For a little R&R this summer, I headed to Bangkok with my mother. After balancing four summer jobs in Hong Kong, it was time for a little relaxation and indulgence before I head back to windy Chicago and school. Thailand is one of my favourite countries in southeast Asia, boasting a nice climate year round, stellar beaches and the best food in the world.
This year, we decided to focus our travels on the kingdom of Thailand's amazing capital, Bangkok. We tried out four uniquely different neighbourhoods, moving hotels every three to four days.
We got a wide sampling of what Bangkok has to offer from a small hotel in a neighbourhood where most tourists go (some with not-so-honourable intentions), to a luxury hotel in an area where the streets are overrun with silk merchants and tailors. We also inhabited Bangkok's answer to Chinatown, a place where Chinese lanterns and ornate patterns run as far as the eye can see. We slept at an inn surrounded by cobbled streets and spent a few nights on the water's edge, where the main river through the city is navigated by boat.
Bangkok is like a fantasy land of colour and sweet smells. I don't think I have ever had the urge to just eat everything before. I couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness every time I ordered off of a restaurant menu because there was always so many things I did not have the opportunity to eat. And I was able to fully indulge my passion for peanut sauce at every meal.
Although the nightlife may at times get a little seedy (OK, a lot seedy) I did not feel nervous or particularly unsafe walking the streets late at night. Sure, you may get stopped a time or two with an offering to attend a late night show at a "lady bar" where people do things I never want to see people do, and you may even at times run into a belligerently drunk tourist (from let's say Britain or Australia) after a night of partying on the wild streets. But this is part of the edge that makes Bangkok what it is and, in my opinion, this all adds to the charm of the city.
It is a landscape of economic diversity and a land where you can be blinded from the sun shining on the side of a gold building or palace in one corner of town and overwhelmed by the modesty of rows of human shelters in another. There is a patriotism that is hard to imagine in Thailand and a love for king and country that runs deep. Massive, gold-framed photos and shrines of the king exist in every neighbourhood.
Yes, beauty is everywhere in Bangkok, Thailand. The people, the textiles, the ever-present street deities and even a murky green river can somehow seem majestic in this place. Ten days in Bangkok is truly good medicine for the tired soul. I arrived exhausted and left uplifted and inspired.
Now, it's back to school.
Naomi Yorke is a Port Coquitlam student who lived in Shanghai, China for four years, writing about her experiences twice a month for The Tri-City News. She now lives in Chicago, where she's attending art school, and continues her column.
