Bangkok
You want Tuk-tuk?
December 1998

I'm not a seasoned traveller. I had no real idea of what to expect from Thailand. I might have had more of a clue if I'd read the travel guide.

But let's face it. Travel guides are like instruction manuals. They're there for reading when you're stuck and can't figure out what to do/where to go/who to ask for help from next. I didn't even know the currency of Thailand until I read about it on the flight. It's the Baht, for those that might be interested.

Not that I want to give you the impression that I was ill-prepared or anything. But I was.

Bangkok, where I landed (naturally enough) is a full-on, full tilt kind of place, with traffic zooming about like the speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi. I tried to encapsulate this in the photo above...

I like the motorcyclist taking out cones as he goes.

One of the (technically) cheaper ways to navigate and sight-see Bangkok is by Tuk-tuk, strange little three-wheeled taxis that zip and screech round the city like mini-milkfloats. The reason I say technically is that, like pretty much everything else in Thailand, you have to barter for the price of the ride. This will start way, way too high and might get down to a level that is cheaper than a metered taxi, but it depends on the driver to be honest...

If you get one that suddenly offers a price that's considerably lower than you've been paying this usually means only one thing. "Export Centre!".

The drivers have a deal with gem places, tailors and so forth that means for every poor sap they drive to the shop to get the hard sell, they get a coupon for free petrol. The drivers will usually include this "exciting" addition into a trip to see the various Buddhas that the city is bulging with. They've got buddhas sitting, buddhas standing, buddhas lying down, sleeping, playing golf, fixing washing machines, hang-gliding, head-banging, knitting and eating M&M's in a bathtub of frozen bananas.

Okay I may be lying about the latter activities, but there are a lot of buddhas to see and eventually you do get somewhat Buddha'd out.

The main attractions in the city though are The Grand Palace and Wat Arun, the former of which can be seen below left. Or rather part of it can be. I don't have a very wide-angle lens so I had to stand against the opposite wall of the court yard even to fill in what I did.

To see the stuff about Wat Arun, go to the " Return To Bangkok " page.

I wound up doing quite a lot of walking around the city, partially as I just wanted to get a feel for it, and partially as I got sick of haggling with people over the price of driving there. Also if you don't pay attention to what's going on they will drive you to an export centre. There you get the hard sell treatment as mentioned earlier. I know this as, by the time I left the country, I had a suit, a sports coat, four shirts and several ties, none of which I particularly wanted or needed. Having a travelling partner to help provide backup ("Dammit man, you're a slob! Why do you need a suit!") to stop this happening would have been a good idea. This would be what is usually called hindsight.

One of the various travelling companions I did pick up (albeit briefly) was Andy, seen below left wearing a sarong. We'd gone to the Vitmanek Teakwood mansion in Bangkok and Andy had worn shorts, which the Thais don't allow in their important places. Something to do with proper dress sense (I'd heard about this earlier, so I was wearing trousers).

Hence their concession to the inappropriately dressed is that they'll lend out sarongs to people to cover up. Andy was a bit embarrassed at being seen in a sarong, so I made him stand still whilst I took evidence to of it.

Anyway that was the initial part of my time in Bangkok, but I soon wanted to get some quality "lying on the beach admiring attractive women" time in, so I and an Aussie called Ben I met (unfortunately I don't have any photo's of him) went to Koh Samet for a few days.

After that I returned to Bangkok to meet my friend Lindsey, and headed off to the beautiful island of Koh Tao , where I learned to dive. I even had my first diving lesson Christmas Day, which made a change from watching the Queen's speech and eating too much Turkey.

© Barny Russell 2004