South Asia '08, part 12:Kickin' it in Krungthep...

...otherwise known as Bangkok.

My Lady Friend and I first visited Bangkok in November 2005. We had to stop there after we left Egypt in order to get visas for Taiwan. It was only a two-and-a-half-day stay, but oh, was it enchanting. We arrived in time for the Loy Krathong (floating lantern) celebration, in which thousands of papier-mache lanterns and other objects of ritual objects put into the rivers in order to pay homage to the spirits and benefactors of water in the country. It's one of Thailand major holidays (apparently an even bigger event in Chiang Mai than in Bangkok) with scores of temple fairs, fireworks, performances and promotions.

I read about some of the festivites before we had dinner at The Atlanta (where "no sex tourists, junkies, louts and other degenerates" are welcome). Soon afterward, we made our way by tuk-tuk to Wat Saket, where we joined thousands of local people who wound past crowded food stalls, clothing tents and carnival rides to the top of the temple where offerings were made at the relics shrine.

Two years later, we had -- well, I had -- three and a half days. My Lady Friend and her friend continued on to a gulf island for another week. We stayed at the Atlanta once again, this time learning that it's located just a couple of blocks from a nexus for the sex trade against which it stands in principle (and practice).

We set out to visit more of the sites that we missed during our visa-run visit in 2005, but we were both dealing with gastrointestinal issues that developed just before we left India. Still, we managed to see Wat Trimitr (though we went to the incorrect shrine), the Emerald Buddha temple at Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Arun (which we only saw from a riverboat the first time) and... well, I'll have to add footnotes to photos as I finish these posts.

As much as I'd wanted to return to Bangkok since our first visit, it turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax. The immersion in India and Nepal's traffic, hassle, trash, history, density, dung, smoke, incense, and open-and-or-sacred spaces required a very different response and awareness than what one deals with in Bangkok. Although it's a sprawling and bustling city, it's much more organized, orderly and commercialized (and thus controlled or contained) than the subcontinent. As heavy or hectic of a trip as one might have there at times, I missed the sense immediacy that the Indo-Nepali segment had inspired.

OK, on with the pics:








Part 11