Hurrying into a taxi at the airport
City lights seen from the taxi
The taxi driver's concentration
View of Bangkok from Michel's flat
Skytrain station
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A friend in Singapore had brought to my attention the idea of going to Bangkok for the week-end. It so happened that my ex-boss from Jakarta (Michel) was going there soon for his job, and that he has a flat there. It was a deal: if he was there mid-May I'd go. My friend ended up not coming, so I headed out on my own for my first trip to Thailand, going even earlier rather than wait for my next interviews in Singapore in the beginning of the following week. As often during these small trips, I hardly prepare anything, so I have no clue as to what to expect, don't know how to say hi or thanks, and get lost in small hassles like forgetting to leave my swiss knife behind or queuing for a visa until I realise EU citizens don't need one. I must say though that, in general, Thais don't speak good English even if they're very helpful, so it's hard to get help. That being said, I hardly lose any time at all, and soon end up in a phone booth to obtain the latest instructions from Michel, always as talkative, precise and friendly. I leave with a cheerful taxi driver, with whom I speak a little and learn how to say thank you, knowing all the same I'll never get far in such a complicated language. Bangkok is famous for its terrible trafic jams, but it is night already and the express way is clear. I manage to take a few pictures of this environment of neons in the great speed of my arrival. Rain falls hard all of a sudden - we stop at a trafic light beneath the concrete highway. Not far from there, I tell him to stop exactly where I needed to and the rain has stopped already. Here I am dressed like a true tourist looking through the entrance of BNP's office on the 29th floor. The security guard holds the door for me when someone exits from the other side, and I die in shame with my Tintin in Vietnam T-shirt, things and short trousers. I discretely slip into a polo shirt to try to hide this and put on a brave face while crossing the dealing room until I meet my good old Michel almost like I left him, typing a memo behind a laptop for his assignment of several weeks here. Who knows what these 4 days have in store for me - by not expecting anything, I can't be disappointed. We leave the office shortly after and end up at the bottom of the building wondering whether to catch a taxi here or on the main street. There's an empty one, but it has been called by someone so the driver doesn't really want to take us. Michel points out how everything get so complicated in Thailand - no, yes, no and finally he drives off with us after finding out his customer will not come. We get to Michel's home not far away, having driven in front of the district of Pat Phong, famous for its prostitution dedicated to tourists: girls dressed in school uniform for the Japanese, boys and "normal" girls/women. All along the evening, I listen to so many stories about the country, its people and what he feels and thinks since having visited this country so many times and ended up buying a flat here. Back at his flat, we are welcomed by the security guards who hit their heels. The eleven first floors are dedicated to parking space, then there is a big lobby in open air where there is a nice breeze. We stop at the 28th of 28 flooes in his two-room apartment. Having barely entered, I tell him I had indeed forgotten how much he buys furniture and objects of all sorts. Part of what is there is in transit to one of the flats in Paris or to his Sri Lanka house. He shows me around and tells me about the purchase of his paintings, objects and pieces of furniture. It's already late, but we're not hungry and Michel bounces from one story to another. He really hasn't changed, and the times in Jakarta do not seem far away, especially when he still refers to "my" room, namely the one which I had in his house when he kindly hosted me during my first month there. We leave to go have dinner in a small night market that he had seen once while going out with a Thai friend. The latter had written the name on a piece of paper, which he hands out to the taxi driver. The ride seems quite long to him, and in the wrond direction - we end up in a place which is closed and has nothing to do with what he had in mind: somewhere along the Chao Phraya river. He calls up his friend, who explains he had written the name of an even better place which, new piece of information, is only open during the day. Michel is kindly upset against his friend, who often gets in messy and confusing situations, and ask him to give directions to our driver so as to get to the place by the water. So we continue our journey when, after 25 kilometers and a total of 45 minutes, it becomes just too obvious that the guy is also unreliable. Our patience is challenged when he makes several u-turns and stops for directions, whispering and fakely smiling innocently. The fare has exceeded that of my airport ride, and we've driven through a big part of the city. Michel decides to end this and asks him to drive back to the central railway station, where we get down, after an hour and 30 kilometers of sseing Bangkok by night. We head towards a small side-street food stall 10 minutes away from the flat... We first go inside the station to have a look around. People are sleeping on benches and on the floor - the mood is typical of a rail terminal - people are waiting to leave. My drowsiness has subsided and we head off for dinner. A lady puts some barbecued chicken back on the charcoals and serves them to me with some sticky rice. We sit in front of another small street restaurant where Michel orders. Some stray dogs come begging for scraps, but we don't like them too much: Michel has told me of how these peaceful beasts group up after midnight and threaten him when he comes home to the point that he must take a taxi. The conversation ends with a night walk along the concrete and noisy avenues, in a city I don not grasp yet, not having seen a map nor gone around on my own. Michel is a bit sorry about this first impression I have, but I haven't made any hasting conclusions and just feel the same disorganised aspect that Jakarta had, city which has also grown without any kind of planning, small slums sitting next to office buildings, canals to intra-urban highways. Having accustomed my body to a certain kind of Singaporean routine, I am very sleepy and feel the one hour jetlag - I barely wake up when Michel leaves for work the next morning. When I leave the flat, the main tourist sites have been opened for an hour or so, but I'm not in a rush as I don't intend to see to many of them - just the royal palace, the temple of the reclining Buddha and a couple of others. I walk down the main avenue which the skytrain has made awful and begin my discovery of the city.
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Bangkok 