The Concrete Jungle
Yellow bikes in Green Lung.
Even just writing about my trip to Thailand makes me feel flugscham but I went and it was beautiful and I’m sorry. Here’s my musings on our adventures in the city of Bangkok. Officially the most bonkers city I’ve ever spent time in.
Bangkok afforded me many firsts. I got naked in public for the first time. I rode a scooter for the first time. I took part in my first Anonymous for the Voiceless Cube of Truth. Not all at once, although perhaps if I’d been on a scooter, naked bar a V for Vendetta mask, I might have more effectively convinced people to go vegan.
First Timer on the left.
Bangkok is a delirious city heaving with traffic. The sky train cuts through the skyscrapers like something out of the future. Billboards plaster every wall. I’m not cut out for big city life, but a holiday here was breathtaking, wonderful and crazy.
I’m sure you’d love to know why I got naked in public, so let’s start there. It was my sister’s doing, she wanted to spend an afternoon luxuriating at a Japanese Onsen - a boutique spa. I didn’t want to be the sort of sister who says no to nakedness, so off we went to the Thong Lo district (dropping our thongs so low we left them in the locker room, amiright!) ‘Let’s Relax’ (at Grande Centre Point Hotel) was unlike any spa I’d enjoyed back home, not least because getting naked is mandatory. I was apprehensive but it was liberating to be in my birthday suit in a room full of similarly naked strangers. It reminded me we’re all different shapes and sizes and even though my sister is in better shape than I am, I could take a longer dunk in the ice-bath than she, so we’re all winners. Unless you stop to think maybe I can handle it because of a few extra layers of fat, but let’s not stop to think.
Feeling refreshed and revitalised, we got on with the important matter of stuffing our faces. First stop, Nourish Cafe, because hello, it’s my sister’s vegan cafe, can you imagine us starting our trip anywhere else? Situated above Bangkok Fight Lab, a martial arts and combat sports gym, we watched people spar while sipping smoothies. Without a smidgen of nepotism, I can attest that my sister’s menu is incredibly tasty, original and bursting with nutritional benefits and delicious flavours. I tried to hold myself back from a) telling every customer THIS IS MY SISTER’S CAFE! MY SISTER! MINE! and b) the florentine, topped with nuts, seeds, dried fruit and a sprinkle of sea salt. In the former, I was restrained. In the latter, I ate ten.
Come Dine With Nourish.
Breakfast, Nourish style.
Next stop was Veganerie. There’s pure sorcery involved in however they are making mushrooms taste this much like chicken. Not all vegans want to recreate the consistency of meat but I did not give up meat because I did not like the taste. I gave up meat because I love animals. So making chicken nuggets out of mushrooms gets five stars from me. We also had Thai green curry with a lovely flaky roti, and cauliflower buffalo wings.
After a few days, we craved a green scene. We’re country mice - we needed a breather from Bangkok’s buzz. While not shouting THIS IS MY SISTER’S CAFE at people we met in the cafe, my husband managed to conduct an orderly conversation with someone who tipped us off on where all the trees were hanging out, so we headed to Bang Kachao, known affectionately as Green Lung, a vast, luscious landscape bounded by 18km of the Chao Phraya River. We took the BTS (the elevated transit system, like our Underground, but in the sky) to Bang Na then a taxi to the pier near Wat Klong Toey Nok. Because of Bangkok’s traffic problem, this took ages. But good things come to those who sit sweating in the back of a taxi. At the pier, we took a dragon boat over the Chao Phraya River. After hiring bikes we entered the vehicle free zone of Sri Nakhon Khuean Khan Park and Botanical Gardens. Swallows danced overhead, cockerels cock-a-doodle doo’d. We could hear the distant hum of the city reminding us we’d be delving back into the abyss before sunset. But first, stillness. After riding our bikes around the park, we sat beside a lake and watched a water monitor swimming around like a smug dinosaur. If cities make you feel claustrophobic this is the perfect antidote. There were bird watching towers and a coconut island.
Tie-dyed that t-shirt myself I’ll have you know.
Coconut Island - I wasn’t joking!
On our return to the city, we couldn’t face sitting in a taxi again. While tuktuks, taxis and trucks vie for space on Bangkok’s chaotic spaghetti of a roadway system, the cheapest, quickest and scariest way to get around is on the back of a scooter. I was reluctant but my husband goaded me into it, reminding me we’d be where we need to be (a restaurant, of course) in minutes rather than hours. Scooter taxi drivers wear fluorescent vests, so you can tell them apart from all the other scooter drivers and the cost is mere pennies. My driver found it most amusing (possibly, cute? I picked up vibes she found my hugs endearing) that I wrapped my arms around her for the duration of the ride.
On our last evening, we thought it would be magical to watch the sunset over the city from a rooftop bar. Bangkok’s concrete jungle reached the horizon as the setting sun set the sky ablaze. It was astonishing and apocalyptic. When thunderous rain clouds loomed overhead, the light only grew more magnificent. I actually got teary eyed. There was no better way to end our adventures in this bustling, bizarre, beautiful city.
And then the same view, but with us in the way. I mean come on, look how stocked up on Vit D we all look! I can’t not show off our smug, sunny, city smiles!
