite the very efficient sky train, and tuc tucs still ply for fares – expensive ones, as they’re really only for tourists now. Locals hop on the back of a motorbike taxi, the ladies sitting side-saddle as they weave perilously through the traffic. Street food vendors still line some of the pavements, smells of chicken and pork wafting along with the stomach turning eggy smell of durian. These stalls are a feat of ingenuity, packing utensils, parasols and even chairs and tables into what are little more than barrows. The food is always very fresh, such is the popularity and turnover of these stalls. I love Thai cuisine, with its fearsome tongue-biting chillies, along with a background of lemon grass, holy basil and coconut. The king of Thai dishes has to be Pad Thai, with its own squeeze of lime and sprinkling of crushed peanuts.

I did find a little bit of the Bangkok I remembered when I visited Koh San Road, where I had stayed in a hostel as a fresh-faced backpacker all those years ago, and it hasn’t changed a great deal. There is not a high-rise in sight, instead lots of laid-back restaurants, and the odd hippy wanding about, stuck in a previous decade. Although folk nowadays tend to be engrossed in their phone screens rather than chatting to each other and reading airmail letters from home.

The Chao Phraya river at Bangkok became my favourite place. There are several different boats that ply up and down and it’s a challenge figuring out the right one. Orange flag boats take you anywhere you like for 15 baht (35p) and were in my opinion the best, crammed with tourists, locals and monks. The boat operator is armed with a shrill whistle, screaming at high volume to everyone to move down the boat until they’re packed like sardines and the boat lies alarmingly low in the water. These boats don’t hang around, and many a person has missed their stop from being unable to fight their way off through the tightly-packed passengers in time.

Of course, tourists come to Bangkok for good reason. Temple fatigue came early to my life, in 1987 to be precise, so I allowed myself just one temple – Wat Po, containing the splendidly reposing reclining Buddha, complete with mother-of-pearl feet and marvellous toes. Even if I’d wanted to visit the Grand Palace I couldn’t have, owing to the then impending cremation ceremony of the hugely popular King Rama IX Bhumibol Adulyadej. He remained on the throne for an incredible seventy years until he passed away at 88 years of age just over one year ago. Thailand was been in official mourning for the following year, culminating in the month-log run-up to the ceremony when solemnity was stepped up. During this time, Thais wore only either black or white, which are both the colours of mourning, with buildings adorned with black and white silk. Bangkok became a sea of yellow chrysanthemums, yellow being the colour of Monday, the day the King was born. Haunting oboe music filled the air in shopping malls and on public transport. Huge advertising hoardings showed monochrome pictures of the King or a black and white montage of his life, and those that did still carry their original adverts did so in strangely muted colours. A staggering 12 million people visited the palace over the past year to pay their respects, waiting in line for many hours in order to do so. The golden funeral pyre – an ornate, extravagant affair, took a year to construct, and the funeral ceremonies themselves lasted a full five days.

Even though it’s an urban metropolis, Bangkok is still home to a surprising amount of wildlife. White egrets stalk around the edges of canals. The comical birdsong, so definitely meaning I’m in a tropical country, never fails to make me smile. The birds always have plenty to feed on, as there’s always tasty titbits to be stolen from the tiny Buddhist shrines dotted about every neighbourhood.  It’s not uncommon to see an enormous, lumbering monitor lizard, prehistoric in appearance, clambering round the banks of a klong or peddling like a miniature crocodile in the fedit water.

My stay coincided with monsoon season in Thailand. Of course it was hot – but also at times it was very, very wet. One minute the sky would be a bright clear blue, the next, menacing clouds would roll in followed by an ominous clap of thunder. Fast on its heels came the rain, ramrod straight, as if someone had turned on a shower. Give it half an hour, though, and the rain would clear and people would emerge back out onto the steaming pavements from under umbrellas and ponchos, with the air deliciously cooler.

Above all, Thais are lovely folk. Polite, always smiling, and with a great sense of humour. Even the packed sky train at rush hour is characterised by long, orderly lines.  Usually, taxi drivers switch on their meters. My grasp of Thai language stuttered and stopped after approximately three words but despite this, I was welcomed to this fast-changing city with a quite staggering hospitality. Bangkok, you will be missed.