News from the Interzone:
Bangkok, Thailand, Autumn 2005, recounted in April 28, 2006

Greetings one and all!

Herein is a continuation of my travelogue from last autumn, 2005. It seems that I was overwhelmed last fall with the enormity of all the things that I witnessed and participated in during my travels in Southeast Asia, and thus fell short of providing my readers with a proper description of all that befell me; [much as had occurred in the last months of 2001, when my travelogue was surrupted by the awe-inspiring global events of that year. I am indeed sorry that I didn't get more of my thoughts from that time down in print, although I caught much of that period (spent in Turkey, Czech, Hungary, Austria and Holland) on video. 

For me 2001/2 had been a very emotional and thought provoking time, especially as I was born and bred in New York, and had spent a considerable amount of time in the previous couple of years coincidentally studying the silk road and its history, ancient, recent and modern, and particularly that of Afghanistan, which has been for so long such a critical lynchpin of human events.] However the parallel here is not between two places that I had studied but rather one which I had and another which I had not; Southeast Asia, although not totally unknown to me, is still somewhat of a novelty for me and so my intense experiences there in September and October somewhat overwhelmed my abilities to immediately digest, make sense of and narrate in any reasonable fashion. With a few months of time to reflect, many of these experiences, not being so raw and strange are now somewhat easier to relate in a comprehensible fashion (at least to myself); and so I will endeavour to convey what little I can of a few of the things that I saw and experienced in that period.

When last we saw our intrepid traveller, labour day of the year generally referred to in the west as 2005 Anno Domini [2548 Buddhist Era], he was sojourning in the wastes of Singapore investigating the cultural array of talent at WOMAD, Peter Gabriel's praiseworthy international music festival, held annually there as well as in many other prominent locations around the world. Departing from thence, he soon found himself in the labyrinthine world of the city with the world's longest name:

Krungthepmahanakhornbowornrattanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokpopnopparatratchathaniburiromudomratchaniwetmahasathanamornpimanavartarnsathitsakkathattiyavisnukarprasit

This is typically shortened to the name of Krungthep, "City of Angels," and more commonly known to outsiders by the name of a village which once resided across the river, Bangkok, "the village of the plum olive." Now this city has a temperment and indeed a reputation all its own, perhaps both of them earned by its complex and confusing history. Although it is widely seen as a very dirty place this is not universally true and indeed much of it is quite clean and even charming. It does have a pronounced air quality problem and significant traffic issues. Both of these have been somewhat ameliorated in recent years by the construction of excellent (although still limited) mass transit systems which are clean, fast and efficient and moreover put to shame such systems in many western cities: an underground Metro and the extensive Sky train services. I recently heard Bangkok referred to as a ‘soul killer'- perhaps that may be true for long term residents, I don't know- but I did actually come in my brief time there (several weeks in total) to kind of like the city; it is vibrant, diverse and filled with curiosities. I had not been looking forward to visiting Bangkok. Indeed so many people had said negative things to me about the city that during my initial months in Thailand I had avoided it altogether, and so perhaps it is the fact that I am a New Yorker and an urban creature that accounts for the fact that I did not have the same overall impression of it. Now Krungthep is blessed with any number of remarkable Cultural monuments and artefacts as well as a widely diverse population, a myriad host of eating establishments (reputedly the highest number per capita in the world), extensive canal systems, deservedly famous nightlife and really excellent Musaiea as well as countless Buddhist temples.

Krungthep is not the first city to have been capital of Thailand, the first two having been Ayutthaya and Sukhothai (of which I will speak at length elsewhere), but in the two centuries since it gained prominence it has grown and grown and now is the largest city in Thailand by far. Any visitor to the city must certainly visit the old Royal center of the city, Ratanakosin, with its many temples and Royal palace. The mighty edifices of the central religious complex, Wat Phra Kaio and Wat Po plus the many towers surrounding it are almost overwhelming to the visitor, and dazzling to behold. This is as good a place as any with which to familiarize oneself with the odd cocktail of mythology and religion which comprise Thai Buddhist ideology. The central mythological features of Thai beliefs come from the Ramakien, the national epic passed down from the Khmer empire to the Thais.

