Meditations in Bangkok-1

HONG Kong has ceased to be a convenient getaway considering the fall of the Philippine peso. Gone are the years when a mere multiplication by three got the local equivalent of the HK dollar. Multiplying everything by six can turn a few days off into months-long of nightmare when the credit card bills start pouring in. Moreover, just how much of Ocean Terminal can you take? Granville is no more. The sight of security guards standing outside the Prada store at Pacific Place makes you feel every cent of depreciation suffered by the peso you earn back here.

So it’s Thailand that has turned into a paradise for whatever whim you might have. I am not a sand-and-beach person so I couldn’t care less about the divine beaches and all that communing with Neptune’s Kingdom in Phuket. Besides, I also realize that the best way to upset other people on holiday (whether here or abroad) is to parade myself in a swimsuit and display myself like a freshly skinned inflatable tuna.

I am a shopping bag kind of organism… the Homo Sapien whose biceps developed from compulsive shopping and mastering the art of packing purchases in a suitcase while worrying about the cost of excess weight for the return flight. Paradise can offer all the blue skies, sparkling emerald waters and beaches with diamond-like sand… but give me escalators, central air conditioning and the chance to practice the Filipino art of haggling.

Together with friends Khryss Adalia and Jojo Atienza, I opted for four nights and five days in Bangkok. I had a chance to visit Thailand’s capital in the early ’80s. During that time, Bangkok reminded me of Caloocan City with Buddhist altars and shopping malls randomly sprouting on sidewalks. Ah, the difference of 20 years can boggle a tourist’s mind. When I returned to the place last February to break a long flight from the Czech Republic, I found out that everything everyone said about the Bangkok of today was true.

To begin with, the Thai baht is only 10 percent higher than the Philippine peso. You would not need your Aurora or Casio calculator to determine the peso value of the goods that attack your very nervous system.

No garbage crisis

Bangkok is clean--even the enormous pillars holding up their multilevel expressways and Sky Train do not have a patina of the grime that seems to stick to everything that does not move here in Manila. Besides, Thailand is not at the height of the election season unlike Manila where every slab of concrete is made to look like dirty human skin with scabs because of all of those hideous posters of smiling and trying-to-be-noble candidates glued on every smooth surface within public visibility.

A quick ocular inspection also reveals the absence in Bangkok of garbage strewn on the streets for accent that has become the new landmark for tourists in Manila. Khryss counted a grand total of three flies. Throughout our short stay in Bangkok, we did not have a close encounter with a crawling insect.

I reminded Khryss that we were, after all, in areas where there was central air conditioning. But later on, Khryss was able to prove me wrong. Sidewalk food stalls and open-air karinderyas did not have the perpetual buzzing that tends to ruin one’s appetite and arouse fears of acquiring cholera.

Then there is the pleasant disposition of Thai people. We always make such a big deal about our country being the Land of Smiles but I have yet to see salesladies in local department stores display that part of our heritage. Of course, there is that language barrier in Bangkok… and the clumsy sort of English hotel front desk people and doormen, salespeople and even cab drivers speak whenever you try the art of giving instructions or even non-conversation. Yet they are sweet and seemingly genuine in their wish for you to like their country because of the dollars you are bringing in. And the strategy, whether planned or not, really works.

A Thai San Juan

Since we were there on a holiday, we expected to experience the legendary Bangkok traffic that reputedly could make the South Superhighway bottleneck look like a trip to the Emerald City. But, alas, we failed to gather a very important piece of information. While Christian Manila was cloaked in utmost solemnity over the Lenten season, our Good Friday (April 13) just happened to coincide with their New Year, a celebration called Sonkrang.

Let me explain Sonkrang’s cultural and economic value. Being New Year, a great number of the shops were closed. That last sentence was written with a sense of loss, anger and dismay as this writer brought along comfortable shoes and worked out for two days to increase the physical stamina for hedonistic shopping, browsing and walking.

The Thais are not content to mark their New Year on a single day. They stretch the celebration to three days. As if this were not enough, they wish you a Happy New Year not through the destruction of your nerves and eardrums via fireworks in a variety of convolutions and design. Instead, they lovingly give you a bath, throwing pails of water mixed with flour. I kid you not.

The tourist guide who picked us up at the airport properly warned us that we should be prepared to say Thank You if and when someone decides to empty a pail of water or squirt us with their water pistols as we were experiencing Bangkok. He told us that the gesture was meant to bring good luck. My companions and I looked at each other and realized that Bangkok turns into San Juan marking the feast of John the Baptist on June 24. We were assured, however, that the water was going to be clean and that the flour they mixed with the liquid can be easily removed with a single washing.

The only hassle was that you had to go around Bangkok looking like a larva pretending to be an espasol.

But a determination to shop till we drop gave us the courage to brave watery attacks since the triumph of a good bargain exceeds the inconveniences of being both soggy and powdery. Besides, just how much physical danger is there from cruising pick-up trucks with over-excited residents dispensing water from a drum and dousing anyone on motorbikes, cars with open windows or even ignorant pedestrians sweating in the humid air of the city.

Lucky for us, our hotel was within walking distance of four shopping centers. Right across was Sogo and to our right were Gaysorn Plaza, the World Trade Center and the Narayana Shopping Center. The World Trade Center is Virra Mall and Shoppesville combined with so many floors offering a great variety of goods you see at the Greenhills tiangge and so-called stalls selling overruns. The Gaysorn Plaza offers more high-end stuff but also carries silver and ethnic items on its upper levels, including designer sterling silver jewelry. Narayana, on the other hand, has all the imaginable Thai ethnic and folk arts that make suckers out of tourists wanting to bring home a piece of the culture in reproduction bronze statues, creations in Thai silk to wear or to decorate your house.