12 reasons to love Bangkok and counting…
I love Bangkok. I know some people hate it. They say it is crowded, noisy, and smoggy. Maybe this is so, but coming off a month in India, Bangkok seemed positively calm, orderly and clean. Bangkok reminded me of an Asian New York City – no matter how many times you go, you can always find somewhere new to explore and something new to do. It being our first time in Bangkok, we barely scratched the surface in our week in the city, but coming up with reasons to love Bangkok was not hard. Bangkok, we’ll be back.
1. Bangkok is where you can get things DONE. We had a big to-do list in Bangkok and accomplished everything with ease. As compared to say, India, where it took us four days just to buy a train ticket out of Delhi. In a matter of days, we finished Christmas shopping for our families; shipped said presents home; bought Christmas cards featuring a monk with sunglasses and who-knows-what sort of message in Thai; bought new shorts for Sean and a new dress for me; got Sean’s hairs cut; replenished our toiletries; bought guidebooks (at a discount, of course) for our southeast Asian travels; and got my camera cleaned at an official Canon center in the MBK mall for a fraction of what it would cost at home.
2. Bangkok is modern. Although other cities in southeast Asia can fool you into thinking they are modernized and sleek, eventually something crazy happens to make you remember that you are in the middle of an area that operates with inefficiencies, corruptions, crazy rigged vehicles and squat toilets. Not that this description couldn’t be applied to Thailand, but for the most part, Bangkok can hold its own better than its regional neighbors against other world-class international metropolises. There’s something comforting about knowing that no matter where you are in southeast Asia, as long as you get back to Bangkok you can accomplish tasks (see number one), experience modern conveniences you can’t find elsewhere, and obtain healthcare if needed on par with what you would receive at home.
3. Bangkok has movies galore. Nothing erases homesickness quite like watching a Hollywood film in the theater. Although we’ve tried to catch good movies on the road before, our timing was never quite right. In Bangkok, however, we had our choice of films from a plethora of theaters, prompting us to go twice in one week. (We saw Eat, Pray, Love and the Pittsburgh-based Next Three Days, if you are wondering. We also caught the Social Network for $2 the following week in Chiang Mai). Just like home, movies in Thailand come complete with giant popcorns and Cokes. Quite unlike home, movies are cheap (about $4), seats are assigned, and everyone gives a standing ovation to the King before the movie starts.
4. Bangkok has cheap, tasty street food… From our favorite pad thai in Thailand for under a dollar, to stir-fries galore, to fresh fruit stands, to fried pancakes with bananas and Skippy peanut butter, to mango and sticky rice, Bangkok is yummy.
5. …and Bangkok has street laundry. We paid way too much at our guesthouse for our first load of laundry before we discovered the coin washing machines randomly stuck outside shops and homes. Awesome.
6. Bangkok has fabulous, cheap massages. $4 neck-and-shoulder massages. Need I say more?
7. Bangkok is shiny and pretty. Whether illuminated by sunshine or street lamps, the wats in Bangkok positively shimmer.
8. Bangkok has a BIG Buddha. I’ve decided that I like my Buddhas big. The bigger, the better, and Bangkok has one of the biggest in Thailand. The reclining Buddha at Wat Pho is HUGE. I was memorized by his giant marble-inlay feet, relaxed posture, and melodic pings of coins hitting metal as Buddhist devotees circled the room.
9. Bangkok has nooks and crannies. While dodging the zany traffic on Bangkok’s main streets and street vendors on the sidewalks can drive you bonkers, the sois (side streets) are quiet and peaceful. You’ll find families living in their shops, children playing in the streets, budding guitarists, tropical flowers, tailless kitties, and you-never-know-what-else in the sois.
10. Bangkok has shopping. From everything under the sun at the enormous Saturday market, to cheap knock-offs on the street, to fancy stores at the malls on Silom Road, to up and coming designers in Little Siam, you can shop until you drop in Bangkok.
11. Bangkok has waterways. I loved discovering random canals lined with tropical greenery tucked between streets, and loved even more that Thais put their rivers to good use by running water taxis up and down to avoid the congested streets.