The epic connects the Thai monarchy to ancient Hindu religious figures, most particularly Rama, son of King Ayodhya. It is a complex and non-linear series of tales, featuring a host of Hindu Gods and demons. At Wat Phra Kaio there are many curious things to see, amongst which is a covered arcade with over a kilometre of murals depicting myriad scenes from the Ramayana. One of the most significant things to see here is inside the Bot, the largest building of the temple, on a nine-meter high pedestal: the tiny Emerald Buddha, an ancient statue most revered in Thailand and cared for personally by the king. Legend has it that the statue was recovered from an ancient temple, which had been split open by lightning and revealed the statue within. The entire complex is guarded by impressive six-metre tall demonic entities known as Yaksha.

However for me, of even far greater interest is the nearby National Museum. This is a large complex of buildings filled with a huge array of antiquities and displays stretching back over many centuries. There is far more to see here than a single days visit could cover. I spent three half days at the museum and still did not see nearly everything (though admittedly I found myself practicing my Thai [or occasionally some European language] quite a bit with all the text accompanying the displays and hence perhaps wasted some time which I might have spent with the exhibits themselves- I often do this in museums). The collection includes an excellent (if somewhat nationalist and biased) summary of Thai history over the ages, accompanied by many dioramas for the less literate visitors (I quite liked some of these- the visitor can push buttons which play accompanying music and dialogue in several languages). The collection includes historic sculpture from all over Asia, stone and terracotta Buddhas and Hindu gods aplenty, such as a massive Javanese statue of Ganesh. There are galleries devoted to Dvaravati, Srivijaya, Khmer and Lopburi cultures, Sukhothai, Lanna, Ayutthaya, and Bangkok. There is a cool collection of Royal funerary chariots and a building filled with the Royal barges. Also there is a huge collection of objets d'arts, a collection of gold, masks, ceramics, and weapons. Altogether this is a truly excellent museum.

Returning from my first day at the museum I met two Dutch folk on the street, squinting at a map and asking whether I knew where the "Golden Dome" was. I had no idea what they were asking about, but upon consulting my guidebook I found it to be a temple of considerable interest, made somewhat more so by its elevation thus providing a fine view of the surroundings. So I accompanied them on their quest and after a bit of wandering we ascended the hill of the temple and found ourselves at the summit of the Phu Khao Tong or the Golden Mount. It dates to the early nineteenth century rising out of the grounds of an ancient sacred compound known as Wat Saket, once the burial grounds for tens of thousands of plague victims. The Golden Mount does indeed provide a fine view of the city from the roof terrace around the base of the Chedi- it is a good place from which to get one's bearing in the city.

Now for accommodation I had determined, largely on the recommendation of long time visitors to Thailand, to avoid staying at the well worn and well known tourist haunts along Kao San Road and so after a careful inspection of the various neighbourhoods covered in my guide book [I am using for Thailand primarily the Rough Guide, largely by virtue of my preference for these guidebooks in relation to other countries, specifically Turkey and Greece although I recognize that different books have different strengths for different countries, largely determined by their individual writers] I had decided to stay in the area around the strip known as Sukhumvit. This is one of the longest streets in Bangkok (indeed it stretches all the way to Cambodia). During my first stay on Sukhumvit I stayed at a little place on Soi 11/1 called the Bangkok Inn. Although this place is a bit shabby (and indeed although on a side street, at that time, quite noisy, due to construction across the street of an iron wrought gate for many hours of each day) it was comfortable enough, and clean despite the occasional presence of unwelcome entomological visitors, and benefited from a good location, a very reasonable price and the existence in its lobby of an excellent massage studio. Additionally it had a decent safe in the room and friendly enough staff. Furthermore there is a very good restaurant directly across the street at a place called the Business Inn (which may well be a more salacious place to stay, although I can't say for sure not having done so). However later on I moved on to the much more comfortable (and more expensive) City Lodge.  As for Thanon Sukhumvit: well this is a very interesting place indeed. The street itself is fronted by the relatively new, elevated light rail known as the sky train, which makes it easily accessible to other parts of the city.

