A tremendously enjoyable and rich experience I had in BANGKOK… the food was outstanding, especially the pastries, and the sights were magnificent! It’s a very hot humid place though, the shopping is pretty good (and I like it).
However, traffic in Bangkok is heavy and crammed in exactly the same way that some space is a little bit empty. During rush hour, it can take almost an hour or more to go a few blocks, and there are intersections that are so bad it is literally faster to get out of one cab, walk past the offending intersection, and get into another cab, or might as well walk all throughout if it’s just for few blocks.
Some people take motorcycle-taxi (“tuk-tuk”) instead because they’re cheap and fast. But after trying, it was exhilarating but disorienting as it takes counterflow-side of the road. Honestly, they’re badly made “tuk-tuk” spouting greasy smoke into the air that certainly brings the experience from interesting down to slightly hellish.
Then of course, the markets in Bangkok were incredible! For someone like me who loves to cook, everything is so indescribable, all the produce, meat, seafood, pastries, all kinds of food stuff I could hardly recognize, even paper products, china wear, glass wear, silks, gems, and a lot of other things!
Bangkok is a temple-rich country. From the little temple of the Lucky Buddha to their Wat Pho Temple of the Reclining Buddha, King’s Palace to the Emerald Buddha, the many marble temples to the Ayutthaya temple, and all other religious sanctuaries are just the exquisite temples of Bangkok. We can see a glorious Buddhist temple architecture everywhere with vibrantly colored tile walls, tall jeweled and golden Buddha, and other fantastic statues and sculptures.
We had a Thai woman in her early 30’s, “Tata”, guiding us in our city tour. She’s quite a good tour guide, she’s multi-lingual and knows a lot of Filipino words and phrases. Although she has this favorite reply that she say when she can’t understand us, “Tata don’t know.” LOL.
If Hong Kong is known as a shopping district, then Bangkok is the “Main Shopping District”! There are scattered shops on the streets and my most favorite, the “Chatuchak” Market, the MBK, Central Chi Chi, and the Platinum Mall. And the clothes are cheaper from and pretty much like what you get in the regular stores.
The Thais love bright colors! The streets are really an extensive open air kitchen and dinning room, there are hundreds of street stalls with aproned Thais cooking satay, fish, chicken , rice noodles and soups.
It’s quite a crazy life in Bangkok but it comes with interestingly fun and the knowledge that you will learn from their culture is just fascinating!
