The ones that got away

Even with a relatively long vacation, I couldn’t see and do everything I wanted. Bangkok is not a beast that can be easily tamed. Here are some of the ones that got away:

Most crushing disappointment was a near miss with the Mustang Nero, an instragram extravaganza of an airbnb with rooms named after individual animals (The Flamingo, The Wolf, The Octopus’s Garden) and fitted out with outrageous taxidermy ( a full sized giraffe, the interlocked skeletons of two deer fighting) and luxuriant tropical foliage. My boyfriend, who was staying an extra night, managed to secure the last available booking while I missed out, so I only have other peoples’ pictures to post… Also:

WAON Piano & Scotch: an “acoustic karaoke” bar on a Sukhumvit side street where an elderly Japanese gentleman plays requests on the piano while you sing along.

Chooseless: An artfully mixed-up bi-level multi-brand boutique/cafe in Ekkamai.

12 x 12: For African music (see above)

A new “underwear only” gay gym where hunky Caucasian intructors teach you how to “wrestle” (which I declined for obvious reasons).

The newly opened-to-the-public Bang Khun Phrom palace

A ‘secret” dive bar serving brewksies inside the city’s US intelligence headquarters (!)

And finally the interesting architecture of the 1971 Thailand Islamic Center, which has been on my hit-list for ages. I’ll make it one day :

The skinniest building in Chinatown

Garuda: The Lord of Charoen Krung

Islamic Art of Thailand Foundation

 

Infinity

The Infinity Spa on lower Silom Road wows with its Wes Anderson pale green lobby and then Kubrick-esque styrofoam-padded space cells above: the ultimate in stylish relaxation.

Monochrome

Open House

The Open House bookstore is Bangkok’s newest buzzy retail concept. Atop the city’s most high-end retail space, the Central Embassy mall, it is a fittingly chic combination of bookstore, lounge and food court designed by the same architects who fitted Tokyo’s exquisite T-Site bookstore. At Open House, the concept is an interesting one. Beautiful art books (and an exhibition space) pull in the punters and the various food outlets scattered among the shelves ring the tills. It is beautifully executed, with comfy sofas and floor-to-ceiling windows giving dramatic views over the Ploenchit skyscrapers, almost like a tropical Fifth Avenue. The whole thing really speaks to Bangkok’s new confidence as a glamorous style destination.

I bought an interesting Japanese novella, The Transparent Labyrinth by Keiichiro Hirano, and had my eye on a cool inflatable bonsai for my new place only to be told it was for display only, not sale.

Greetings from Planet Bangkok

  

Bread and heartache

Holey is a stylish-looking artisanal bakery on Sukhumvit Soi 33. I had passed it earlier in the week, and waking up craving crusty European bread, I decided to make my way back. While googling for directions though, I turned up more than I had expected. First of all I was surprised to read that the hipster haven was an import from Bangladesh. In fact, the business is a refugee of sorts – having originally started in Dhaka it opened in Bangkok following a harrowing terrorist attack in 2016. ISIS-inspired militants had burst in, killing 20 customers (after torturing those who could not recite a passage from the Koran, including seven Japanese aid workers). I read this munching on my baguette in the cafe’s stylish and friendly Bangkok space, pondering what would have happened had I been in Dhaka that day. Why had a bread shop been a target? Was it simply a place where foreigners congregated, or was it more an scathing comment on the life of leisure enjoyed by expats in a country where few could afford 100 baht (or the equivalent) for a just-baked bread loaf?  The Bangkok bakery that day was certainly full of the fair and the moneyed, Phrom Phong beautiful people, Australian and European expats. And was I then “the enemy” too? Lots to chew over as I enjoyed my bread and butter.

Garuda

Lording over the collection at the Bangkok Scuplture Center is this powerful copy of the 1938 garuda bust adorning the city’s former Central post office. The original can now be seen up-close from the newly opened roof garden of the new Thailand Design and Culture Centre in the restored building on Charoen Krung.

 

Subashok the Art Centre

The sculpture of Kma Sirisamphan at the impressive new Subhasok The Art Centre space on Sukhmuvit Soi 39.

Chang Chui

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”).

 

Bangkok: Architecture of the unexpected

The Bangkok suburbs are treasure troves of architectural whimsy from the city’s distinctive quasi-Islamic bank branches, to the actually Islamic “Thai Muslim Womens’ Fund for Orphans” (below) and this strange cave-like hangar containing a condo development in the upscale backstreet of Sathorn Soi 1.

Day 1 12.20pm Baanai hotel

Lunch at the Baanai Hotel, a restored 1920s mansion. I had hoped toot try khao chae – rice soaked in ice jasmine water – but as it was out of season I tried the cotton-fruit-and-dried-pork salad instead.

Day 1 3.30pm Cafe Puritan

  

The art of Nakrob Moonmanas

 

Day 2 Museum Siam 11.30pm

 

I was lucky enough to sneak in just on the very last day of an excellent exhibition at Museum Siam marking the twentieth anniversary of the Asian currency crisis, known in Thailand as the Tom Yam Goong Crisis. The exhibition is titled ” Tom Yam Goong: Lessons (un) learned”.  The exhibition uses colourful graphics to explain the searing impact of the crisis which sent the baht tumbling and wiped out Thailand’s golden era of giddy economic growth.

Below are some of the casualties: the baht, a stock broker who went from earning 10 million baht per day to selling 25 baht snacks on street corners and an eerie promotional poster for what is now Bangkok’s best-known ruin, the never-completed Sathorn Unique tower.

   

Elsewhere in the museum was an exhibition about Thai inventions through the ages, featuring this giant wicker reclining form with flashing, image-projecting eyes and a a wooden spinning mobile for a heart which played a xylophone as it spun. Super-cool!

The art train

A local non-profit organisation has crowdfunded a project to buy up all the advertising space on the side of one “skytrain” and turn it into a moving artwork – a cool idea, although unfortunately the artwork itself is not really much to my taste. It looks like they got some Goth teenagers to do it.

Jojolion

 

While shopping in the vast new “Animate” manga superstore in the MBK mall I came across the Thai editions of this hitherto unknown series – Jojolion, about the pyschedelic adventures of a waifish boy in a tight sailorsuit. Apparently it was Japan’s third-best selling manga series in 2011, and also popular in Thailand . You learn something new every day.

Day 3 3pm Chocolate Ville

A suburban restaurant-themepark seemingly aimed at Malaysian tourists who want to make believe they are in a charming amalgam of Connneticut and the Netherlands  – rather than Lad Phrao.