The Bangkok Family Adventure - Part 1

"One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me."
- Chess (1984)

With this tune on our iPods and in our heads, we boarded the Swiss airlines flight from Singapore to Bangkok on 25-Dec. Although it's a short 2 hour flight almost straight north, the journey took us from young, clean Singapore to the "real Asian" city that was the capital of Siam and part of the Cambodian Khmer empire before that.

On board the flight, Erica & Paul used a Berlitz program in the entertainment system learned to count in Thai. Greg German, Paul's college roomate, lived in Bangkok about 15 years ago and counseled that there are 3 prices in the market: the lowest is for locals speaking fluent Thai, the highest is for tourists speaking only English, and something in the middle for Anglos speaking a little "phasa Thai", presumably because they must live there and know what is reasonable pricing. Paul also took a short Pimsleur audio course before the trip to have some basic phrases available. (If you need to learn a language fast, Pimsleur is the way to go.)

As we walked through the ultra-modern Suvarnabhumi Airport we were eagerly curious about seeing any signs of the recent unrest that had shut down the airport less than a month ago. Not a one. We briefly stood in the cab line where there was a desk that wrote your destination down in Thai to simplify communication with the taxi driver. Ours also spoke "nitnoy phasa Anglit" but since we were staying in a service apartment (Centrepoint Silom) and not one of the regular hotels, he still had to consult with a couple of fellow cab drivers to find the place.

Our first day in Bangkok we spent on a tour of the major temple sites and the Grand Palace. It was supposed to be a group tour, but since tourism hasn't exactly returned in full strength (plus the holiday period), the group was just the four of us, our guide and the driver. Sweet. We visited Wat Phra Kaew where we saw the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace. At Wat Pho, we saw the Reclining Buddha. We then went to Wat Bowoniwet and on to Wat Benchamabophit (aka The Marble Temple). There we saw Phra Buddhajinaraja, a beautiful golden Buddha and toured a courtyard with over 52 Buddhas in various poses. Our guide explained each one and what the differences in the hand placements and poses mean, e.g. "stop fighting" or "calming the waters". Our next stop was Wat Intharawihan where we saw the 32m (105 feet) tall Standing Buddah and a neat row of Tuk-Tuks, the local low-end cabs.

By then we were officially wat-saturated and our guide took us to Gems Gallery International, a gianormous jewlery factory and show room as a final stop. The "factory" is miniscule, the sales area is infinitely larger. The jewelry business is a big one in Thailand because of the low cost of labor and the lack of duty on importing precious stones. (It's also a legendary source of various scams.) This place was legit (ISO certified, no less), targeted at tourists, and priced accordingly. Nice tour, remarkable artistry, but only a couple of minor souvenir sales from us. We then returned to our apartments to regroup and get ready for a very late lunch.

We decided to head to one of the famous shopping malls, Mah Boon Krong or "MBK". The 6th floor food center was our destination. So we walked around the corner to the BTS Skytrain for the trip across town. The Skytrain is a huge time-saver because the traffic in Bangkok is unbelieveably bad (and clearly visible from the Skytrain wizzing past all the gridlock).

The food center was easy to find and we had no problem finding a table for lunch, probably because it was about 3:30 pm. We tried a variety of local items and for dessert we had Thai sticky rice with fruit. In this case, we all tried the safe and delicious mango variety and Jackie and Paul had the definitely more adverturesome durian option. Jackie's judgement: "interesting" and she didn't stop with just one taste.

We then made the rounds of two of MBK's floors. One was the Thai souvenir level where we saw these remarkable metal sculptures made out of welded together spare/used autoparts. The Wall-E figure was Erica's favorite. They were pretty pricey and as we encoutered them several times during our visit, the pricing was consistent and not very negotiable. (Turns out there is a website from which you can order them.)

Even though this was a shopping mall, the pricing on this floor was negotiable. Raye was particularly effective at bargaining, getting 40% off a couple of item as she and the salesperson stood in front of a sign proclaiming "no discounts". And of course she did this with no Thai language, putting Erica & Paul to shame.

We also went to the "cell phone" floor where Paul was able to look over the fake iPhones and something called the "iPhone Mini". While these are working cell phones, the only thing they have in common with the real iPhone is the look of the phone and copy-cat packaging. We were able to make a useful purchase: a local SIM card for Paul's cell phone that gave us on-the go internet access and a local Bangkok phone number that was useful for making reservations. We also checked out pricing for Wii items and the prices were the same as in the USA.

It was a long, interesting day so we headed back on the Skytrain to rest up for our next day.