I was startled in my first days walking around Sukhumvit and searching for entertainment to have found myself in an Arab district complete with a huge variety of eateries and shops with all the signs written in Arabic and lots of gods from the Middle East available. I had really not expected to see this, not having read widely in the guidebook, and so it took me somewhat aback initially but overall added immensely to the diversity of an already peculiar place. All kinds of things are sold in the streets that surround Sukhumvit with some goods more predominant in the day and others more obvious in the nighttime. Sometimes the origins, quality or gender of the goods available for procurement are dubious at best, but it is still an entertaining place to go and look at t-shirts, kayogas, small carved articles, tiny hungry elephants, a panoply of human activity, four and five star hotels, peasants, beggars, tourists, expats, prostitutes, white collar workers, rats, traffic, knick knacks, hawkers, vendors, hustler and touts. One of the noteworthy features of these street markets (and not limited to Bangkok, but to be seen elsewhere in Thailand) is the fact that a very large proportion of the workers here are deaf.

Now as for the more salacious and unsavoury aspects of Bangkok, perhaps the less said the better- in any case this has been written about at length so often by so many people that anything I might add would be just so much wasted ink (or bandwidth as the case might be). There is in Thailand a small publishing industry dedicated it seems to the writing efforts of hordes of expats who can think of nothing better to do than write down their sexual exploits, problems with Thai jurisprudence, or insatiable drinking habits. So it is easy enough for anyone interested to learn about these things there. There are also lots of websites where expats share tales of their experiences. Here is one of the better ones: Stickman's Guide to Bangkok.

Food- well I could write and write and write about Thai food and never say enough. Suffice to say I like it! And there are so many things that they eat here that would never show up in a western Thai restaurant. But one thing I really miss here is Cheese- so one day I got curious and went over to the Sofitel where they were having a Turkish culinary festival and it was with great pleasure that I wolfed down enormous quantities of a variety of delicious cheeses that I had been missing lo these many months. They had a good selection of different Anatolian favourites, as well as Thai and Asian food for my Thai companion (the Thai generally don't like foreign food, or at least they say they don't as they have never really tried it- this experience being a good case in point.).

Now I would be remiss when speaking about modern Bangkok without saying something about shopping malls and movie theatres: well there is much about urban life in Asia that suggests that the future here will consist almost entirely of shopping malls. They seem to have become an even more dominant feature of daily public activity than in the western world. Kuala Lumpur in particular, lacking as it does many extant remains of historic significance or character is filled with an endless array of malls stuffed with outlets of globalization's great victors: Starbucks, the Body Shop, Benneton, and the rest of them, a seemingly endless array of faceless cloned arcades, filled with the endless array of the throes of humanity, faceless clones themselves, stuffing themselves on cheeseburgers and Kentucky fried chicken, McFries, Pizza Hut and Dunkin Donuts; in endless pursuit of purchasing the newest and brightest, the cheapest and the most gimmicky, the most outlandish, stylish or just pure silly; standing on long lines to fill their heads with Hollywood claptrap at the cinema, or kill some baddies in the boisterous video rooms. One feature however stands out as slightly distinguished from western malls, at least in Thailand: little private booths for karaoke. As for the cinema, it is very popular in Thailand, and they have very nice state of the art theatres featuring excellent sound systems and air-conditioning (often too cold). They show mostly American films with a smattering of Thai and sometimes Korean films as well.

Well after familiarizing myself more fully with the history of Thailand I determined to go to see some of the historic and archaeological sites. So I set out in mid September (2005) for Ayutthaya.

To be continued, more soon!