December 12, 2007
Munich to Bangkok: The familiar and the new
Departure ran on schedule and was uneventful except for the fact that LTU didn't charge us anything for the bike transport. We had been told it would be 50 Euros per bike. Once on the plane, any eager anticipation I might have felt was extinguished by a nasty case of grippe which I got just two days before leaving. So me with a runny nose and my little carry-on bag stuffed with medication to help me survive the flight and recover quickly, we boarded the plane bound for Bangkok.
Arriving was a deja vu. Last December we flew to Bangkok with our bikes for the first time. Now the second time around, we're old hands at it. We wait less than ten minutes to gather our four panniers and then our bikes at the oversized-luggage area. We know where everything is and it is all so easy. At the stand next to the baggage claim we arrange for a limousine to take us to our hotel and before we know it we're speeding along the motorway towards China Town where we have booked a hotel for four nights.
I had almost forgotten what 'service' means, Germany isn't known for it and I'm usually not keen on being waited on. But here it's different. When the woman at the luggage area pushed my boxed bike to the luggage cart, I automatically stepped up to give her a hand. But she made it clear that is her job and I should get out of the way. And so it went, effortlessly, all the way until we and our bags and our bikes were all lined up in the lobby of the White Orchid Hotel.
Last year we had a room off of Khaosan Road, the ultimate backpacker scene, gaudy and garish and part of the Bangkok experience. This time we are in the heart of China Town and not far from the central train station. Thus we will avoid a grueling bike ride through Bangkok traffic when we take the train to the Cambodian border at the end of the week.
On our first afternoon we take a stroll in the streets near the hotel. China Town is a feast for the eyes - but a punishment for the ears and the lungs. The heavy traffic on the main drag creates an incredible stench and fumes. However, if you slip off to a side alley you might find a temple tucked away and it's amazing how quiet it is all of a sudden, although I'm sure the air isn't much purer.
To say the streets in China Town, as in all of Bangkok, are busy is an understatement. On the sidewalks, pedestrians squeeze through the narrow space left by food vendors and spill out on the street where they must dodge the motorized traffic. Every few feet vendors are selling fresh fruit, barbecued squid, roasted chestnuts - to mention just a few of the temptations.
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The shop signs are in Chinese and Thai, gold and red are the predominant colors, many shops sell gold, Chinese figurines and vases, the restaurants specialize in shark fin soup and birds nest soup. We try the shark fin soup. Not bad but I would be hard put to say what makes it unique.
Compulsively I try to decipher the Chinese characters on the signs as we wander through the streets. I'm encouraged when I see characters I can read - hurrah! Then comes the frustration when I don't know the next character and don't really have a clue what the sign is saying. I often see the characters for fish and gold, all of which abound in some form in China Town.
The White Orchid Hotel is a Chinese hotel and I'm very curious to see what breakfast, included in the price of the room, will be like. One thing is obvious immediately - we're not in a European ghetto. No French toast or muesli is included in the opulent buffet. Instead there is rice porridge, fried rice, plain rice, stir-fry vegetables, chicken feet, Indian pakoras, salad with pink dressing, papaya, watermelon and pineapple, fried eggs, toast, some things I don't recognize ... absolutely overwhelming.
On the second day our morning stroll takes us to the big Sampeng market - an endless maze of lanes with stalls selling a dizzying array of everything imaginable, all hundred-fold if not thousand-fold, buttons, bracelets, blouses, beads... It's 10:30 and the sweat is running off me. Old time motor scooters, no larger vehicles are allowed here, weave in and out between the shoppers. A group of about 20 cyclists, western tourists, ride through in single file. From the worried looks on their faces I get the impression coping with the pedestrians and motor scooters is spoiling their fun and I don't feel at all tempted to join them. We have some better ideas where we want to bike.
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