Day 9
Smooth as silk
We’re now back in Bangkok in the same hotel. We plan our trip for the day.
First, we’re going to visit Jim Thompson’s House. Then, spend the rest of the afternoon on Kao San Road.
James H.W. Thompson was an American architect and famous collector of Asian artefacts. He settled in Thailand in 1946, where he dedicated over 30 years to reviving Thai silk, and introduced it to the most respectable fashion houses. Surrounded by trees, his house stands out among traditional Thai homes and hides a collection of rare antiques and decorations (no photos allowed inside).
You will find this kind of tiny garden house everywhere in South East Asia. People believe that when they build a house, they are disturbing the ancient spirit who lives there. So, they have to build a small house to appease the spirit, to whom they’ll give offerings every day as a sign of respect. It’s interesting to see that, as a foreigner, Jim Thomson still followed the same tradition.
The process of silk weaving.
After the visit, we take our first tuk tuk ride since we’ve arrived in Thailand (which is no mean feat) to get to Khao San Road.
But first, we stop for lunch at a cafe called Cozy House, where they serve all kinds of fresh shakes and tons of beers.
Chicken with cashew nuts and mushrooms.
Down this street, you can go to the Grand Palace. I visited it four years ago and took tons of pictures. We won’t go this time.
Khao San Road is probably the most popular area in Bangkok. It’s riddled with guesthouses, street vendors, beer gardens, travel agencies, tattoo parlors, souvenir sellers and much more. We browse the shops for fun, but we don’t buy anything. The quality is average at best and vendors here don’t give much of a discount. Instead, since today is Saturday, we plan to go to Chatuchak market tomorrow, where they sell similar articles, but they’re also more likely to let you bargain the prices.
It’s more fun to sit down and watch people. While Quinn goes to get a henna tattoo on her shoulder, I sit at the first floor of a bar for a better look, away from all the the ruckus.
Walking back, we pass an agency where I notice this poster on the door. It’s an ad for a live show of Ong Bak, one of the most famous Thai movies to date and the one that introduced Muai Thai fighting to the world. The poster certainly looks appealing and the show is staged by the director of Ong Bak himself. The next performance takes place in the DC shopping mall at 8pm tomorrow (our last night together in Bangkok), It’s a bit pricy, but I love action movies and Quinn is big on theater. It could be a one-of-a-kind experience we would both enjoy. I get a leaflet with the address and a plan to get there. Once we’re done, we head back to the hotel. In front of the hotel, there’s a Japanese restaurant. We haven’t checked the reviews, but everything is written in Japanese and it’s packed with Japanese customers. It might be the real thing
The ground floor looks like a sushi bar, where everyone is sitting on a wooden stool. When we come in however, we are ushered straight up to the third floor, where we have our own table on the ground, surrounded by traditional paper walls.
With all this fuss, you would expect the food to be as fancy as the setting, but it tasted like any local grub. Very disappointing, but I wasn’t too hungry anyway. Finally, after dinner, we get our first taste of Bangkok’s night life - with plenty of drinks along the way.
We came back to our hotel around 3am. I don’t even wanna know how we’re going to get up again in a few hours to go to Chatuchak Market…
Day 10
Showtime
The next morning Quinn wants to sleep late. Surprisingly, I feel in great shape. If I get to the Market early enough, I can beat the crowds. I’ll come back in a few hours when she wakes up and we’ll go see a museum she is interested in. So, I let her sleep and go by myself. From the hotel, it takes roughly 30min to get to the Chatuchak BTS station. Once I’m there, I realise that I barely have any cash on me and I can’t withdraw any more because I’ve left my debit card in the hotel (I didn’t bring it last night by precaution). Chatuchak Market is a maze of corridors the size of several football fields, filled with countless sections and subsections. If you find an article you want to buy, you‘d better do it on the spot or you may never find the shop again – even with the basic map of the area they provide you, it can take you a few hours before you find your bearings. So now I’m stuck between going there anyway, knowing that I might not be able to buy anything. Or backtrack all the way to the hotel to get my card. I’m going back. Maybe Quinn will be awake by then and we could go together this time, after the museum.
