Life in an Asian Metropolis

Bangkok's canal boats

Every day we've gone a little further afield to discover a bit more of the sprawling city, though truthfully, I find the prospect of walking around in the stinky, fumy, crowded city rather daunting. But it's wrong to just see the city from our air-conditioned apartment windows, so we braved the heat and walked a few blocks to the river canal where we had an adventurous ride on a huge long boat. The boat stopped at the pier for only about 20 seconds so we had to jump across the frothy brown liquid and down onto the boat to scrabble for a seat.

The ticket collector on the outside of the boat carelessly collecting the fare.

 There were two people collecting tickets that precariously walked around the outside edge of the boat holding only onto a flimsy rope. The locals hold out their fingers in an L shape to display how far they were travelling and hold out their 20 Baht notes. (Only about $1 NZ.) I don't know how the ticket collectors ever kept count of who had paid and who hadn't as soon there were more than 200 people crammed onto the boat to get into the town center. The lucky ones had a bench seat that they shared with about 10 others and it sure is a good way to get hotter sharing someone's breathing space, heat and sweat, but the people who were standing had it rough. They hold on with one arm to ropes overhead and have their faces virtually embedded into someone else's armpit. Everyone has to stand on a slant to fit in. I bet the Health and Safety officers of NZ would have a fit seeing how dangerously people travel to work each day. But it's cheap and so much faster than travelling by car or even motorbike.

On the boat. Not quite at full capacity here.

 But the stench! Luckily the cheap fare compensates for it somewhat, though not entirely! The water is a brown-grey sludge which smells like old washing machine water and sewage and there is quite a lot of rubbish floating around. The fumes spewing out from the back of the boat don't smell like diesel as they should, but something far, far more toxic. The locals carry around little bottles of scent which they sniff every few minutes to dispel the pong from their nostrils. I even saw a man driving around on his scooter with a bottle of scent stuck right up his nose - hands free!

We've been on the boat six times now and feel like we know the routine quite well; how to get a good seat; how not to get sprayed by the water; when to squish up and when to change boats. That first trip though, we were stuck standing up for the 45 min journey and were in the sun, unfortunately. Fern told me she wasn't feeling well and then collapsed on the floor (well, she sort of fell on the other people that were standing very close by). Poor wee girl! She had fainted from the heat we figured, but luckily there was soon a seat available and she could rest up. There haven't been any repeat performances luckily! In fact, it feels like we've adjusted to the heat and humidity at least a tiny bit.
 There is always plenty to see while travelling on the boat - little sheds and shacks where people live, huge temples, tropical trees and flowers, massive skyscrapers and people living in rubbish heaps under the bridge.

Bangkok is so huge and sprawling that if you get off at any of the 20 or so stops along the river to explore you'll feel like your still in a new city every time. We took the boat the furtherest we could go that first day of exploring and it took us somewhere in the middle where the streets were often organised into different professions. So there was a street for wood work, a street for mechanics, one for car parts, one for welding etc. Kind of tough competition to organise it that way we were thinking.

We eventually came upon fruit and vege stalls and street vendors selling fried food. Most of them are crammed up tightly together on the pavement, and if you choose to stop at a stall you stop about 20 other pedestrians behind you.
Many street vendors are selling on a tiny pavement area, and yet still put out plastic stools for their customers to sit on and take their time to eat. It's amazing how everybody just manoeuvres around it all.

We found a vegetarian stall! So we had to support that of course. There were fried vege cakes, corn balls, tofu chunks spring rolls and black bean fritters. Yum! All served with a healthy dose of that chilli sauce sitting in the pot.

The noodle soup that we bought from a street vendor. Note the plastic chairs and tables that are placed out on the pavement. The washing up is done in two buckets on the street too.

Finally found some actual Thai tasting Pad Thai! 

When we first got off the boat a man started talking to us, being very friendly, asking where we were going and giving instructions about the things we should see in that part of the city. We thought that was very kind. Then he said to a tuk-tuk driver standing close by that he should take us, and we realised he wasn't just being friendly but getting business. The tuk-tuk man told us it would only cost 40 THB (about $2 NZ) for him to take us all squished in his cart around to the good sights of the city. He was very sweet and quite funny too. He drove us to a temple where we could see a statue; and then, he said, to a factory where Thai silk suits were hand tailored and we could watch people make them. When we got there it wasn't a factory where tourists can watch, but a very fancy salesroom with about 5 men dressed very smartly awaiting to take our measurements! They soon found out that we were not there to buy anything when we explained our driver had told us there was a factory to see and of course they noticed we were not dressed like their usual customers either in our jandals and shorts and T-shirts. It became an even quicker stop in the shop when a man asked Josh, "Sir, do you ever wear a suit?" and Josh said, "No, not at all actually!" "Well Sir, goodbye!" And he ushered us out the door. No point in wasting anyone's time I suppose!

The Tuk-tuk we squeezed into

Next, we were taken to a jewellery shop. A fancy jewellery shop. With no customers and about 6 staff members all watching us and, I'm assuming judging us that because we were westerners and were on holiday that we could afford to buy genuine rubies, emeralds and sapphires! It was very awkward as we didn't want to go look around but felt obliged. So we ooed and ahhed over the shiny stones and a woman followed us around the whole time asking me to try on this and that, and "This be good for your pretty girls too!" even though I thought I had made it quite clear we weren't able to buy anything. They encouraged us to go upstairs to a room with souvenirs but again a staff member followed us around and got things off the shelf for us to buy, and all of the things were about triple the price as the same items on the street.
We finally got out of there and our tuk-tuk driver looked surprised that we hadn't bought anything.
Next he took us to see the 'Golden Mount' - a big Buddhist temple. Again, it was too expensive for us all to go up there so we just walked around the dwellings and other building for a bit instead and went back to the driver. This time he told us that his tuk-tuk was broken and he couldn't take us to the last place. We're pretty sure it wasn't broken (although we were very heavy for it), and it was just an excuse to get rid of us as he knew he wasn't going to make any commission off us from those fancy shops!

Golden Mount

The next few trips we did from the boat we got off at different piers to see other parts of the city. Some parts were very poor and crowded and other parts were new and posh with shiny skyscrapers, polished walkways and manicured trees.
We watched some Thai dancers at a shrine where there were a lot of people bowing down to the sparkly golden statue and paying the dancers to sing and dance while they prayed. There was even a vendor selling tiny brown finches who were crammed into boxes. We saw someone pay for one and it was released into the air with rhythmic clapping. We were told by our landlord later that people believe it will bring them good karma if they release a bird. She also told us that the bird seller doesn't feed or water the birds so they can be easily re-caught.
We found one of these little birds on the road with a wound under it's wing that was flailing around on the ground near the bird seller. (We saw her throwing away some damaged birds.) So we held it and put some pawpaw cream on the wound and found a safe place for it to rest up. Poor wee thing!

The shrine in the city center. People could buy wreaths of marigolds and incense sticks to put on the shrine.

China town in Bangkok. You can just see on the right side of the picture all the street vendors on the pavement.

Here is one vendor who was making interesting looking snacks out of leaves and onion flakes and sweet soy sauce.

Pomegranate stall where we bought 4 for $5 nz.