12. Bangkok has flowers. If there is one thing that makes me happy, it’s colorful flowers, and Bangkok’s nightly market, Pak Khlong Talat, has them in abundance. Strolling through the market, surrounded by tropical flowers on all sides, made me feel like I was in a kaleidescope. The market was hands down my favorite part of Bangkok. I loved Pak Khlong Talat so much, I’m saving my photos from the market for its own post.
Silom Road at night
A Bangkok canal
Shiny wat
The fancy mall, Siam Paragon
Little Siam
A random soi in our 'hood
Now that's a big Buddha.
Medium sized Buddhas, but bonus points for having a bunch of them.
Street food!
View from Roof View Place during the King's Birthday celebrations
Steeler Nation Comes to Cambodia.
Tomorrow morning, at 6:30 a.m., from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, we’ll be watching the Steelers play the New York Jets in the AFC Championship game at Heinz Field. And though I’m not a morning person, and it won’t be nearly the same as watching the game at home, it will be awesome.
I realize not all of my readers may not be Steelers fans. To outsiders, it may be hard to understand the fanatical reverence Pittsburgh has for its Steelers. It may be hard to understand why being away for the entire season was a serious concern we had about taking this trip. It may be hard to understand why I just won’t shut up about it.
There’s many reasons why Pittsburghers love their Steelers. Because they are blue-collar work ethic, personified. Because they’re in contention, almost every year. Because they’ve won more Super Bowls than any other team in the NFL (6, to be exact). Because it’s tradition. Because it’s contagious. Because they get you through the winter, without fail.* Because it’s fun.
*The Facebook status of almost all of my Pittsburgh friends for the last few weeks has mentioned something or other about the game. People are pumped and in cold, dreary January, what else is there to be pumped about? At kickoff during Sunday’s AFC championship game, the temperature is supposed to be 13 degrees. We met an American guy from San Diego in Thailand and the topic of sports came up. I don’t really follow sports, he said. We’re usually outside doing things instead of watching t.v. Well, in Pittsburgh, there’s nothing to do in 13 degrees. Except sit in the cold at Heinz Field, of course.
To give anyone who wonders what is like to be at Heinz Field during the playoffs a taste of the excitement, check out this video:
I’d tell you to put watching a Steelers game at Heinz Field on your travel bucket list, but be prepared to pay a scalper top dollar because every.single.game is sold out.
Back to the Future
I’m jumping forward to the future again to let you in on some big news on the travel front. Before we headed off to adventures in Southern Laos without internet, we bought our return ticket home.
Because I’m all about sharing the reality of travel – the good and the bad – let me explain how that came to be. It took us a while to admit it, but somewhere in the last few months of endless buses, boats, lukewarm showers, hard beds, temples and cafes, we both started feeling a little burnt out and bored. I know it is a hard thing to imagine – how could someone feel anything but ecstatic on a “trip of a lifetime” – but it is true. And it happens to the best of them.
I can think of many possible explanations. Maybe it was because we got waylaid involuntarily in several towns in a row. It is one thing to decide to stay put and relax; it is another to be ready to move on but being stymied for one reason or another.
Maybe it was because one or the other of us was sick off and on for weeks.
Maybe it was post-India let down. India was invigorating precisely because it was challenging. Anything Southeast Asia could throw at us paled in comparison and seemed like a nagging bother instead of a cultural challenge.
Maybe it was because until recently, we’ve been mostly moving along Southeast Asia’s tourist trail. It is all too easy to go through the motions of travel and end up in the same places, surrounded by other Westerners doing the same things and eating the same comfort foods.
Maybe it is because getting off the tourist trail seemed like more work than we felt like exerting by this point in the trip.
Maybe it was because on some level, we are homesick and some part of us wants to be eating the comfort foods instead of more noodles and rice.
Maybe it was because the trip was rapidly winding down, and neither of us is any closer to figuring out what we want to do with the rest of our lives.
Maybe it was because we let the extraordinary become ordinary.
Maybe it was just because we’d been away from home for nine whole months.
In reality, I suspect that it was some combination of all of these things.
