29 07 2017

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Day 7 The Rome restaurant 6pm

29 07 2017

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After a relaxing day I was ready to head out again and explore, this time to the far Southwest corner of the city where besides a freeway and opposite a very Thai rural-style street market sits “The Rome” -a Thai/Italian restaurant complete with its own semi-Colloseum.

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Day 7 7.30pm Somehwere on Phet Kasem Road

29 07 2017

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In the sun’s dying rays, I found this beautiful temple on the way back from The Rome. It is the perfect distillation of Bangkok with its ornate Chinese pagoda and Hindu altar fronted by rows of wooden elephants and zebras.





Bangkok street

29 07 2017

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Shazam!

29 07 2017

Here is a fun discovery: the shazam phone app works surprisingly well at identifying the luuk thung songs favoured by Bangkok’s taxi drivers. The music in the city’s taxis is often quite good but up until now I have had no way of identifying the singers or ever hearing the songs again. Technology to the rescue!





Day 8 am Sukhumvit Soi 26 9.30am

29 07 2017

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“Baker’s gonna bake” cafe: cute space, good coffee but disappointing bread for a self-proclaimed bakery.





29 07 2017

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From Sukhumvit, I was heading towards the riverside “old town” so I hopped off the Skytrain at Siam, through the surreal mushroom forest taking shape on an overpass, to the Khlong Saen Saep, aiming to take an express boat. Regrettably in the end, I decided instead to walk along the banks of the canal past little communities of villagers, roosters in cages and flowering shrubs. Then, abruptly, the footpath ended, leaving me a long, hot  – so hot – trawl through some rather dusty and unglamorous city streets.

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Day 8 12.30 The Old Town

29 07 2017

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My long walk took me to Bo Bae, the wholesale clothing market, where city most resembles Rangoon or Dhaka, city buildings in disrepair, murky alleyways and pressing crowds in the busy laneways. From here I followed an alleyway lined by songbirds, found a whole street selling pineapples and then stumbled into the dark, cavernous Nang Loeng market for some delicious boat noodles. Next door a hundred year old timber cinema, about to be restored by the Bangkok City government.

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Day 8th National Theatre 4pm

29 07 2017

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Day 8 5pm Tha Chang

29 07 2017

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A wild ride.

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Day 8 8pm Sala Daeng

29 07 2017

 

So its come to this: my wild night out in Silom on this trip was a wingbean salad at Baan Ying, and an overpriced coffee on the terrace of the new Dean & Deluca, watching the world going by, and listening to Mariya Takeuchi. 😉





Day 9 Rot Fai Park 6am

29 07 2017

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My early morning jogs in Rot Fai park have been one of the revelations of this trip; my run this morning was a virtual safari with a near-attack from a gaggle of over-excited geese, almost tripping over a lumbering monitor lizard and another trip down the “Squirrel avenue” of trees alive with darting furry shapes.

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Day 9 Yarden X Craftsman Cafe 9.00am

29 07 2017

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A cafe in the Sathorn backstreets housed in an eighty year-old green timber house, next to a bonsai farm.

 





Day 9am 12pm Dusit Zoo

29 07 2017

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Chang Chui

29 07 2017

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Chang Chui is an ambitious new shopping and eating complex in the Western suburbs – basically a hipster themepark. Centred around a decomissioned aeroplane (soon to house a taxidermy-themed restaurant) stands a cluster of cafes, bookshops, a documentary theatre, live music venue, instagram-ready statues, a craft beer bar, barber and a fine dining insect restaurant named after a Thai indie flick (” Insects in the Backyard”).

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26 07 2017

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Nichada Thani: a Stepford in the tropics

26 07 2017

While in the Northern suburbs I wanted to make a quick stop at Nichada Thani, Bangkok’s very own “Discovery Bay”. I had only just learned of its existence. Like its Hong Kong eqivalent, DB, NT is a planned community cut off – by design – from the city around it. It is gorgeously landscaped, a wealthy expat suburban community of jogging paths around an artificial lake, luxurious villas, an international school, domestic helpers doing the grocery shopping in golf buggies and a Starbucks overlooking a swimming pool where a smattering of Russian women, African and Indian teenagers – all exuding the easy and unmistakeable aura of privelege – sipped frappacinos, tapped on macbooks and chatted in English. The development is undeniably very pleasant, but also slightly disturbing. It is just so jarringly fake and ruthless in its denial of the realities lurking just outside its borders. And obviously, I am not the only one who thinks so, judging from the compellingly revamped version of the promotional video below:





Day 6 On the purple line 10am

26 07 2017

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View over the Northern suburbs from the new elevated track Purple Line train.

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Day 6 Saphan Kwai 9am

26 07 2017

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Day 5 10pm City of a Thousand Planets

26 07 2017

I went into Central World on Tuesday night to see a movie, and as luck would have it, picked this one. Something about it spoke to me: a gloriously over-the-top adventure set in a dazzling, decadent “city of a thousand planets”. It had more than a touch of Bangkok about it. Leaving the film was an even more surreal experience as the film wound up at midnight and I exited to a huge, gloomily abandoned mall, empty except for a pitch black but seething mens bathroom, out a side corridor where manual workers were furiously lugging in boxes of mysterious cargo, and out disorientingly on to dark and quiet streets I only ever see in the day. Through a taxi window, I saw a sparkling faced drag queen clown wander past a food stall where some tired construction workers ate under a fluorescent light, and then whizzed back to my adopted home “planet” of Saphan Kwai.





Day 5 Saphan Kwai comic book store 11.30am

26 07 2017

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