Strangely, the first thing that struck us about Thailand was the huge number of Westerners around. They’re everywhere! Not just in the hotels and around major sights, but just wandering around town like we do. It’s absolutely bizarre after months in China and Japan where you get used to being the only European for a 10 mile radius. If you do happen to meet another ‘gaijin’ in the depths of Toyako Onsen or Luoyang you say hello out of sheer astonishment!
But no, here in Thailand foreigners or ‘farang’ are very common. And as a result, Thais speak excellent English. Or at least it seems superb to us after our Chinese experiences! Just as well as Thai is another nightmare tonal language, so we can have a bit of a rest from the mime / draw / struggle technique.
We arrived in Bangkok about a week ago, and have spent a very restful few days wandering around various parts of town. Our hotel had a very relaxing swimming pool on the roof, and an even more relaxing Irish Bar directly below it, where you could get bargain soothing margaritas in the day-long happy hour! This is in a way just as well, as Bangkok is huge, and a bit of a struggle to get around if you want to avoid tuktuks and taxis. Since we trust the drivers about as far as we could throw them that leaves only the metro, skytrain, and lovely boat rides down the river. And walking of course. All nice options, but given the heat (and the daily downpours you get in the rainy season) it’s good to go somewhere calm afterwards.
One other option to de-stress is a Thai massage. Erm, unfortunately we stayed very near to one of the red-light districts, so we were never sure if the cries from shop fronts of ‘massagee?’ meant a nice foot rub, or a more comprehensive service! We’ll have a go at out next stop Chiang Mai instead where apparently there are safe shoulder rubs on offer everywhere.
While in Bangkok we had a quick wander around several Wats (temples or monasteries), and the Grand Palace. The buildings here are very different from those in China. OK, they all have an oriental slant, but in Thailand they are seriously into gold leaf decoration, and very edge must be as pointy as possible. The Wats in the Palace were particularly sharp – everywhere you look there were building edges, mounds, statues all topped with at least one spike directed to the sky. Basically a parachutist’s nightmare! The dominant religion here is Buddhism, and so you get your fair share of Buddhist images and statues too. We saw a particularly impressive golden reclining one in Wat Pho about 46m long! It had absolutely huge ears and toes.
Anyway, our next stop is Chiang Mai, before hopefully popping across the boarder into Laos. Gary’s parents had to leave us to start their long journey home yesterday – interrupted of course by a luxurious stay in Bombay where they’re booked into a Taj - the poshest 5 star hotel in town (well, it is their wedding anniversary!). In contrast we’re off to a £10 a night jobby up North! We’ll be returning to Bangkok several times in the next month or two, so we’ll probably end up posting more pictures of pointy Wats soon. You never know, we may even brave a ‘massagee’. Just maybe.
But no, here in Thailand foreigners or ‘farang’ are very common. And as a result, Thais speak excellent English. Or at least it seems superb to us after our Chinese experiences! Just as well as Thai is another nightmare tonal language, so we can have a bit of a rest from the mime / draw / struggle technique.
We arrived in Bangkok about a week ago, and have spent a very restful few days wandering around various parts of town. Our hotel had a very relaxing swimming pool on the roof, and an even more relaxing Irish Bar directly below it, where you could get bargain soothing margaritas in the day-long happy hour! This is in a way just as well, as Bangkok is huge, and a bit of a struggle to get around if you want to avoid tuktuks and taxis. Since we trust the drivers about as far as we could throw them that leaves only the metro, skytrain, and lovely boat rides down the river. And walking of course. All nice options, but given the heat (and the daily downpours you get in the rainy season) it’s good to go somewhere calm afterwards.
One other option to de-stress is a Thai massage. Erm, unfortunately we stayed very near to one of the red-light districts, so we were never sure if the cries from shop fronts of ‘massagee?’ meant a nice foot rub, or a more comprehensive service! We’ll have a go at out next stop Chiang Mai instead where apparently there are safe shoulder rubs on offer everywhere.
While in Bangkok we had a quick wander around several Wats (temples or monasteries), and the Grand Palace. The buildings here are very different from those in China. OK, they all have an oriental slant, but in Thailand they are seriously into gold leaf decoration, and very edge must be as pointy as possible. The Wats in the Palace were particularly sharp – everywhere you look there were building edges, mounds, statues all topped with at least one spike directed to the sky. Basically a parachutist’s nightmare! The dominant religion here is Buddhism, and so you get your fair share of Buddhist images and statues too. We saw a particularly impressive golden reclining one in Wat Pho about 46m long! It had absolutely huge ears and toes.
Anyway, our next stop is Chiang Mai, before hopefully popping across the boarder into Laos. Gary’s parents had to leave us to start their long journey home yesterday – interrupted of course by a luxurious stay in Bombay where they’re booked into a Taj - the poshest 5 star hotel in town (well, it is their wedding anniversary!). In contrast we’re off to a £10 a night jobby up North! We’ll be returning to Bangkok several times in the next month or two, so we’ll probably end up posting more pictures of pointy Wats soon. You never know, we may even brave a ‘massagee’. Just maybe.
No comments:
Post a Comment