The exotic allure of Bangkok
By R.W. Apple Jr. (NYT)
Friday, November 28, 2003

BANGKOK: It's easy when you first visit a city to form a lasting impression on the basis of what you see on the way into town from the airport. But don't let that happen to you in Bangkok. As viewed from the expressway, this pulsating capital of 7 million is a moonscape of skyscrapers built, half-built and still a building, often only dimly visible through the dense, bluish smog. But give yourself a day or two; countless joys and treasures artistic, cultural, culinary and otherwise - await patient travelers.

Remarkably, Bangkok remains one of the most exotic cities in the world, just as it was when I first arrived there, bug-eyed, in 1966. In those days, American soldiers on R&R made it Asia's capital of raunch. In the 1980's, when Thailand was one of the continent's economic "tigers," a middle class bloomed, with baht to burn. A military coup marred the 1990's, and then the economy tanked.

Yet for all the changes, certain immutable elements of traditional Thai design, like boldly upswept eaves, polished teak floors and spirit houses, still set the city apart. It has never lost its ability to astonish. What's more, Bangkok is coming to grips with its problems, chief among them pollution and paralyzing traffic, the terrible twins of the developing world. Efficient use of the Chao Phraya River as a transportation artery, new bridges, more expressways and a growing rapid-transit system are easing the congestion. Sometimes the tropical sun is visible all day long.

Traffic jams nevertheless plague not only the main streets, like Sukhumvit Road, but also the tiny sois (side streets and alleys)running off them. Three-ton elephants tromp along four-lane roads, sowing confusion. Living space is inadequate. Bad air is commonplace. But the chaos is soon forgotten inside a cool garden, a smart shop or a deluxe hotel.

Day and night, the color and exuberance of Thai life envelop the visiting farang, or foreigner. In the gilded, polychrome palaces and wats, or temples. In the food markets, afloat and ashore. In the rich, supersaturated colors of the coveted Thai silks. In the national sport, kick boxing, which brings feet and elbows into combat along with fists. In the fiercely contested kite-flying contests, held in the spring. And in the frequent festivals, large and small, which emphasize sanuk, or fun, rather than ritual.

The first thing I would do, on a two- or three-day get-acquainted stop in Bangkok, is hire a long-tail boat - the "tail" being formed by the long shaft that links an auto engine to a propeller - and take a tour through the klongs (canals) around the city. It is like a motoscafo trip in Venice, only better. Forget about the fake floating markets and the hokey snake farm, and concentrate on how people live, in houseboats and shacks, palaces and rude lean-tos. Watch them row home with their groceries. Watch the laughing monks floating in inner tubes, shaded by towering coconut palms. This is an older, simpler and sweeter Bangkok. Blood-red cannas, purple and yellow orchids and white frangipani make you overlook the garbage drifting past.

You'll also want to visit the 200-year-old Chinatown, a noisy quarter packed with signs, shrines and stalls selling everything from fabrics to herbal medicines, plus the Pak Khlong Market, with the best flowers in Thailand (go at 9 a.m.). The city supports no fewer than six daily papers in Mandarin. M.L. Tri, an architect who belongs to the Thai royal family, told us over dinner that "Bangkok isn't Thai now, it's a Chinese city with Chinese taste" - never mind that he was eating a thoroughly Thai dish at the time, a green papaya salad with water convolvulus, a green vegetable related to the morning glory. On a Saturday or Sunday, take the Skytrain north to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, which sells everything imaginable, and the adjacent Aw Taw Kaw food market, open daily, where a morning passes in a minute. On sale are not only an amazing range of fruits and vegetables but also fish and shellfish galore (four kinds of crabs, some as tiny as a half-dollar, others as big as a volleyball). The prepared food is as authentic as any in the city. Try the tiny clams with cross-hatched shells, flavored with fish sauce, Thai basil and chili. As you may have gathered, it is not monuments and museums that make Bangkok for me. But no one should leave town without visiting the Grand Palace and its Emerald Buddha, which is really jadeite but impressive all the same, and to drink in such superb decorative details as the 112 gilded garudas (half-men, half-birds) and the graceful aponsis (half-women, half-lions). And at the National Museum, despite many run-down, ill-displayed artifacts, there are real masterpieces, like the 14th-century bronze walking Buddha, leaning backward as if to suggest humility, with his left hand raised in blessing.

One of Bangkok's top places to shop is the Gaysorn Plaza, a marble mall. The Fendis and the Diors of the world are there, but so are quality antiques dealers like Triphum and Lamont Altfield, a shop named Ayodha specializing in fine silks, celadon and handsome baskets, and Cocoon, the Marimekko of Southeast Asia. Near the Oriental Hotel are the Ashwood Gallery, another source of museum-quality antiques, and Lin  Silvercraft, a well-stocked and accommodating little shop that engraved a gift for us in the space of an afternoon.

As in Venice, London and Paris, the sheer delight of great hotels has long been part of the joy of visiting Bangkok. For many years, the Oriental, in its privileged position on the Chao Phraya, was the standard by which other hotels judged themselves. Its suites, especially those named after authors like Joseph Conrad, are still unmatched.

But for my money, the new Peninsula, across the river in Thonburi, has supplanted it. Altogether more modern, it has a vast, tranquil lobby, softened by urns of flowers standing eight feet tall. In the terrace garden, an allee of orchids leads down to the river, and a sleek pool stretches inland. The rooms, all with panoramic views, are large, lovely, low-key and electronically sophisticated.

Forty years ago, Thai food was all but unknown outside of Thailand. Since then it has conquered the world. For the most part the places abroad serve at least slightly Westernized food, and that genre is well represented in Bangkok, too, at elegant places like Sala Rim Naam, across the river from the Oriental and owned by it. A lavish buffet lunch there includes rock lobster in a spicy sauce as well as kanom krok, the delicious little coconut and rice hot cakes. The Thip Samai, a storefront stall near the Golden Mount, produces definitive versions of the familiar Thai noodle stir-fry, pad thai, free of the sweetness that often disfigures it in the West.

Pen, a lively spot with plastic tables and fierce prices, serves stunning seafood. Nobody speaks English, but the owner brought us what he considered the evening's choice items. Our favorites were deep-fried parrotfish, with mild, snowy flesh and a crust crunchy as a Grape Nut; charred giant river prawns the size of small lobsters, with delectable tomalley, and, fordessert, sticky rice and the mango of a lifetime. On a far grander level is Celadon, in a pretty pavilion on stilts on an island in one of the Sukhothai Hotel's ponds. It offers a comprehensive menu. And the Blue Elephant, housed in a nearby colonial mansion, serves classics like pla grai curry, made with fish and turmeric, along with such impressive innovations as durian cheesecake, which renders the famously foul-smelling fruit subtle and digestible.

A lot has happened to Bangkok in the half-century since Rodgers and Hammerstein celebrated its charms in "The King and I." For better and for worse, it is a modern city now, but  somehow its allure endures. The New York Times