The past two days in Bangkok have been a whirlwind and a very different experience than Singapore.
We left Singapore at 11:00am and landed in Bangkok around 12:15 after a two hour flight and a 1 hour time difference adjustment. Our first order of business was to book tickets for the night train we were planning to take from Chiang Mai to Bangkok on January 1. We found out that you could only buy those tickets from the Hua Lamphong train station. Okay, no problem... we'll just go there. Right? Not so much. I realized that trying to do something in a new country is like trying to solve a puzzle or find buried treasure but you only get one clue at a time. This was a perfect example. After collecting many "clues" from various sources (maps, information stands, helpful bystanders), we took an express train from the airport to the Makkasan train station, walked several blocks to a subway station (thanks to the help of a friendly American who took pity on the two girls who were obviously very lost), and took the subway to the Hua Lamphong station. We arrived only to discover that, as we had feared, the night train that we wanted to take had been completely booked. Onto plan B... We found a small Internet cafe, booked a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok for early morning Jan. 2, and got the guesthouse we are staying at in Chiang Mai to extend our reservation one more night. We finally made it to our hotel and dropped off our backpacks and set off for Lumpini Park.
After being pointed in the right direction by another friendly passerby, (why doesn't Bangkok believe in street signs???) Maria and I walked to Lumpini Park which is apparently a popular place for running and band practice. But the strangest thing happened at exactly 6pm. Music started streaming from speakers set up all over the park and before we knew it, we were the only people still walking. Everyone, and I mean, absolutely everyone had come to a complete standstill. Ah, this must be Thailand's national anthem. Of course we paused and waited for the song to finish before continuing on our way. The original plan for the rest of the evening was to head to the famous Suan Lum night bazaar, but once we got to where it was supposed to be, it was obvious that it had been closed for quite some time. If tumble weeds existed in Thailand, I'm pretty sure we would have seen a tumble weed roll down the street. That place was deserted! Onto another plan B - we snacked on some street food and wandered around until we found a place for some good Thai food which happened to be across the street from a random night bazaar in an alleyway.
For those of you who have never tried, bargaining at a night bazaar is a pretty fun experience (although Maria doesn't seem to care for it). A typical exchange goes something like this...
Customer show interest in an item (anything from a casual glance to actually handling the item)
Customer: "How much is this?"
Seller: "850 baht" (for example)
Customer: "Oh, okay. Thank you." Begins to walk away.
Seller (quickly): "But for you, my friend, I will give you a very good price... special discount. 750 baht."
Customer: "No thank you" and continues to walk away.
Seller: "How much do you want to spend?" or something like that in broken English. Seller hands you a calculator and motions for you to enter a price.
Customer types 200 into calculator.
Seller types 700 into calculator.
This continues for several rounds until a price around 300 baht is settled upon.
Another technique is to continue to walk away and see how low the seller will drop the price. Using this technique, I got a shawl that started at 850 down to 200. Of course, some sellers are more insistent than others. This one women in particular continued to grab my hand and pull on my arm every time I tried to walk away. If you were looking at a dress, other sellers would try to "help" you, but attempting to put the dress on you to show you how nicely it fit. You just have to be firm and know how much you want to spend before beginning the bargaining process. As there are many stalls selling the exact same items, sellers have a lot of incentive to get your business.
One of the really sad things was that this night bazaar was located in a "red light" alleyway of sorts which was lined with bars filled with scantily clad girls dancing on tables, standing in doorways, etc. What was even more infuriating were the men who were standing outside these bars whose only goal was to get people inside to participate in the exploitation of these girls. It didn't matter if you were male, female, with your wife, girlfriend, or even your children. These men would come up to you with a menu of special services that were being offered inside. For a while I just stood there and watched as older foreign men would enter these establishments, one by one. Its enough to make you sick and its everywhere. If you don't know what you are looking for, it might not be obvious... but if you know, than you can hardly walk down the street without seeing young attractive girls at bars trying to get the attention of a passerby. What's even more discouraging was this silent acceptance of what was going on by everyone around. No one seemed bothered at all at what was happening. Do people even understand what is going on around them???
Click here for pictures from Bangkok.
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