Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There (Bangkok, Thailand) Part 1

Welcome to my Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There Blog.
So, a little fib on the title of today’s blog – technically I don’t wish I was there (as I'm soooo happy to be back home in New Zealand), but I’d like to tell you a little about my experiences in the city of Bangkok. Because we spent two weeks in this crazy city I’ll spread this blog over two weeks.

Things I loved:

Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. We did a full day tour up to the Tiger Temple (although we were only at the temple for approximately 3 hours) and it was the highlight of the trip for me. We got to bottle feed tiger cubs who were the just cutest thing ever. Ever. I felt so privileged to even be allowed to touch one of these gorgeous animals, let alone stroke its ears, play with its tail, gauge the size of its paw in my palm! The big cats appeared to be very well looked after and we could tell the volunteer staff really cared about these animals. We had a go at washing a full grown tiger and I even fed him a cooked chicken. Later we had a photo with an adult male tiger’s head on my lap (and boy was it heavy holding his jaw up!) and we watched these incredible creatures frolic and play in the water. We also got to ride on an elephant's back (my husband even got to take a turn at being a Mahout) and walk on the 'Bridge over the River Kwai, which was a sobering experience.

Chatuchak Market. I had a love/hate relationship with this market. While it was fabulous seeing all the different things for sale and being able to pick up gifts for my kids relatively cheaply, it saddened me to see animals in tiny cages sweltering in the heat. Evidently over 100,000 people visit the market each weekend, and the weekend we were there, it felt like it.

The people. Thailand really is the ‘Land of Smiles’. Everyone we met was very polite and nobody ever seemed to lose their cool like you see in Western countries. One of the most interesting conversations I had was with our Tiger Temple tour guide, who told me quite candidly what life is like for a lot of Thai women. Damn near broke my heart.

Lumphini Park. How can you not love a place that blocks out the roar of traffic in Bangkok, has pedal boats shaped like swans and huge monitor lizards roaming free? Fabulous. 

Things I didn’t love quite so much.

The heat. Oh my goodness, it was hot. Too much for this Kiwi lady who is used to temperatures in the early 20’s – Bangkok was in the mid 30’s! God bless air conditioners is all I can say – and I’ll never again complain about Wellington’s cool breeze!

The culture shock. I got used to it once I’d been there a week, but to start with the smog, smells, noise and craziness of Bangkok overwhelmed me. But I still never got used to seeing babies and toddlers jammed on bikes and mopeds (without helmets) weaving between fast-moving traffic - it horrified me. And while it may not be politically correct to say so, I found it very hard seeing the poverty and misery of the city's many beggars and homeless people.

The language barrier. I may not have loved not being able to communicate easily, but boy, was it funny some days! Ever tried to mime out ‘I’m missing a pair of shorts and pants’ to a sweet little old Thai lady laundress who doesn’t speak English? No? It’s great fun! (I admit I cheated in the end and got our hotel receptionist to write it down in Thai so she could understand).

Shopping. You think I'm kidding, right? Nope. After two weeks in Bangkok being crowded by makeshift stalls on the side walk that sold everything from t-shirts to deep-fried insects, or swallowed up by giant multi-levelled shopping malls (at least they were air-conditioned), I am totally done shopping for the next year. Or maybe two.

Next week I’ll cover a few more things I loved/didn’t love so much. And that’s the thing I enjoy about travel – it’s discovering some wonderful places and things, and learning to deal with and laugh about the things that perhaps weren’t so great. It’s all experience – and as they say in New Zealand, “It’s all good.”

Tracey.