So, naturally, we did what any burnt-out traveler would do…we decided to extend the trip. Makes perfect sense, right?
As we waited for me to recover from a stomach ailment in Vientiane, we found ourselves scheming. One great part about Laos was traveling for a bit with our new German friends. Hearing about their upcoming plans to head to New Zealand, we found ourselves searching for flights and researching costs of campervans. We realized part of the reason we were feeling a little blah was the thought that Southeast Asia could be it for our trip. Our dwindling funds and time meant that we easily could finish out our time in Southeast Asia, in countries that may be unique but that are more alike than they are different.
So, one day – kinda like how this whole trip started in the first place – we just did it. We bought a ticket from Malaysia to New Zealand. Sure, there was much deliberation first. Sure, we probably are just procrastinating returning to the real world. Sure, we’re going to dip into our savings to finance the extension. But, you know what? Suddenly, we’re excited again. About everything. About spending more time in Southeast Asia to see most of what we want to see at a slow pace. About going to New Zealand. About getting our own wheels again. About having a firm return date home.
The truth is, I think the open-endedness of the end of the trip was making us flail around a bit. There are tons of lifestyle redesign proponents out there advocating traveling without time restraints or plans. I’m continually fascinated by the growing chorus of interesting people designing ways to travel indefinitely and encouraging others to do so. I think that’s great, and if there is one thing I learned from our travels is that I need to create the lifestyle I want rather than just do what I’m supposed to do. But the thing is, creating the lifestyle I want involves going home. We’re both too big of homebodies to travel forever. I like Pittsburgh. I like having a home. I know that I want travel to be part of my life, but I don’t want travel to be my life.
So while I haven’t had any grand epiphanies about what I want to do with my life – just small revelations that I haven’t quite worked into a coherent whole – as of May 13, 2011, 408 days after leaving Pittsburgh, I’ll have to work on creating the life I want at home. And I’m okay with that. Especially since between now and then, I have a lot to look forward to. Instead of only spending a week or so in Laos as we originally planned, we only had days to go on our 30 day visa when we crossed the border to Cambodia yesterday. We’ll spend a couple of weeks in Cambodia (famous last words!), including watching the Steelers play in the AFC championship game at the crack of dawn on Monday, then cross over into Vietnam to be in Saigon in time for the Steelers to win their seventh Super Bowl. : ) We plan to be in Vietnam for three to four weeks in total, and we’ll fly from Hanoi back to Bangkok in late February/very early March. We hopefully will be meeting up for a little bit with a friend of mine from high school who has been working on her own travel plans. We’ll head south through the Thai islands, and do a quick jaunt in Malaysia as we make our way to Kuala Lumpur for our April 3 flight to Christchurch. We’ll tour New Zealand by campervan for a month in April (when the flights and campervans are cheaper as it turns to the shoulder season), and then head home – but not before making a week-long stop in Hawaii first. As it turns out, flying from Auckland to Honolulu and from Kauai to Pittsburgh was slightly cheaper than just flying straight home from New Zealand. Which is awesome, especially since we missed Kauai on our honeymoon. As opposed to our big pimping honeymoon splurges, we’ll attempt frugality in Hawaii this time (unless the Hotel Hana-Maui wants to put us up for free, of course. Love that place). As far as re-entries to the United States go, I can’t think of a better way than to visit state number 50. I can taste the pineapple already.
So that’s our plans in a nutshell. Hope you’ll join us for the rest of the ride, as well the rest of the highlights and lowlights from our travels in Thailand, round one, and Laos. Teasers of what’s to come: elephants, elephants and more elephants; the slooooooooow boat to Laos; why foreign massages aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be; and Sean and Amy do Laos on two wheels. Thanks for reading along!
Howdy.
Just a quick note to let you know that you may not be seeing too much activity around here for the next week. We’re headed to Southern Laos. I hear the internet is spotty at best and nonexistent at worst, and some places only have electricity for several hours a day. (The biggest problem with this, of course, is that we probably will have absolutely no way to watch the Steelers whip the Dirty Birds this weekend. Ack!) But rest assured we’ll be back posting when we can.