Bangkok Part 1

Riding elephants in Bangkok

The main drag in the
Weekend Market.
It's the only straight street.

My friend Melanie joined me for the first leg of my Thaliand adventure.  She's already visited several times and was my guide to Bangkok.  We hit 3 Bangkok highlights in 3 days: Shopping, elephants and poverty-stricken neighborhoods. 

The first stop was the huge Weekend Market the day Mel arrived.   It was absolutely enormous and you could find almost anything in its rabbit-warren aisles.  Locally produced/woven cloths and sandles?  Check.  Thai silk scarves and dresses?  Check.  Knockoff name brand watches and purses?  Check.  Weird looking junk?  Check. Elaborately decorated surgical masks??  Check.  (Melanie and I actually had to ask that stall what the heck they were.)  There was something at this Market for all the locals and any tourist.  We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly before treating ourselves to a foot massage and some delicious Thai food. 

You can even buy cowboy hats
in Bangkok

A view through the stalls of the market

The next morning, we woke up early with the plan to find a driver to take us to the Samphran Elephant Park and Zoo.  It took a couple of trys with Uber, but we managed to find a driver who got us there by 9:30 . . . a full hour after the park supposedly opened but it still felt deserted. .  Eventually, they did bring out the elephants and we got to ride a really cute one named Joey around the huge park area.  The park was really pretty even if it's paved.  And we got special treatment since we were the only ones in the park by this point.  The elephant was so sweet!  And so smart!

Because the same elephants alternately give rides to tourists, perform in the elephant show, and are trotted out to be fed by tourists, they were trained it to dance, pose for pictures, and generally be very very cute while still being enormous.   There were other attractions in this “zoo”, including monkeys, tigers and the many crocodiles that Mel and I wandered by to fill the time.  There was even an nerve-wracking crocodile show.  But the elephants were definitely the highlight.

Would you like a banana?

Here's your banana

Mel made sure the babies got fed too

Elephants playing soccer
love it!

Yikes!

Part of the Elephant Show

We got back in time to order custom made dress shirts, which are cheap and high quality here, and then eat dinner.  We happened to be  in Bangkok during the Loy Kathrong (River Festival) period and ate dinner on the river at Asiatique, which is another market.  This market is aimed squarely at tourist and is priced appropriately.  We did get to see the boat show as we took the water ferry to the Asiatique pier where they had set up a separate carnival area, including ferris wheel, celebrating the holiday.

The boat show was part of
Bangkok's Loy Kathrong celebration

The next morning started even earlier than the last so we could meet Pastor Nuam so he could drive us to the Children’s House.  Abba House is a ministry that Melanie has been volunteering with for years that works with people in the slums of Noorsathorn.  They do many things.  One service they offer helps  care for and educate the young children of families living in the slum.  In addition to teaching them how to read, write and speak English, this service help pay for kids birth certificates because these families usually cannot afford the ~$100 fee.  Birth certificates are key in this country because the free public education that starts at age 6 is not available to children without one.

KaiMouk was so proud of
her floating lantern!

Arts and crafts with the kids.
The final products.

So these kids are at high risk of ending up in situations even worse than their parents – prostitutes, slaves, thieves or drug addicts.  In fact, 2 of the kids who had been long-time participants were not there the week we visited because their parents owed money to the neighbors and couldn’t pay it back, and so they moved out in the middle of the night.  We played with the remaining kids, including practicing letters, matching animals to words and sounds, and the arts and crafts project of the day: Making Kathrongs (floating lanterns) in the spirit of the river festival!  The volunteers even let us build adult versions.  The kids were sweet, intelligent, energetic and heartbreaking knowing the hard reality they received in the ovarian lottery.  The pastor and his young wife are doing so much to help out their local community, and it was heartrending listening to them discuss what dreams they had put on hold because funding only allowed them to chase a few at once.  Melanie and I both had a lot of fun with the kids and Abba House volunteers and I left feeling both very fortunate and thinking I should be doing more to help the people who aren't as fortunate as us.   

Some tidbits from Bangkok: 

The big city of Bangkok.

Thais are beautiful, happy people who laugh and smile a lot.  They are incredibly kind, patient and friendly to a lot of tourists who flood their country.  This is known as the land of Smiles.  And they live up to their reputation.

I feel very tall in Thailand!  It is not a feeling I am used to.
Good thing there are so many Westerners living here to keep me grounded to reality.  In fact, there are A LOT of westerners in Bangkok.  And the Thai people appear to have adjusted to them instead of the other way around.

Melanie and I began a running joke about the number of white guys we saw walking around with Thai women.  Granted . . .  there is a lot of prostitution here, and we definitely saw those couples.  But most of the pairs looked like long-term relationships between white, wealthy expats and some happy Thai woman who felt like Cinderella. 

Melanie and I also noticed that Thailand has reached the peak of marketing.  Billboards look like movie screens and multiple billboards were even were coordinated with each other!  There are TVs on the metro, and every building or street corner is advertising something. 

Thai construction standards are not up to USA federal standards.  And there is construction everywhere.  Just a couple of examples to entertain any of my guys back at PEX who are reading this:   

How many splices can you count?
This is pretty typical all over the city.
 . . . At least these look shielded - some aren't.
Notice the vines growing through the
electrical cables

We passed this earlier
no hard hats, no scaffolding
no structure pouring concrete

Yikes.  That's all I'm going to say.