We started our third day in Bangkok walking and finding some street food for breakfast; fried rice with egg and a smoothie, it was delicious. We have to take advantage of this wonderful street food and eat some every chance we can. We exchange money and head to the tailor to pick up Andy’s suit. Everything is ready, well made, a perfect fit and Andy is very pleased. We head back to Riverline Guest House to drop off the suit and head back out. This time a different direction, through a park. Nice wide walkways wind through the trees, lots of pigeons, water features and out of the blue a guy shoves three small bags of corn into Andy’s hand. We’ve been scammed before and we’re not falling for it this time. He does the same thing to me and I return my bags to the guy. His wife comes up to me and says, “No, no, for you, for good luck.” Now Andy and I have three bags between us instead of six. It’s “for luck”. They’re implying there is no cost, just throw the corn to the birds and it will bring you good luck. We want you to have good luck. We just want out of this. We dump the corn on the walkway and start to leave. Now they want 150 Baht ($4.50) for each bag. “No”. “No way.” There are hundreds of pigeons around us. Andy gives them 100 Baht ($3) and we start leaving again. This time their son comes over, “No, you must pay more.” We walk away, angry and frustrated over the whole situation.
We take a bus to the east side of the city to Siam Center. A nine-story, mega-mall that has every high-end store you can imagine. It’s beautiful, it’s refreshingly cool and a very fun place to hang out for a few hours. We had lunch at the food court of fried rice, shrimp Phad Thai and sticky rice with mango. I saw a newspaper headline that read, “Half of the City Buses Not Running – Union Strick”. There is still unrest between the “Red” shirts and “Yellow” shirts and now this. We’re staying from the area where there are protesters and trouble.
It rained while we were in the mall and cooled down a bit but as I walked outside from the mall my glasses fogged up from the heat and humidity. It’s not that much cooler. We take the Sky Train to an area called, Little Arabia, to walk around. It’s quiet, not many tourists and only a few men standing around. Which made me think. Where are all the women?
We took a water taxi to Chinatown. We’ve been intentional to try all the local transportation systems whenever possible. They’re not always fast but they get you immersed in the culture and with the people. This water taxi carries about 100 people sitting and standing on the fast-flowing, muddy Chao Phraya River. We’re lucky to find seats and even luckier because an English-speaking musician sat behind us. She said that there was a very real chance for a coup because the beloved King Bhumibol Adulyadej is very sick. Things could be rough. She only travels on the Sky Train or water taxis since the taxi drivers are crazy drivers and don’t care about her life while driving and you never know what will happen with the protesters. The next stop, Chinatown.
Chinatown was bustling with people and loads of shops for shopping and dinner. We bought a few more gifts, enjoyed the atmosphere and had dinner of Phad Thai and fried rice with chicken. It was a fun area of town to end our day. On the way home walking between the tailor and our guesthouse the road is barricaded because of protestors. Many police, police cars and paddy wagons are what we can see. We get a short glimpse of the protestors across the street and hear their angry outbursts and chanting. Maybe the person on the water taxi was right.
