July 9 - Orientation Tour from Jane
Jane took the three of us out for our first orientation trip this morning. Before we left, she gave us each a set of cards with the vital address information for Fred’s office, the apartment building, and phone numbers. She also had a couple sets of keys, as well as a cell phone for us to share. These were welcome and comforting gestures!
First stop was the Ari train station. While their apartment is about halfway between the Ari station and another that is closer to the city center, Jane picks the Ari station because there are no busy streets to cross in reaching it. From observing the traffic in the middle of the morning on Phonholyotin (pon-he-o-teen), we will not argue! Since we haven’t yet found the magic ATM that will give us baht from our bank account without charge (Siam Commercial—you might think that’s pronounced “s-eye-am”, but we’ve now learned that it is “see-ahm”), Jane floats us a loan and purchases multi-use passes for each of us.
Once on the train, we can quickly see that the SkyTrain is much like the rapid transit systems in the other large cities we’ve visited in the US…except of course for the fact that the signs are all in Thai, with some English, and the people are all speaking Thai to each other. Now, when they answer their cell phones, which everyone seems to have as they ring several times between each stop, they all say “Hello”, and then jump right back into Thai. When we look out the train windows, it is easy to see why Bangkok has a reputation as a dirty city. Some of the fairly modern buildings seem very run down, and there is a lot of trash floating around. It’s easy to say that this place seems much poorer than any city I’ve ever seen.
The SkyTrain is easy to negotiate, and there are two main lines through the central part of the city, so there is only one transfer station. However, the train doesn’t get to a lot of the places we’ll want to go, so we’ll need to learn about other modes of transportation in Bangkok as well.
After transferring lines, we made our way to the second train, and rode to the end of the line. There we walked a few short blocks to the Chao Phrya boat dock, and Jane again purchased express boat tickets for us to move up the river toward the FAO office. It would take about an hour by river to go this way, and a taxi might have been cheaper for the whole group of us, but if we are traveling in a smaller group, the river’s the way to go, and it might be faster. It’s also another education.
The first thing we noticed is that the back right side of the boat is reserved for monks. Since the monks are not supposed to touch women, we quickly move to the other side, but have to wait a stop or so before we can get seats. The river is very dark in color, probably not just from silt being washed down from upstream. We’ll explore the stops along the way tomorrow. For right now, we just stick together and try to absorb as much as we can on our own. I guess we were probably also trying to keep breathing since we were in a very different place.
We finally made the pier that was closest to Fred’s office. Fred is the senior statistician for the SouthEast Asia office of the Food and Agricultural Administration of the United Nations. Their offices are separate from the other United Nations offices in Bangkok in a complex of older buildings in a part of the city known as Bangalampoo. Fred’s secretary had brought in some mangosteens and gave us a quick demonstration about how to peel and eat them. Fred also gave us a quick overview of some of the kinds of projects he’s working on.
From Fred’s office, we crossed the street for lunch at Ricky’s. Don’t be fooled—this is definitely not an American restaurant. We placed our orders at the counter, and made our way up the steep stairs to the balcony that overlooked the “kitchen.” While not air conditioned in the American way, we still enjoyed a break from the heat outside. Lunch was very nice, and Jane did a good job of guiding us toward food that would not “excite” us too much.
There was a Siam Commercial Bank just up the street, but we were too late to talk with anyone about their ATM’s. So we just tried to use it to see what would happen. We got the money we requested, got a balance on our account at home in baht, and had no surcharge. Checking our account online later confirmed the lack of a surcharge. It also appears that the current exchange rate was used to make the conversion. So this will be a great way to get only as much money as we think we’ll be using. Hopefully, we’ll also be able to find Siam Commercial ATM’s in other part of the country as well.
Next, we made our way along crowded streets toward Sunny’s Tailor shop. It was a tiny little shop (though probably not tiny by Bangkok standards!) and began looking at choices. Joyce and Alan each were planning on getting a suit made, and Alan also wanted a black jacket. Sharon was not going to have anything made. The cloth choices were gorgeous and of very high quality. Alan stuck with his original plan, Joyce added a silk vest and a pair of pants, and Sharon finally decided to go in all the way after seeing the fun that Alan and Joyce were having! We got measured, and were told to come back the next day for our initial fittings! Amazing! Joyce also decided to have a dress made, if she could find some material at another store that she thought would work for her.
Now it was time for our last form of transportation for the day. We hailed a taxi (meter only, please!), and made the 45-minute to an hour trip through the city. It felt only a little more comfortable being in the taxi rather than avoiding them from the sidewalk. It will take some getting used to the made scramble at intersections, intermingling taxis, private cars, busses, bicycles, tuk tuks and the endless parade of motor bikes and pedestrians. Surprisingly, the taxi ride cost less than 100 baht.
