Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Hello from Bangkok!
After sending my last e-mail, I hopped on a quick 50-minute flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok. Despite the short duration of the flight, the trip was like being rocketed forward in time from a very primitive society to one that is, in some respects, more advanced than back home. Of course, once you peel back the veneer of the modern skyscrapers and high-fashion shopping malls with their stores selling cutting edge high-definition televisions, Bangkok actually contains many of the same traditional markets, small shops and traditional Southeast Asian homes that Cambodia has. It makes me wonder whether this is what Phnom Penh will look like 20 years from now . . .
I knew that I had left the third world behind the instant my taxi driver pulled out of the Bangkok airport onto a very modern 6-lane elevated highway and the first billboard I saw was an advertisement for the local Ferrari dealership. He then proceeded to nimbly navigate his way through the lunchtime traffic at 140 kilometres per hour (in a 60 kilometre per hour zone).
That drive foreshadowed a number of other harrowing experiences I was to have in the extremely congested traffic in this city of 10 million. Although the taxi drivers all seem to think they're Michael Schumacher, it is the tuk tuk drivers that can really put a fright into their passengers.
I generally have taken a tuk tuk to get from the area near the Chao Phraya River to the nearest skytrain station. (The skytrain is an excellent new ultra-modern elevated light rail system in that will hopefully reduce traffic congestion in Bangkok). In fact, if you've seen the chase scene filmed in Bangkok in the James Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun, then you've seen the streets to which I am referring. In fact, it is quite appropriate that those streets were featured in a James Bond chase scene, because that's what riding in a tuk tuk in Bangkok is like.
As opposed to the tuk tuks in Phnom Penh, which were essentially trailers hooked onto weak motorcycles, the tuk tuks in Bangkok are like three-wheeled golf carts with the same sort of engine as a go-kart (again, quite appropriate). The driver sits in front and the passenger sits on a padded bench situated above the rear wheels, at about the same height as the exhaust pipes of the old smoke-belching city buses that ply the streets of this gridlocked city. Sitting in a tuk tuk during Bangkok's rush hour must be the equivalent of smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes.
The problem is that, once the tuk tuk driver and his passenger have agreed on a price to get to the destination, the driver's only goal becomes to get rid of the passenger in order to pick up a new fare. The tuk tuk drivers pursue this goal with zeal. They will not hesitate to reach speeds of as fast as 80 kilometres per hour as they drive on the wrong side of the road, drive head-on against oncoming traffic on a one-way street, drive up on the sidewalk and drive down alleyways to avoid main streets, while taking speed bumps at full speed. Because they have only 3 wheels and their drivers do not slow down when taking curves, it constantly feels like the tuk tuk will flip over. The tuk drivers also like to race with other tuk tuk drivers for fun . . . never a dull moment.
Bangkok is a huge city that seems familiar in many ways and certainly contains all the conveniences of home. For instance, the other day, I was walking past a parking lot containing an Esso service station and a McDonald's restaurant, and I thought to myself, I could be in Montreal right now. However, just as that thought crossed my mind, I noticed a man walking his pet elephant past the gas pumps.
Another time, while walking down a narrow street, to my surprise, I came upon a golf driving range. I hit a large bucket of balls. I had been meaning to start preparing for the golf season . . . how convenient!
Besides Thais, the population of Bangkok consists of many ex-pats. Most signs are in English and it is not at all difficult for an English-speaker to get by. I have also heard some Hebrew being spoken in the streets. Thailand is popular with Israelis. There is even a synagogue near my hotel. In addition, there is a large Indian population. The Indians tend to be wealthier than average and are active in the textile business.
While in Bangkok, I have been staying in a hotel around the corner from my friend Jake. Jake attended law school with me at McGill and then spent a few years as a corporate lawyer in New York. For the last year-and-a-half, Jake has been living in Bangkok and practising in mergers and acquisitions in a law firm here. He has done deals with companies in nearby countries such as Indonesia and India (and has had the opportunity to travel to those countries).
Jake leads quite the life in Bangkok. He lives in a large 33rd floor penthouse apartment with a huge terrace that provides him with a nearly unobstructed 270-degree view of Bangkok. Donald Trump would be impressed. From his terrace, you can see urban sprawl extending as far as the horizon. You can see skyscrapers reaching as high as 84-storeys in every direction (no urban planning in this town, it seems). As we celebrated my arrival with a glass of champagne on the terrace the night I arrived, it was hard to believe that, just a few hours earlier, I had just been in a dusty third-world country where the tallest building is at most 10 floors high.
Jake also has a maid with whom he speaks pidgin Thai (she seems to understand him). Downstairs from Jake's is a lively café and a beautiful health club where Jake regularly plays tennis with the former number 7-ranked player in Thailand.
Jake has developed a good social network consisting of both ex-pats and Thais. Some of the interesting people I have had the opportunity to meet through Jake include the British ex-pat manager of Jake's apartment complex and his Thai wife.
I also met a professional model whose face is plastered on Nescafe billboard ads all over Bangkok. She is half Canadian and half Thai and studies at UCLA.
Also, one evening, Jake invited his friend Som to join us. She is an actress who stars in a highly rated Thai soap opera (watched by over 6 million viewers). It was fun to see the stares she was getting from Thai people as we walked with her. We also had no trouble and no wait as we entered a couple of bars and clubs with her. In addition, she has her own television production company.
Thailand is known for its food, which has been very enjoyable, although perhaps a bit too spicy for my liking. It includes a lot of fish, seafood rice and coconut milk. The Thais seem to take pride in their food.
Yesterday, on a walk through Chinatown, I saw cooked cockroaches being sold by a street-side vendor. I passed!
I visited a number of museums and landmarks in Bangkok, and also took a boat ride on the Chao Phraya River. The opulent Royal Palace and adjacent temples are spectacular, with walls covered in gold and shiny coloured glass. I have also visited many Buddhist temples, where I have seen numerous statues of Buddha of every shape and size, including the famous reclining Buddha that is 48 metres long and 15 metres high and is covered in gold.
I also visited the National Museum, where a recurring theme was the fact that, unlike its neighbours, Thailand has never been colonized. The idea expressed in the museum exhibits is that only "non-civilized" countries became colonized. Therefore, in order to keep up with Western civilizations, Thai kings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries regularly traveled to Europe and even America to bring back the latest concepts and trends. As a result, Thai architecture, for example, reflects a mixture of Western and Asian styles.
To learn more about Thai architecture, I visited Jim Thompson's house. Thompson was an American and former CIA agent who moved to Thailand in the 1950's and was instrumental in developing Thailand's silk industry. He built an elaborate wooden house on stilts in the traditional Thai style. It is situated along a canal in Bangkok. The guided tour was very informative. Thompson disappeared mysteriously in 1967 while hiking in Malaysia.
Tonight, I am off to Paris for the final leg of my trip and to reacclimatize to Western ways. I look forward to visiting one of my favourite cities. It has been a while.
I also look forward to experiencing outdoor temperatures that actually dip below 28 degrees Celsius!
See you soon.
--Larry
