“Peaceful” is the last word most people would use to describe Chatuchak. Except “Spiritual” perhaps. But literally alongside its vast, sweaty market the district is also home to a surprisingly large and beautiful park, and one of the city’s most interesting modern temples. The park is right by the subway and Skytrain stops at the entrance to the market. Overheated shoppers sit stunned on the benches, their purchases strewn around them, while couples doze under palm trees and monitor lizards slither into the lake. But the park is so big though that you can easily wander away from the crowds to where well-maintained lawns stretch away into junglish undergrowth by lime-green canals. Soon you are all alone.

You can walk for thirty or even forty minutes through meadows and lawns, hearing just the calls of tropical birds and the distant hum of city traffic, although skyscrapers peer Central Park-like over its Eastern edge.

At this time of year, the park is also host to the pink blossoms of a tropical tree known in Thai as the “King of tigers”. The flowers fall like cherry blossoms and blanket the ground in pink.

I had never heard of this “Thai sakura” phenomenon and I was stunned. In one particularly beautiful spot the flowers drifted over a lotus pond in bloom.

At the far Northern boundary of the park, just beyond the road that bissects the parkland, lies one of Bangkok’s most distinctive temples. The Buddhassa Indapanyo Buddhist archive is housed in a minimalist modern structure, where white-clad pilgrims gather on a terrace looking out over the lake. Cool, concrete and contemporary, the structure is a complete departure from the dazzling glitter of most Thai temples, but its simplicity gives it a sense of calm perfectly suited to a Buddhist centre. There is also a well-designed Dhamma bookstore that was playing a CG animation of the life of Buddha when I was there. It is the perfect place to stop before plunging back into the city.

Bangkok’s dusty National Museum is an underrated treasure, brimming with beautiful old Thai decorative arts from textiles to muscial instruments. The halls and balconies display the ancient pottery of Baan Chiang which predates civilization in China, headless Hindu deities from Angkor Wat, art from the medieval Lanna Kingdom of the North, Sukothai and the Srijaya Kingdom of the South.

A big part of its appeal though is the building itself; an old, dim royal palace where fans whir slowly and the heavily lacquered windows open out onto peaceful courtyards. There is no whizzbang technology, no “interractivity”, not even airconditioning, but instead a real sense of place. You can feel the same tropical air the sculptors felt, wander through the halls where Thai kings once stood and shelter from the tropical rain under glittering upturned eaves.

I go back every chance I get.

One of the Museum’s most high-profile attractions is its stable of glittering royal funeral chariots. I noticed they were renovating, and building a new driveway so the chariots can be easily brought out. I could not help wonder if this was an ominous omen; do they know something we don’t?

The brand new V64 complex is another Bangkok surprise; a studio space for sixty upcoming contemporary artists at the end of a wandering soi in the nowheresville outer suburb of Laksi, (it would be fun to combine with a visit of the nearby but very different Amantee House). In this farflung ‘burb a collective of painters, sculptors and media artist work together to produce and sell their works as well as hosting a cafe, art school and DJ.

I was pleasantly surprised by the standard of the work, and the prices. These creepy monkey portraits were strangely compelling, and under eighty US dollars a piece.

Sabai-sabai!

My friend Mond pointed out a small yellow booth to me on the side of Silom Road. It was, he told me, “the hot mango smoothie men”. I asked him to elaborate and he told me that the mango smoothie stall was well-known for its hot gay staff, who have even been featured on TV as “the mango smoothie guys gay men love”. The stall itself, well-positioned between the Soi 4 and Soi 2 club strips, has flyers for gay clubs and underwear on the counter and signs like this:

The smoothies are pretty good too.

Volume is a Thai magazine which usually features a well-shot and steamy homoerotic cover of some movie star or singer, and then an interior made up of “dull stories for housewives” (according to my Thai-reading informant). Talk about false advertising. I liked this spread though: