Breezin' in Bangkok

The reason my wife and I are here in Bangkok is to spend some time with our children and grandchildren who live here. Our first task was to attend our granddaughters' Hanukah party. It was very cute and the teachers obviously invested a lot in it. We met some of the Chabad wives who were at the party with their kids. Everyone – as is Chabad's custom – was very friendly and wel-coming. I never cease to be amazed by the devotion that these families have. I mean by coming out to the boondocks here they really do give up a lot, despite the fact that here in Thailand there is a very big Chabad presence. There are of plenty families and they live in this closed society here, so there is plenty sup-port systems for them. It's not like the Chabadnikim in Tokyo, for example, who are literally on their own, without any support. Even the family in Phuket has two other bachelors who are there as assistants. Here in Bangkok, each of the three Chabad houses has plenty of Chabad support staff from Israel. It's also interesting to see the ratio of foreign-origin shluchim there are versus the amount of Israeli-origin shluchim there are. Somehow it appears to me that most of the shluchim in 'difficult' places are from Israel, while those in 'easy' places are from the USA or other non-Israeli origins. Hmmmm…

Now, something about eating in Thailand. Not us - just the way people eat, you know, Amcha Thailand. It seems that there's an eating house every twenty meters. Someone has an agala with a gas powered stove thingy to heat pots or create deep fry, along with three small tables, 6 chairs and maybe an umbrella for each one, and lo and behold, there's a restaurant! Now the sidewalks are usually about 6 inches wide – just kidding – but they are about a meter wide. Of course once your tables, chairs, umbrellas, and kitchen are all out on the sidewalk, there is very little place for pedestrians. OK, so those then walk on the street, and then back onto the sidewalk – or not. So there is a fair amount of pandemonium as far as people walking in the street are concerned. My wife described the street scene as one of controlled pandemonium.

The traffic is amazing. For each car there must be 180 motorbikes, and at any one moment there are at least 2 million cars on the road in this city of 23 million people (daytime population), and the rules of the road are, well, sort of recommendations, really. Not really a code, so to speak. So a stop sign means slow down – if you feel like it – before squeezing in to the traffic, or pushing your way in. The only things that do work are traffic lights. But sometimes, your light can be red for 15 minutes due to heavy traffic in the other direction. Now, when your light does eventually go green you can't move anyway, because all cars going in the other direction have blocked the intersection. So you have to wait until the light goes green at the other intersection so that they can move out of the way. Of course, by that time, your light is red again. Very much patience is required. And of course there's absolutely no such thing as driving somewhere in a hurry. So when my daughter-in-law offered to take out special insurance so that they could give us the car, I looked at her aghast. What, me drive in Bangkok? No way Josina!

If you are in a hurry to get anywhere the best thing to do is take the sky train, the subway, or take a motorbike taxi. These are motorbikes with drivers and room for one passenger (even though we have seen the motorbike with one adult passenger and two child passengers). Helmets are NOT required, even though a few of the motorbike-taxi drivers have been known to once have seen one. The other option is to take a tuk-tuk. But the problem with both these options is that the pollution levels here are SO high that you'd probably catch some lung disease driving around on these.

We've been very fortunate that the humidity has been not bad at all, what with it being winter and all. Now, winter means something very different in Bangkok than it does in other places. Seeing that this is very tropical weather, winter means temperatures of 26-28C (for you Fahrenheit people, you'll have to work it out). In short, it's very warm and sunny. The night time temperature drops only about 2 degrees, so it's much the same all the time.

Wanting to explore the city, we chose one day as a true sightseeing day. We walked to the sky train station and took the skytrain from Phrom Pong station to Siam station (via Asok, Ploen Chit, Nana, and Chit Lom) and there we switched trains and continued to the National Stadium.

While we were at the sky train station looking at the map this American accented guy who must be a local expat comes over to us to offer assistance. Very nice of him, I must say. He said "You guys are shouting 'Tourist' all over so let me give you some words of warning." And he proceeded to tell us about all sorts of shady characters that hang out near the temple and the Royal Palace (where we were going) and tell people that come that the place is closed now until X time, so until it opens he suggest going to such and such a place or he will offer to take us to such and such a place, and of course this is a swindle of some sort. Well lo and behold, no sooner had we arrive at the temple when some guy comes to us to tell us that the temple is closed to 1 p.m. and he suggests that we go to such and such. Forewarned is forearmed, and so we ignored him and proceeded on our merry way.

Then we took another taxi to the Royal palace and the Wat Pho temple. Wat Pho is where they have the world's largest reclining Buddha – all 26.5 meters of him, and he's covered in gold leaf! Dude! The temple grounds are very ornate with tons of mosaic work all over the place. It's interesting that while I was looking at the forest; my wife was seeing the individual trees. She got into the detail of the mosaic and the material from which it is made. The gardens have lots of sculpted trees and hundreds of beautiful polished brass Buddha statues all over the place. After browsing the gardens and the various shrines we eventually came to the place where the reclining Buddha was housed. There you have to take your shoes off to go in (a la Japan).

