Bangkok! 9-12 December
Approaching the centre in our minibus from the Cambodian border, we enter a sprawling entangled world of ten-lane motorways, frantic flyovers and skyscrapers straddling and dwarfing a jumble of low-rise jam-packed houses or shacks in a maze of small streets, jostling with small businesses and street traders and lining a network of malodorous grimy canals and the wide river where busy ferries and riverbuses, barges and tourist longboats busily ply their trade.
Everywhere bustle, noise, smells, traffic, fumes and grime, intermingled with utter gems like the bright brash and sumptuous Royal Palace, the ancient Wat Pho temple complex, where the 50 metre long gold Reclining Buddha draws admiration, astonishment or prayers from visitors and 2,000 golden buddhas fill the tiny alcoves that hide in the cloister walls all around.
Amongst forests of crass and gleaming multi-national towerblocks, a modern architectural gem emerges when we happen upon the new Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre, with its open plan swirling staircases and airy exhibition halls. A new 'Water and Empathy' photographic exhibition records and commemorates the Bangkok people's heroic response to the October floods, illustrating the pain and the tragedy as well as the creativity, mutual support, resilience and humour of the mostly smiling population. Sandbags remain all round the city, especially near the riverbanks, but yet outlying villages and suburbs continue now to have to protest in order to bring attention and aid to their 'less important' communities.
Highlights for us in Bangkok are the Palace, Wat Pho, the riverbuses, a great cookery morning in a Thai home, an early evening wander through Chinatown as the street stalls start preparing mouth-watering snacks and dishes and a spectacular dance and drama performance of Thai culture, music, legend and daily life through the ages and across the tribal areas, costumes and languages. A welcome respite is found in a leisurely afternoon in an oasis of green space and calm at Lumphini Park, where, against a hazy backdrop of towering blocks and temple spires, real Thai people walk, stretch, exercise, workout, have picnics, play, sleep, court, ride paddleboats or play kickvolley, where the players perform amazingly acrobatic moves, often in mid-air to smash the basket-weave ball back and forth with startling speed, skill and agility.
Night-train to Laos comes next..
Approaching the centre in our minibus from the Cambodian border, we enter a sprawling entangled world of ten-lane motorways, frantic flyovers and skyscrapers straddling and dwarfing a jumble of low-rise jam-packed houses or shacks in a maze of small streets, jostling with small businesses and street traders and lining a network of malodorous grimy canals and the wide river where busy ferries and riverbuses, barges and tourist longboats busily ply their trade.
Everywhere bustle, noise, smells, traffic, fumes and grime, intermingled with utter gems like the bright brash and sumptuous Royal Palace, the ancient Wat Pho temple complex, where the 50 metre long gold Reclining Buddha draws admiration, astonishment or prayers from visitors and 2,000 golden buddhas fill the tiny alcoves that hide in the cloister walls all around.
Amongst forests of crass and gleaming multi-national towerblocks, a modern architectural gem emerges when we happen upon the new Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre, with its open plan swirling staircases and airy exhibition halls. A new 'Water and Empathy' photographic exhibition records and commemorates the Bangkok people's heroic response to the October floods, illustrating the pain and the tragedy as well as the creativity, mutual support, resilience and humour of the mostly smiling population. Sandbags remain all round the city, especially near the riverbanks, but yet outlying villages and suburbs continue now to have to protest in order to bring attention and aid to their 'less important' communities.
Highlights for us in Bangkok are the Palace, Wat Pho, the riverbuses, a great cookery morning in a Thai home, an early evening wander through Chinatown as the street stalls start preparing mouth-watering snacks and dishes and a spectacular dance and drama performance of Thai culture, music, legend and daily life through the ages and across the tribal areas, costumes and languages. A welcome respite is found in a leisurely afternoon in an oasis of green space and calm at Lumphini Park, where, against a hazy backdrop of towering blocks and temple spires, real Thai people walk, stretch, exercise, workout, have picnics, play, sleep, court, ride paddleboats or play kickvolley, where the players perform amazingly acrobatic moves, often in mid-air to smash the basket-weave ball back and forth with startling speed, skill and agility.
Night-train to Laos comes next..
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