The city of pink glitters

Yesterday I wondered: what is it, that I cannot walk in the street without feeling tired after 100 m? The answer came soon in the form of a digital display on top of one of the big shopping malls. It read 37 degrees centigrade, and 11:25 AM. Ah... and I thought it was about 30 every day. I must have a bout of tropical fatigue. It makes the Christmas decorations everywhere around here even more ridiculous.

Another hot day then, in a city that is officially named Krungthep Mahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phopnoppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amonpiman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit, a name so long that normal people just say 'Krungthep' or rather: 'Bangkok'. Arriving from India and Bangladesh in Thailand was wonderful. It is amazingly clean, well-developed, modern and hassle-free here. Does that give me an excuse to stay here for a month? I don't know. I just started looking for a job and repairing my things, reading books and writing my diaries. Of course, I need a job for the money. But there is more behind it. You cannot continue input without output. At some stage you need to take a rest, put things in order. Last three months I have travelled through some of the most remote parts of Asia and not exactly in a relaxed way either. I needed rest and got it.

So that is that, and let me now try to describe the city. First: everybody smiles at you! The bottom line is of course, that all expats tell you the smiles are fake. A country of fake smiles then? No, I don't think so. I spent only a couple of weeks here, but already I think I saw enough to know that some of the smiles are real. Walk through the fish market behind the pier, where the boats ride the Chao Praya below the silhouettes of Wat Arun and modern looking residential flats. What's that they're selling? Ah, a basket full of fat juicy frogs, jumping and puffing up their cheeks, the way frogs do. And next to it, another basket with eels and cat fishes, alive alive oh. The street cats eye them with interest. The next stand sells crabs. A child blows a small toy snow gun and shouts 'merry Christmas!' - blowing white fluffy stuff over a pile of sea fruit. A cripple beggar salutes by folding his hands in the traditional greeting of Asia, Thai style. Next is a food stand, where you can buy your curry with fish or shrimps, or papaya salad with lobster.

The language then. Thai is a tonal language, and pronounced in a rather nasal way. It can sound like a combination of the croaking of frogs and the meowing of cats. I am here only a couple of weeks now, so I don't understand Thai. Yet the same aforementioned expats tell me that as soon as you understand what they say, you will see through the smiles. I cannot help thinking that ignorance is bliss.

Walking through the market, hopping on a city bus (you hear meowing and croaking from all sides), it is possible to soon arrive in a very different part of Bangkok. A city where glass shopping malls with huge five stories high video displays (a particularly nice-looking young lady meows at you about some cosmetic product) and steel skyscrapers tower above the shopping crowds. The Thais impeccably dressed, the westerners as if they have an off-day. McDonalds, BurgerKing and StarBucks vie for your baht with the small street stands selling spring rolls, fried fish or bananas and hollowed-out coconuts with a straw. Below a building of 60 stories is a tourist flee market where the most ludicrous kitschy crap is on sale. The tourists buy it nevertheless.

'Why do you make that whining sound?
You mean that is how "thank you" is pronounced in Thai?
Really?'
'You go my tucktuck?' Coming from Dhaka and Kolkata, I have to look twice. Those things are not tucktucks. In Dhaka a tucktuck is a crampy iron cage with three wheels under it, in Bangkok it is a soft-pillowed sofa-on-wheels. The price is accordingly inflated. Like everything here of course: Thailand is expensive compared to the Subcontinent.
'Meow meow' I reply. That is Thai for 'I don't want' - no really.

And then there is Kaosan. That street has the effect of making you feel you entered another country. Shops with beds on the pavement, where well-dressed ladies give people a Thai massage. Terraces, where crowds of tanned western backpackers in sweaty, soiled clothes listen to live music. A fleet of small charts with pans of boiling oil and an assortment of collectibles (you name it, we fry it) pries the street. Old chubby bold Germans walk hand in hand with young, wonderfully good looking Thai girls. This is Bangkok too. A couple of blocks away again: the royal palace, with its glittery gold roof and towering wats in all colours of the rainbow. Statues of elephants and oversized portraits of king Rama IX. His real name is Bhumibol and it seems to be a criminal offence here to create a portrait of him which is not at least 3 meters high.

I think there is, at least, enough to see not to go bored for a while?