Change of Pace - Bangkok & Singapore

Our second trip on Lao Airlines took us to Bangkok on March 3, where we met up with our Italian friend Max. Max moved to Bangkok about a year ago, and has recently gotten married to his Thai girlfriend, Jeab. Max & Jeab were gracious hosts, even giving us use of an extra empty apartment they own – so we enthusiastically moved in for a few days of luxury living in our very own place.

Our very own Bangkok apartment...

...complete with a swimming pool!

Because of our comfortable digs, we spent quite a bit of time lounging around and enjoying modern amenities, but we did manage to tear ourselves away and see some sights. We found out the hard way that Bangkok is not a walking city, much to our dismay, but at least taxis are dirt cheap. Our exploration of this sprawling city took us to a couple fascinating markets that sold everything from goldfish to refrigerators, underwear to power tools, antiques to used sneakers. We also visited 2 temples, one on either side of the Chao Phraya river, Wat Po and Wat Arun. While we had visited innumerable temples in our previous travels through Asia, these stood out both as being in more pristine condition and for some truly unique features.

Wat Po has an extremely impressive larger-than-life reclining Buddha, complete with toeprints:

Do you think he's ticklish?

… and Wat Arun is beautifully decorated with shells and ceramics, and has dozens of guardians supporting the steeply sloped walls of pyramid-shaped temples.

I was so surprised at how ‘normal’ Bangkok felt – I think it was a combination of being back in a large, cosmopolitan city, along with the fact that it was nothing like I imagined it would be. Naively, I envisioned ladyboys and sex shops on every other corner, and in reality these things seem to confine themselves to a few neighborhoods as they do in almost any other city. We did seek out the rather insane ‘backpacker’s Bangkok’ area around Khao San Road in search of black market travel books, but we couldn’t stand to stay long in the area, and it made us even more grateful for Max & Jeab’s apartment!

The hustle & bustle of Khao San Road

Contrast that with the view from the apartment we were staying in

Of course the highlight of Bangkok was having the chance to catch up with Max and getting to know Jeab a little better! Jeab was kind enough to hook me up with a 2 hour Thai massage with her favorite masseuse… which was a similar torture session to my Lao massage experience except twice as long. Max took us to his favorite Italian restaurant (which after weeks and weeks of noodle soup we were very happy for), and we also spent an evening at their apartment, having a mix of simple Italian home cooking and a sampling of Thai street food.

After a short 3 days, we hopped back on a plane (with an upgrade to business class!) and headed off to Singapore. There we were hosted by my friend Janice, an English girl I worked with in London who is doing an expat stint in Singapore – working on Ben & Jerry’s, no less… a far cry from the world of Flora/Becel spreads. Janice took very good care of us, not only letting us use her washer & dryer to our hearts content, but also taking us for dinner two ‘school nights’ in a row – including one with a fellow ex-pat and ex-margarine junkie Simon – and helping us to make sure we got the most out of our short time in Singapore.

If we did a small amount of sightseeing in Bangkok, we did even less in Singapore, but there isn’t too much specifically to see anyway. Rather, we uncharacteristically spent some time at the very large, modern mall near Janice’s, including having lunch in their ‘Food Opera’ food court. This may seem like something not worth noting, but mall food courts are frequented dining spots in Singapore, so we wanted to find out why. We found ourselves spoiled for choice among tasty looking and reasonably priced options – I had a yummy laksa soup, and Jason opted for yam balls.

Upscale food court dining at the ION Orchard Mall

Yam balls & dumplings

Frog leg porridge in claypot... actually from a Chinatown food court, but I thought I'd share it anyway!

We didn’t expect much from Singapore and we were surprised to find that we enjoyed the city very much – it was unusually clean, extremely modern, and had plenty of good dining options – it felt very livable. We were even venturing to say it’s a place we wouldn’t mind trying out for a short time… until we tried to find a glass of beer one afternoon.  It seemed the starting price was about $10 and went up from there, even getting more expensive as the night went on. On that point alone we quickly dismissed this city as an option for the future.  Remember, this is the land of subtle yet strict control on any vices that might disrupt social order or public pleasantness – the outlawing of chewing gum is the most infamous of these rules, and you can’t even drink water on the subway without risk of a $1000 fine!

Also you cannot ride your bike through the pedestrian underpass.

All in all Bangkok & Singapore were the perfect end to our Asia travels, helping us ease back into the western world.  But more importantly, seeing some friends was a treat – and it meant we got to talk to people other than each other for a change!