Bangkok Part 1

We’ve been home now for just over 2 weeks and I’m still going through all the shots I took during our Asia trip. We flew to Hong Kong then after 1 full day and 2 nights, we were off to Bangkok for 4 days. I really wish we had stayed a full week or more but we were fitting in 3 cities in 2 weeks with the majority of time in Hong Kong.

After arriving in Bangkok and checking into our hotel, we ventured out to see the area where we were staying. Right next to the hotel was a narrow side street that we took a walk down and were immediately struck by the contrast to our 5 star lodgings next door. It was a good example of inner city poverty. I wished we had someone with us that could speak Thai as I really wanted to talk to some of the people we saw there.

   

For someone who comes from a smaller city, on the world stage at least, Bangkok is amazing. I never left the hotel without at least 1 camera, day or night. It was difficult resisting the urge to photograph everything I saw. It was all new to me and I ended up with many photo’s that I’ll never post but I will view them myself as every one brings me back to the place. I have to confess, that during our first night out around town, my initial feeling was ‘Blade Runner’. I felt like I had just walked into a real life version of the movie. The huge TV billboards lighting the streets, along with the regular billboards everywhere, and the endless crowds seemed so surreal and gave a certain look and feel to the streets. Also, the vendors set up on the sidewalks selling everything from dinner to clothes to electronics added another dimension to experiencing the city. Even some of the graffiti made an interesting photo.

I guess for me, one of the most amazing things about this city was the sidewalk food vendors. If you take a walk during lunch or dinner times, it seemed like every sidewalk was full of them and every one of them was busy. In many places, it was almost impossible to walk down the sidewalk  because of the vendors and customers. The varieties of food was vast and the smells were mouthwatering. I have to confess that I stuck to restaurants for my meals though as I’m a bit of a ‘hot n spicy’ wimp and not speaking the language, wouldn’t be sure of what exactly I would be getting. Also, I didn’t want to risk getting sick on something my system couldn’t handle that could ruin my short time there.

I did learn a valuable lesson in keeping properly hydrated the first day we were there as I didn’t drink near enough fluids and ended up missing the second day’s outings with our group. I was fine by lunch time though and went out to do some street shots. I made sure I consumed a lot of water and Gatorade while exploring and never had that problem again.

One of the other activities we enjoyed was riding on the river. There are numerous options for river transportation and it’s also a great way to get around to different areas of the city. Another bonus is you never know what you might see along the way.

I couldn’t believe what was pulling that enormous barge train.

Of course you also see all types of boats, mostly for shuttling tourists around.

There are many interesting sites along the riverside too. One disadvantage my travel camera kit has is the lack of a telephoto lens. I would rarely use it but it would have been handy during these river excursions. I did however have my Canon G1X along, mainly for grabbing video, and this does have a zoom lens that had a bit more reach than my longest Fuji lens.

In part 2 of this blog, I’ll touch on some of the sites we toured while in Bangkok.