Back at the hotel. She’s still sleeping. I take some time to do research online about the Ong Bak live show. There isn’t much at all, not to mention no review in a language I understand. But I find a Youtube video of it and an official featurette. The YT video was taken by a member of the audience during a representation. I can see people fighting on the stage, in front of an audience sitting at restaurant tables and filming the show with their phones and cameras. At least, it means that you can order food and that they don’t forbid taking pictures. Which I like.
When we finally leave the hotel, we go to the Throne Hall museum, a few blocks from the Victory Monument (picture). It’s not the most popular museum in Bangkok by far, but it has interesting reviews. No pictures allowed inside.
The outside of the building looks more like something from Renaissance Italy than anything remotely Asian. Inside, you can admire various works or art that have been commissioned by the different kings during their rule. Some of them are awe-inspiring.
One of my favorite is the chandelier at the entrance with dragon heads covered with thousands of shiny beetle wings and shells. .
Another one is a gorgeous 4m high wood panel, filled with fine carvings of animals and deities.
And then, there are dozens of thrones and miniatures entirely made out of gold. The only downside is that it gets repetitive after a while and the audio guide doesn’t give us any real insight, only stating that this work of art was made by these guys, during that time, for this important king, for the occasion of whatever birthday he had. Yawn. Compared to the heartfelt testimonies of our audio tracks in the Killing Fields of Cambodia for instance, this one felt like someone reading a boring and extensive chronology in History class. By 4.30pm, we’re finally back at the Market.
Of course, now the crowd is huge. At the hotel reception, this morning, I was told most stands would not close before 6pm. So, I hoped it would give us enough time to browse the shops without having to hurry too much.
Unfortunately, by 5pm, I can already hear the clanking of the metal curtains being pulled down. I had been waiting the whole day to enjoy the Market and now I feel like we’ve missed the opportunity for good.
We get some ice cream (because this one is not to be missed) and walk as fast as we can around the stores at random. I’m looking for two in particular that I had seen on my last visit –T-Shirts with Japanese visuals and a store that sells movie magnets.
I get a map from one of the vendors, but it only displays the name of the sections - not what they’re selling. Not the most useful to be honest‌
I never found the droids shops I was looking for. But I still got a pair of T-Shirts and a tripod for my camera. Quinn found some scented candles. Not a total loss.
I mostly trusted my memories from my last visit to find my way inside the market. It hasn’t changed much (bottom right from four years ago). Still selling the same stuff I see.
By 6.30pm, we get back to the BTS and head straight to the station near the Plaza where Ong Bak will be playing. According to the official website, we don’t have to worry about getting there because there’s a free bus shuttle from the station’s exit near the mall. I promise Quinn that, by 7pm, we’ll be inside, ordering food at a table, long before the show even starts. I couldn’t have been more wrong… As soon as we exit the BTS, I show the leaflet to an agent and she points right away ‘Exit 1’. Perfect. We get outside. It’s dark and there’s no bus to be found. I enter a bakery and show the poster again. The guys point in a general direction and say ‘1km’. Ok, it’s not too far. We’ll just keep walking and ask around.
