NO 'ELL IN FAR EAST

7th - 9th Dec 2019

Festive entrance to a Bangkok shop. Ho Ho Ho!

As promised there is nothing much to report from this part of the world that hasn't already been covered in previous blogs. I arrived in Bangkok expecting to spend a few days with a French ex-colleague and family but unfortunately he had been recalled to Paris at short notice so I was left with five days to kill here. This blog will just be a hotchpotch of sights and events with one or two 'interesting' new ventures.

There were plenty of Christmas decorations around town. I stayed, as I had done previously, at the Narai Hotel on Silom Road. Booked in for a couple of nights through Expedia.co.uk (at the last minute) it is a very comfortable 4 star hotel and cost me about £40 per night which is a real bargain. It is near the efficient Metro (MRT) and Skytrain (BTS) stations and with plenty of shops, bars and restaurants nearby as well as the infamous Patpong streets, it is well located for amusement and to travel the city.

Bangkok traffic at rush hours can be total grid-lock. Right: There are useful signs over some of the main junctions which, if you were unfortunate enough to be travelling by car, show colour-coded areas of traffic flow (or not). Good idea...far too advanced for the UK.

Left: The tea room in the luxurious Oriental Hotel which is beside the Chao Phraya river. This place has lounges and bars named after famous authors (John Le Carre, Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, amongst others) who used to frequent the place in earlier days. It is now the haunt of the Nouveau Riche and, presumably, wealthy 'celebrities'. I had a glass of wine in the riverside bar which cost about the same as night in the Narai.

Right: I called in at the British Club (near the Narai). It is a splendid place and has been in existence since 1903, always with British presidents/chairmen. It is a truly British establishment and on a par with the smarter clubs in London. As well as bedrooms, elegant bars and restaurant (serving roast beef etc.) it has a full sized swimming pool (with bar), glass backed squash courts, four tennis courts and even cricket nets. The inside sitting-room, leather armchairs occupied by slumbering gents,  even has (two day old) British newspapers to hand. It is a welcome oasis of peace, tranquility and civilised charm in what is otherwise a noisy, hectic and polluted city. Certainly worth joining if you are a Brit living in Bangkok. Behind my left shoulder in this photo is a British War Memorial. This was moved here from the elegant British Embassy when it was sold off a few years ago. I believe any Ambassadorial business is now conducted from a portacabin somewhere in the city. How the mighty have fallen! Pathetic.

I took a stroll around Lumpini Park. Several inter-connected lakes with swan-shaped pedal boats and lots of places to sit and.....sit. There are a few cafés in this park but they all seemed to be closed for some reason. I came across this gang of happy girls posing for a group photo. I was told they were on tour from the Philippines.

I was keen to visit the Royal Bangkok Sporting Club. Amongst other facilities it has a turf horse-racing track and I was keen to get in and see it. No way! Strictly members only and officious guards were on all the several gates to enforce the rule. Even my best bluffing failed to have any effect. I think I gathered that it is open to the public on Sundays when racing is on. They want their money. In the event I forgot to go on the Sunday I was there. En route I passed a small Buddhist shrine (left) by the main road. 

Small it may have been but there were lots of young people buying candles and wreaths and paying homage to the Buddha.

Left: A religious 'band' playing drums and whining string instruments plus dancers were present. They obviously take their Buddhist worshipping quite enthusiastically....even the youngsters. I believe it is all to do with 'ancestor worship' or somesuch family orientated praying, but I am no expert on this (or much else for that matter).

There are always shopgirls and boys wearing Father Christmas hats and reindeer antlers at this time of year, but this is the first time I have met a shopgirl wearing a Christmas tree. She was the one keen on taking this 'selfie'!

Of course I had to have a wander around Patpong, the market stall cum sex club area at the bottom of Silom Road (right) for old times sake. Actually it has become a pale imitation of the utterly debauched place I remember from 20 years ago. It still caters for much the same clientele but now more heavily regulated.

Some of the clubs are even quite honest about their staff.

Right: One of the ubiquitous Bangkok Tuk-Tuks. Even they have fallen victim to the eco-warriors in that their engines have been 'cleaned up' and they don't make the same characteristic 'tut-tuk' noise, or belch out that comely black smoke that they were once famous for. Of course they would still fall foul of any number of OTT 'elf 'n safety' regulations in UK. They used to be incredibly cheap but, thanks to the tourist onslaught, they are now rip-off expensive. I walk, or use the metro system.

Left: There is a lot of pavement art. This is part of a much longer work and I saw children happily hopping up and down it.

Right: An interesting piece of architecture. 

OK, that was a brief couple of days in Bangkok. Where to go next to fill in the remaining three? I had a flash of inspiration. I would go down to Pattaya, a town on the west coast to the south of Bangkok. I had heard a lot about this place previously...much of it fairly horrific but, being the intrepid explorer, I felt it needed some first-hand investigation. 

......to be continued.