My wife wasn't into that at all, so she waited outside while I went in and took pictures for her to see. We spent about two hours at the temple and then walked over to the Royal Palace. The king doesn't actually live there and it's only used for coronations or very, very special state occasions. As we arrived at one of the gates to the palace, there was a soldier on guard there. I guess he was not from the Royal Guard because those guys were on the inside and were dressed up much fancier. This one was just in his green fatigues. Anyway, just next to him is another guy who tells us the palace is closed until 1 p.m. for lunch, and he suggests we go to such and such a place and then come back. Dude, don't you know every second guy hanging out here is trying the same scam?

Anyway, we ignored him and continued to the next gate which was – of course – wide open and taking everyone in. So in we went and bought tickets and some ice cream (Hagen Das!) and then traipsed into the palace. Once again beautiful gardens, sculpted trees, splendidly dressed Royal Guards who – like their Buckingham counterparts in London – don't even twitch. I went and took a picture with the guys. The only important building into which guests are allowed is the temple of the emerald Buddha (who is in fact made of Jade) which was not impressive at all. I've seen huge jade Buddhas in China. This one is tiny. But the mythical symbolism behind it is what’s important to the Thai people. What I like most is the architecture and the various Chedi (the Thai version of the Indian Stupa) of which some are scintillating sparkling white, some gold and most are covered in mosaic.

Also, it seems to me that the issue of roofs exists here as it does (did) in China; in that roofs of Royal buildings are yellow. Yellow is also the color of the flag of the royal family, and you see it here all over the place. As a matter of fact today we drove along a street called "We Love the King Road".

After an hour and a half at the palace we were ready for something different, so we walked around this huge park opposite the palace toward Khaosan Road which is where the backpackers all hang out and where there is a kosher restaurant run by Chabad. Here too, one is jostled all the time by folks selling something in the street, as well as Sikh-looking fortune tellers and various other soothsayers.

Then to lunch, at last… We met the Shaliach who operates this Chabad House. It's a 5-story building with halls for Shabbat and hagim events, as well as a phone and internet café (free) and of course, a restaurant. Food was delicious! Then we started making our way back toward the Siam Paragon shopping malls (it's HUGE. It has a big Cineplex, a Madam Tussaud's Museum, a Fanatasyland, and Discovery land and a HUGE sea world inside the mall along with thousands of stores and a food floor the size of a soccer field) where Chabad was hosting a Hanukkah party. Chabad laid out free drinks and a full dinner for about 400 people, plus candle lighting and an Israeli singer who they brought out for the event. Amazing!

Some observations regarding some things we have seen.

First of all, flowers. There are flowers everywhere decorating all sorts of things. First of all, wherever there is a picture of the king (and there are pictures of the king everywhere) there is also a man-made garden around or in front of the picture. Now rather than plant an actual garden in the ground, the garden is created by placing potted flowers close together in attractive patterns. In this way the garden can be kept easier, and when flowers wither, they can be easily replaced, thus the gardens remain constantly pretty. Tree sculpting is also popular here in public parks and we have seen many gardeners occupied sculpting trees and hedges. So there is here this combination in gardening phenomena I have seen both in China (the potting issue) and in Japan (sculpting of trees and bushes). Another thing by which I am constantly amazed: the plentitude of orchids. Orchids are Thailand's national flower, mainly the purple ones with the white and yellow centers. Orchids are everywhere. I have also notice that in many places orchids grow on other trees, like palms and tamarinds. They way this is achieved is that they are simply hung around the tree trunk with their roots in clusters of unsupported soil. I don't quite know how the soil doesn't break off and fall away, but I guess the roots of the orchid also hold the soil together. It's both amazing and very beautiful.

Now the issue of water. Water in Bangkok is free. Like in Vancouver when we lived there. You don't pay for water. And there is tons of it everywhere. First of all, there are the rivers and then there's the monsoon, and this year there was also the floods. So I guess there are ups and downs to this item. Add to the plenty water the high level of humidity that is typical in the tropics, and it's no wonder that gardens are green here. The grass is very different to the grass back home. The leaves of the grass here are much larger than ours. They also water the grass so much that any time we have walked on the grass in public gardens (yes, it is permitted) it has been like walking on sponge. The ground seems to be completely waterlogged.

Despite the description of Thailand as a place that is semi-disorganized, I noticed something worthwhile the other day. My grandson and I went to the mall to go bowling. We arrived half and hour before the mall opened (10 a.m.) and we had to wait outside. At about 10 to 10, the crowds outside the mall started to form a line that immediately began to grow in an orderly fashion until opening time. Then when the doors opened, people started filing in through the metal detectors, also in orderly fashion. And this is the height of pre-new year sale season. Very, very orderly. The same applies on the skytrain and on the underground. There are lanes for people getting off the trains and lanes for those getting on the trains. When the train arrives, then those who are waiting to get on wait until everyone who needs to get off gets off, and then those waiting to get on get on. The getting off lane is in the middle and the getting on lanes are on either side of the getting off lane. Very orderly. The trains can get crowded, specially at rush hour. Then again, during peak hours there are more trains; approximately every 4 minutes or so. So the system works very well. Also, it's spanking clean!