Now, this is where the fun truly starts. In Asia, most locals who can’t speak English will still try to help you if you ask for directions. But sometimes, they will send you opposite from where you want to go by mistake, simply because they don’t want to admit they can’t help at all. Sometimes, they will ask another person on your behalf. And if that person doesn’t know, he/she will ask a third one. And so on… And then, there are the ones who tell you that they know, but don’t. These guys are usually taxi drivers. And once you’re already in the car, they will drive around for a bit, and then stop and ask for directions -while you’re stuck in the vehicle… Tonight, we got all of them. The best part is when I showed the poster to the employee of a high standing hotel (I assumed she would speak some English), who referred to a security guard, who then asked two girls just passing by, who called the number on the poster for directions. After that, the security guard found us a taxi and explained the directions to the driver. He got it, so we got in. Good. Nope, not good. He didn’t want to use his taxi meter (we knew we were getting scammed, regardless of the price he would ask). But we were already in such a hurry, I couldn’t care less at this point. After a while, he stopped and asked for directions himself. It took us almost a whole hour to find the place. We got inside by 7.45pm. I run straight to the ticket office, ask for two tickets and if they’re still serving food inside. ‘No food allowed’ is the answer. No way! The video I watched must have been taken in a local town, I guess. Here, you can’t eat, nor drink, nor take any picture at all inside the theater. All right. If we can wait until the show is over, there’s a giant food court inside the mall that closes at 9pm. Wait. What time does the show end? 9.20pm. Brillant… I manage to get us a smoothie each by asking some of the most excruciatingly slow mall employees I’ve met in a long while. I didn’t even have the time to drink mine before the show started…
So, what about the show (picture from internet)? Was it worth all that trouble? There was no dialogue at all, which was a good thing for us non-Thai speakers. Overall, it was pretty enjoyable, but the poster is certainly misleading. They clearly had a big budget (the cast was huge), but from the poster, I expected more spectacular special effects (maybe even well-timed fire balls, like the ones they use for live metal bands). It was mostly well choregraphed fight scenes and slapstick humor. The actors performed in front of a giant screen and a bunch of props. Everytime someone got punched or kicked, a guy backstage would push a button to produce the appropriate sound effect. It felt like watching a stage representation of the movie, without much of the excitement. - they did make a tuk tuk fly over the audience, though. That part was neat. At the end, I’m glad I saw it for the experience. But I sure would have had a better time if we hadn’t wasted a whole hour by simply getting there - and had to watch the entire show on an empty stomach. There was a large poster outside the theater where you could pose. I couldn’t even force myself to do a martial art stance.
Even though we managed to get to the show on time. I was still really disappointed by how our last dinner turned out. The last place still open inside the building is a western-style coffee and a Starbucks. Good food but I was hoping to bring Quinn to a better place for her last night in Bangkok.
Coming back to the station near our hostel, we notice a fancy hotel with a high-up terrace restaurant. A couple of times, I thought about bringing Quinn to a sky terrace but we never had the chance. This will do fine for our last night.
We have a drink, play cards and enjoy live music. Not the worst way to end the day, after all.
Day 11
Separate Ways
Quinn is leaving. My train to Laos is only at 7pm tonight, but I don’t have big plans for the day. We get to the BTS together in the morning. Her, to the airport. Me, to the MBK (one of largest shopping malls in Bangkok), where I’ll stay most of the day.
As the crow flies, the MBK is only 5min from the nearest BTS station. But traffic jams a mile long are caused by important roadworks. They even had to build a temporary walkway for pedestrians to get from one mall to the next. Rather than following the sidewalk ,I find that it’s even faster to cross through the malls one by one.
Once I’m in the MBK, I get a map of the building to find the places of interest.
The place is huge, with hundreds of stores on each floor. There’s even arcade game rooms and a few movie theaters. I checked if they were showing John Wick 2 by any chance, but they only had Resident Evil and the new Fifty Shades of Grey playing. Pass. There’s also a giant food court on the 5th floor, with an impressive reputation, according to online reviews.
I stop in the food court for some sweet dessert called Sarim (sweet nooodles in coconut milk).
I also get shark fin soup – just for trying. It’s nothing special. A bit chewy, like eating cartilage. The mushrooms were the best part. I wouldn’t recommend it.
The good thing about the MBK is that they have a large selection of products and you can bargain prices in most stores I even managed to find the T-Shirts I was looking for in Chatuchak Market for reasonable prices.
When I finally leave the MBK, I take the walkway to Siam Center, where they have more fancy items at high end prices. But I just want to come back to the food court we tried the first time we arrived in Bangkok.
For my last time in Thailand, I get sticky rice with mango. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of dessert I should order in a food court. The mango was stringy and not even peeled right, the rice was average at best, and the milk was cold. Lesson learned‌
I get back to the hotel, pick up my bags and grab some snacks on the way. The train was on time, which always makes me happy. I’m leaving Thailand for good and off to Laos. Tomorrow, Vientiane.
Last pic of the day – Uncle Boomee style. I tried to match my eyes with the lights of city passing by…
day7