Four Nights in Bangkok Make a Lazy Girl Lazier

9 September 2009

Bangkok, city of mystery, intrigue, phallic temples and ridiculous numbers of ladyboys. We're on a return tour in Thailand, as we were here for a regular old beach holiday in early 2008, when we stopped in Bangkok for two days on the way down to Koh Samui. Four nights this time, staying in the hippie-heaven of Banglamphu, home to Khao San Road--magnet for people who have big embroidered handbags and buy beer-label t-shirts at an alarming rate and don't have jobs. Oh. Wait. That's us.

I think because we've been here before, I'm personally feeling less pressure to actually do anything. We did manage to get to the Jim Thompson House--American ex-CIA guy and architect who single handedly revived the Thai silk market and then vanished into the Malaya Highlands in 1967 without a trace. Good story, and Thais will tell you he was eaten by a tiger or kidnapped by Communists. More prosaically, it seems he probably got mown down by a Malaysian truck driver. His house is in Bangkok, home now to his stellar collection of Thai antiquities and porcelain. It's in an oasis all it's own, by a canal, with palms and brick paths and six traditional houses he moved here and reassembled into one big place. On paper it doesn't sound compelling, but it's one of the most beautiful houses I think I've ever been in. Definitely worth it.

Second day, we did...not much of anything except wander Khao San, and then spend my part of the Blog Award Money on an afternoon at Shewa Spa. Bliss. For the equivalent of $35, got a bikini wax (Me: not everything, Her: Men like it better that way, Me: Um, still no.) Also an oil massage for 45 minutes, scrubbed with salt-turmeric-cucumber concoction for another 45, private sauna for 15 (presumably to cook the turmeric), and then spa bathtub filled with limes and papaya chunks to soak in for a while. Yes, I smell like chicken korma. But I am also as smooth as a baby's butt. Also a pedicure--the real kind, not Chinese-brothel pedicures where they boil your feet and give you tea with spinach in (although at the time it was better than feet like sandpaper). My feet look human again, and that makes me happy.

Food wise, I do like Thai meals. But you can only take so many noodles. Bangkok is a very modern city, full of tourists, so the choices are much better than anywhere we've been in ages. I am celebrating this fact by eating as much Mexican food as possible. Burritos that look like burritos. I am bought cheaply. Beer is Chang and Singha, and I have finally acquired the Chang (elephants and palm trees) t-shirt I missed last time. Perhaps my world has narrowed to worrying proportions...probably time to consider easing back into real life. Tragedy.

Meant to see Muai Thai, the kickboxing famous here, but they will only sell 1000 baht tickets to foreigners, no exceptions, when the locals pay 100. So Denis and Lou did that, and David and I (having seen it last time) wandered off through parks heaving with what appeared to be both addicts and royal palaces, and to what was one of the nicest meals I've had in ages. On the river at the Old Pra Arthit Pier, with neon-lit boats gliding by and fans circling overhead and a bottle of chilled white wine. Beautiful.