Once we were safely home, we ordered pizza (at least it was Hawaiian) from the Pizza Company and tried to review everything to be able to do it on our own the next day.
First stop was the Ari train station. While their apartment is about halfway between the Ari station and another that is closer to the city center, Jane picks the Ari station because there are no busy streets to cross in reaching it. From observing the traffic in the middle of the morning on Phonholyotin (pon-he-o-teen), we will not argue! Since we haven’t yet found the magic ATM that will give us baht from our bank account without charge (Siam Commercial—you might think that’s pronounced “s-eye-am”, but we’ve now learned that it is “see-ahm”), Jane floats us a loan and purchases multi-use passes for each of us.
Once on the train, we can quickly see that the SkyTrain is much like the rapid transit systems in the other large cities we’ve visited in the US…except of course for the fact that the signs are all in Thai, with some English, and the people are all speaking Thai to each other. Now, when they answer their cell phones, which everyone seems to have as they ring several times between each stop, they all say “Hello”, and then jump right back into Thai. When we look out the train windows, it is easy to see why Bangkok has a reputation as a dirty city. Some of the fairly modern buildings seem very run down, and there is a lot of trash floating around. It’s easy to say that this place seems much poorer than any city I’ve ever seen.
The SkyTrain is easy to negotiate, and there are two main lines through the central part of the city, so there is only one transfer station. However, the train doesn’t get to a lot of the places we’ll want to go, so we’ll need to learn about other modes of transportation in Bangkok as well.
After transferring lines, we made our way to the second train, and rode to the end of the line. There we walked a few short blocks to the Chao Phrya boat dock, and Jane again purchased express boat tickets for us to move up the river toward the FAO office. It would take about an hour by river to go this way, and a taxi might have been cheaper for the whole group of us, but if we are traveling in a smaller group, the river’s the way to go, and it might be faster. It’s also another education.
The first thing we noticed is that the back right side of the boat is reserved for monks. Since the monks are not supposed to touch women, we quickly move to the other side, but have to wait a stop or so before we can get seats. The river is very dark in color, probably not just from silt being washed down from upstream. We’ll explore the stops along the way tomorrow. For right now, we just stick together and try to absorb as much as we can on our own. I guess we were probably also trying to keep breathing since we were in a very different place.
We finally made the pier that was closest to Fred’s office. Fred is the senior statistician for the SouthEast Asia office of the Food and Agricultural Administration of the United Nations. Their offices are separate from the other United Nations offices in Bangkok in a complex of older buildings in a part of the city known as Bangalampoo. Fred’s secretary had brought in some mangosteens and gave us a quick demonstration about how to peel and eat them. Fred also gave us a quick overview of some of the kinds of projects he’s working on.
From Fred’s office, we crossed the street for lunch at Ricky’s. Don’t be fooled—this is definitely not an American restaurant. We placed our orders at the counter, and made our way up the steep stairs to the balcony that overlooked the “kitchen.” While not air conditioned in the American way, we still enjoyed a break from the heat outside. Lunch was very nice, and Jane did a good job of guiding us toward food that would not “excite” us too much.
There was a Siam Commercial Bank just up the street, but we were too late to talk with anyone about their ATM’s. So we just tried to use it to see what would happen. We got the money we requested, got a balance on our account at home in baht, and had no surcharge. Checking our account online later confirmed the lack of a surcharge. It also appears that the current exchange rate was used to make the conversion. So this will be a great way to get only as much money as we think we’ll be using. Hopefully, we’ll also be able to find Siam Commercial ATM’s in other part of the country as well.
Next, we made our way along crowded streets toward Sunny’s Tailor shop. It was a tiny little shop (though probably not tiny by Bangkok standards!) and began looking at choices. Joyce and Alan each were planning on getting a suit made, and Alan also wanted a black jacket. Sharon was not going to have anything made. The cloth choices were gorgeous and of very high quality. Alan stuck with his original plan, Joyce added a silk vest and a pair of pants, and Sharon finally decided to go in all the way after seeing the fun that Alan and Joyce were having! We got measured, and were told to come back the next day for our initial fittings! Amazing! Joyce also decided to have a dress made, if she could find some material at another store that she thought would work for her.
Now it was time for our last form of transportation for the day. We hailed a taxi (meter only, please!), and made the 45-minute to an hour trip through the city. It felt only a little more comfortable being in the taxi rather than avoiding them from the sidewalk. It will take some getting used to the made scramble at intersections, intermingling taxis, private cars, busses, bicycles, tuk tuks and the endless parade of motor bikes and pedestrians. Surprisingly, the taxi ride cost less than 100 baht.
Once we were safely home, we ordered pizza (at least it was Hawaiian) from the Pizza Company and tried to review everything to be able to do it on our own the next day.
posted by Alan Welch at
7/09/2005 09:11:00 AM
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