“Travel is very subjective. What one person loves, another loathes. I would say a private paradise in the Caribbean. If you want culture and class, I would say Tuscany. If you want exotic, I would say Bangkok, Thailand.”
-Robin Leach….Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Bangkok….whoa, what a city!!! It’s HUGE…spread out over miles and miles (that should be kilometers and kilometers). It’s CROWDED….over 11.5 million people in Bangkok proper, huge traffic jams, apartments on top of apartments. It’s BUSY…seems to move in a frenetic, excited pace all the time. Doesn’t slow down, day and night, crowded sidewalks, elbow to elbow, traffic snarls, tuk-tuks puttering about, long tail boats scooting across the river. It’s EXOTIC and ENCHANTING…from the red light districts to the Buddhist temples. Floating markets, silk sarongs, silver works, foot-massages to mouth-watering aromas of coconut pancakes being cooked in an oil- filled wok. The sights, smells, and sounds of Bangkok are like no others we have experienced.

Stayed at the Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok. Not exactly roughing it…a five star hotel right on the Chao Phraya River…has won numerous awards…Travel and Leisure Magazine: Best Hotel in Thailand and Top Ten Spas in Asia…. Conde Nast Traveler: Gold List Property…and many more..all well deserved. Our conference was here and our school contingency all booked rooms. About 1300 attendees at this EARCOS Leadership Conference. EARCOS stands for East Asia Regional Council of Schools. They put on a yearly leadership conference in the fall and a teachers’ conference in the spring…they happen to both be in Bangkok this year…next year in Kota Kinabalu. They also sponsor numerous workshops and trainings throughout the region. The conferences are every bit as good as anything you find back in the states….many of the same speakers plus the benefit of tapping into leading educators from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, UK, etc. Rick Wormeli was one of the key note speakers this year. If you haven’t seen his “Sound of Music” bit, check it out on YouTube….he is very entertaining, motivational…not a lot of meat to his talks but you leave smiling.

First night we arrive we took a long walk…no destination in mind, just meandered about soaking up the flavor of the city. Shop after shop we passed selling jewelry, eating utensils, gems, tailored suits, etc….all in tiny little shops. Heidi found a nice pair of silver earrings costing 950 baht. We settled on 600 baht…about USD $20.00. The local school let out while we were walking…quickly surrounded by throngs of kids all dressed in their school uniforms hurrying to get home…some chatting away, others plugged into their phones…hopping on busses, tuk-tuks, water taxis…looking very happy the school day was done…just like home! For dinner we found this hole-in-the-wall restaurant….would have walked right by but noticed a few tables on the sidewalk with customers chowing down. Snagged the last table and proceeded to enjoy the best Thai food we have ever experienced….had phad Thai with chicken, green curry, red curry, stir fried vegetables, a very spicy-hot rice dish, and for dessert, fresh sliced mango and sweet sticky rice. All this washed down with ice-cold Singha beer. Last stop before bed, a foot massage….one heavenly hour for 300 baht…about $10.00. This ranked right up there on our list of the finer things in life. Soft music playing, you settle into soft cushioned recliner chair once your feet have been washed, scrubbed and dried. And then these most experienced (and strong) hands start to massage your feet and legs up to your knees. It is VERY hard not to drift off to sleep. At the very end you’re given a shoulder, neck and head massage…just that final gesture to ensure you will return. (Which we did!!!!). We slept like babies that night…despite the fact our King Size bed was Asian hard. They seem to enjoy the extra, extra firm mattresses here…forget about pillow-top. I’m guessing they don’t have a problem with kids jumping on their beds.

Ate at Cabbages and Condoms Thursday night….our Head of School treated all of us…it’s one of her favorite spots here in the city. When we first heard about this restaurant, we thought we heard wrong…cabbages and condoms? For dinner? For real!!!!
It turned out to be a truly unique dining experience, and the food is “guaranteed not to cause pregnancy”. In addition to creating fine food, the establishment was opened in an effort to raise awareness and combat Thailand’s prevalence of HIV. You dine under light fixtures made from colorful condoms. There are mannequins adorned with condom attire. Everything is condom themed and instead of free toothpicks as you leave, grab a condom or two of your choice. They even have these large wooden plywood condoms with a hole cut out for your head…..okay, this is not sounding right….see the pictures instead of me proceeding with this description!!! A portion of all proceeds go to the Population and Development Association… an organization which addresses primary health care, family planning, and HIV/AIDS prevention, education and care. Overall the food was just okay, perhaps it was the fact we didn’t order, instead just ate what came to the table….wouldn’t have been our choice. Had more fun in the taxi driving home counting the red lights our driver went through…NASCAR should look this guy up!!

The next day the sessions ended early so Heidi and I rented a long tail boat for an hour. These boats are amazing…long and thin powered by a massive engine that turns the propeller at the end of a 20 foot shaft. They literally scoot across the river and throw up a nice little rooster-tail. So fun to see life on the river…little boys jumping into the brown, muddy water to cool off, men an women fishing along the banks, a monk meditating on a sea wall, and temples every quarter mile or so including one with a massive reclining Buddha statue. The river can be as crowded as the streets of Bangkok. Tugs dragging five or six massive barges, dinner boats , long-tail boats, water taxis, recreation boats…all competing for space and somehow avoiding crashing into each other.

Before we left on Sunday, we decided to walk in the opposite direction from the other day…the shops were all closed down but in their place was stand after stand selling fruit, savories, spices, fish cooking over hot coals, on and on. We found one stand frying up bananas…sweet and warm served on a wooden skewer for $.03 oh my goodness, when I retire I’m opening a fried banana stand…I’ll be quite content eating my profits.

Similar to our trip to Singapore, we only got a snippet of this city. Didn’t have time to tour the grand palace or the floating markets We never made it to a Thai boxing match, the red light district, missed the girlie-boys and ping-pong shows (don’t ask me to describe the ping-pong shows…you’ll have to look that one up yourself!!!). We need to come back when we don’t have a conference. Like most large cities, it is rather noisy, polluted, crowded….but you get a sense of the country, the friendliness of the people…we will return for a little more time in Bangkok but we long to get into the countryside and enjoy the beaches.

In the five days we were in Bangkok, not a drop of rain fell. Returned to KL and was greeted by the weekly 100 year deluge….torrents of rain, thunder, lightening….someplace here there must be an ark!!!!

A quick note about Malaysia Air….on the two hour flight to Bangkok (and also on the return) we were given a FREE meal, free drinks (soft drinks, juice, wine, or beer), blankets, and movies….remember when we used to get this service on the US carriers?

A little video on Bangkok.