Despite everything that’s different about Bangkok , it is a city much like London or New York . The busy river of Chao Praya is a match for the Thames in London , while Lumphini Park echoes New York ’s Central Park with its plethora of joggers and body-builders and the skyscrapers that peer over the trees at the grass beneath.
But it’s those slightly different rules that make a city special, that give it its individuality, and each time I go to a new city it’s them that make it such a novelty to visit.
Living in Bangkok, the novelties have quickly turned to normality. I remember the amusement I felt at having to stand up to pay respect to the King before each showing of a film at the cinema – now it’s just another part of the ritual, along with the popcorn and the big screen.
I remember the excitement of going on the Skytrain (Bangkok ’s equivalent to London ’s Dockland’s Light Railway) for the first time, and watching the city speed by underneath me. Now I just read a book while travelling.
It’s the same with this city’s subway. The startling cleanliness of their underground system, brought about by a no food or drink rule, was a revelation to me after years of getting black bogies on the Northern Line. Now, without thinking, I dump my food or drink before I head down the escalator.
Talking of food, it now feels quite natural for me to buy snacks like a guava or some quails eggs in batter on a stick off a street seller and munch them on my way to work. What time you eat food doesn’t matter here either. It doesn’t seem unusual to me to see people eating minced pork and noodle soup at eight in the morning. I’ve even done it myself. But then I’m the kind of guy that will happily eat pizza first thing in the morning, so maybe that’s just me.
And nobody cooks here. I’ve not set foot in a kitchen since I left Britain . I’d have forgotten what one looks like were it not for having to teach the younger Thai English students words like ‘sink’ and ‘washing machine’ and ‘cupboard’ and ‘fridge’ and… I could go on.
Waking up and getting up has never been easy, a great woman once said. Maybe she’d been to Bangkok . As summer takes hold here I’m having to get used to increasingly oppressive heat – temperatures of 37 or 38 degrees. It’s a heat that makes easing yourself out of sleep incredibly hard. But even that I’m slowly becoming accustomed too, mainly thanks to the cold showers, another ‘novelty’ that has (thankfully in this case) become a normality.
Going to bed is much easier though, especially with a bellyful of Thai whisky (though this does not aid the waking up and getting up any, I hasten to add). But while getting drunk might be normal behaviour for a beer-blooded Englishman like me, it’s not normal behaviour here.
Bangkok nightlife is centred mostly round the tourist industry here and, though many of the richer and more ‘worldly’ Bangkokians can party as hard as we can, it’s surprising just how much the city dies after a certain hour. Even the night markets shut up shop at about half ten.
And there’s another curious nightlife tradition here that I don’t think I will ever be either normality or even a novelty. When it’s your birthday it’s not a case of heading out with your friends to be treated by them to a slew of endless free drinks. Oh no – YOU treat THEM. Yep, the whole night is on the birthday boy or girl. As if getting older wasn’t something to dread as it is.
It’s probably a good idea to get Thai people to buy you things you need or want as birthday presents, however. There’s a definite culture of one price for them, one price for farangs (as they like to call foreigners here). But it’s hard to get angry at this when you realise the stark difference between wages and salaries here and those in Western society. Still, bartering has become a fun and natural way to buy things. I’m envisioning a day when I’m back in England and getting chucked out of Woolworths for trying to buy a Snickers for half the price.
But although Bangkok has many similarities to the likes of New York, Sydney and London , its unique and quirky little differences make it a modern city that actually has a different take on the stresses of modern life. Sure, they’re there, but when it’s this sunny and this hot, it really is hard to think too much about them.
It is very much in Thai nature to think about things day by day, rather than look too much to the future. And as such, for all its hustle and bustle, Bangkok is much more relaxed city than its Western counterparts - which can’t be a bad way to be, surely?
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