Observations en-route in Bangkok

In which Sid and Doris have few days of jet lag mitigation as well as tourism like normal people.

The Riva Surya hotel is on the banks of the Chao Praya with river side pool and terrace, from which S and D love to watch the tug boats working. It takes five or six to get a barge train upstream and two going down. Remember, everybody is normal until you get to know them, and S&D now have about 200 photos of barge formations on the river.

Booking the flights and hotels we hadn’t realised we’d bought accompanied (like guided but without the helpful commentary) sight seeing in the package. Perhaps it is a contractual requirement that the Maeklong railway and the floating market be visited.

The railway trundles through the market and the stall holders pick up what might otherwise be squashed. Being near a fishing port it used to be that the train brought Bangkokkers to buy fish and veg. Now the train brings Japanese and Chinese people to buy harem pants printed with elephants. And take pictures, so here’s ours. The pants are in the stall on the right.

It really is close.

You remember Siam’s symbol is the elephant, though more recently these have been supplanted by motor scooters. We saw no elephants but we did get up to the Maeklong fish market with live action not shown in ads for Captain Birdseye’s fish fingers.

After the railway is the floating market. Mostly the market does not float. The tourist is boated past shore-side stalls and opportunities to buy things, many made from coconuts. Thailand is not short of a coconut plantation. Our guide sensed the S and D scepticism and opted for the quick paddle around the market – it seemed long enough.

Doris is quite capable of putting together auto tourism, so a visit to the National Museum. It is a things museum with not too much context unless you are well aware of the order of Siamese and Thai kings. Still, many things: palanquins, carvings, stupa, Buddahs. And speaking of whom, a Buddha who has been fasting, not the chubby chappy we are used to seeing.

The next day a visit to the Phimam Palace. There is too much to see as Indian, Siamese and Chinese influences collide. To pick out  a couple of memories ……

… a scale model of Angkor Wat so Thais don’t have to go to Khmer territory seen here with a conservator patching in the 19th century concrete. They decided on the model after attempts to move the original failed. Even the model village is quite an achievement.

People dressing up in Siamese court costumes, being made up and photographed. A complete niche industry, and one that feels ripe for an AI/augmented reality takeover.

So far we’ve eaten in small restaurants, though all clearly geared to the farranger. So as to eat at the real thing we had a tuktuk ride with a foody guide going to ‘this is the place in Bangkok where to eat X’. X was always very nice, and to reinforce the local feeling we were shown an arsonist setting fire to our stir fry.

Here is our foody guide looking very pleased, as were we.

The final morning we walked around the small canals and found a less than Royal locals’ neighbourhood shrine.

So, Bangkok? The Riva Surya is a good place to stay. This was a good way of acclimatising to the local time, a pleasant short holiday but we’re not really in Epic Journey mode here.

Onward to Sapporo…