Hanging with the Buddha in Bangkok

You have to have a real hard-on for Asia to keep signing up for 30 hours of economy flying. Your feet swell and your arse goes numb, and when you check there are still 10 hours to go. Our first leg to Vancouver was brightened by a comely flight attendant named Ken who has clearly never missed arms and shoulders day at the gym. His uniform sleeves were seriously endangered when he flexed giving us our safety demonstration. 

The second flight was long but uneventful. I had lovely seat mates who made a bathroom co-pact to all go together so there was no climbing over a sleeping person. The woman next to me was Vietnamese Canadian and just as touchy as her native countrymen, so I spent the flight with lots of giggly shoulder bumping, hand patting and thigh-to-thigh contact. Being a touch-starved Canuck, I settled in for the touching like a cat being petted.

Our first challenge in Bangkok was finding where the Grab stop is at the airport. A recurring theme so far is poor direction signage in English. I thought K would explode trying to navigate the unhelpful images of the skytrain to metro connecting stations. Bangkok is clearly a city organized for Thai readers and not the tourists, which is fair enough. 

The first few nights were at a homestay near Wat Arun. It’s theoretically a café/homestay but I never saw anyone working there or sitting there. Wat Arun was just around the corner and visible from the homestay, as were a couple of 7-Elevens, which are almost as much an attraction in Thailand. The 7-Elevens of Vietnam and Thailand are an elevated experience containing a selection of the things you didn’t even know you wanted. A bag of fried chicken skin? Some fermented pink milk? Chili squid potato chips? They have it. 

The Wat Arun tourist experience has changed considerably since I was last there, pre-Instagram. The first thing you notice is the proliferation of costume and make-up shops in the surrounding area and the sheer number of people wearing traditional Thai costume, both Thai and tourists. Seeing pudgy red-faced Brits crammed into the delicate shimmering confections was hilariously unsettling. The place was crawling with professional photographers posing people at the top of every staircase and on every path and I managed to photobomb as many as possible. 

The other change was that you can no longer climb up Wat Arun. 12 years ago I climbed up the highest stairway to find trapped tourists who climbed up not realizing how steep and terrifying it would be to get back down. I’ve scaled enough stupidly steep world monuments with shallow steps to know sometimes you just have to turn around and go down backwards, like a chastened middle-aged toddler. Someone probably got tired of going up to rescue paralyzed tourists. Or cleaning up after they fell.

I have to count myself as lucky for the things I have been able to climb before they were shut down. I have been panicked atop and inside of Chechen Itza’s El Castillo, atop temples at Tulum, at Wat Arun, and I can’t imagine some of the dodgy temple stairways of Angkor Wat won’t be closed to climbers soon. At least the dangerous things I have climbed in India will probably always be available. Their attitude towards protecting monuments and tourists is best characterized as “eh, there’s more where they came from.” I guess that’s the deal when there’s a billion ancient temples just everywhere. You don’t get too precious about them.

We boated over the river to have a gander at the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. He’s still on the verge of napping. We scooched into their medical massage school and got end-of-day Thai massages for just over 13 dollars which made me feel like joining him in a nap.

The Wat Pho site gladdens my magpie glitter heart with all its glittery roofs, shining Buddhas, golden stupas and intricate decor. I believe I squealed as the late sun rays hit all the gold just before sunset, and it all turned rose gold. I feel giddy just thinking about it. The crows playing amongst the stupas at sunset sounded suspiciously like they had ciggie and whisky voices as they cawed.

Chatuchak weekend market is an experience. It’s a market probably the size of Ottawa, selling everything you could want and things you really don’t ever want. Penis keychains anyone? It wasn’t the high-pressure sell, sensory gut-punch of Indian markets, but it was plenty overwhelming. My head was definitely on a swivel. 

We had been at Asiatique evening market “experience” the night before where our most engrossing thing was the grocery store. We love a good local grocery store. This one sold coloured contact lenses and all sorts of odd things. I bought truffle mayo, Italian floral toothpastes and fruit shaped soap. You know, the essentials. 

Next stop, Chiang Mai!