Mandatory stop in Bangkok

16 February 2020 Asia, Bangkok, Photography, Travel, travel photography

We arrived for a mandatory stop in Bangkok after 48 hours with no sleep due to the loudest flight of my life. The first stop in Shanghai, a day there and the second flight to destination. After 14 hours sleep (with a breakfast break) we recovered immediately from jet leg and we decided to take a walk around. The subway is brend new, super cheap but with just two lines. The other common way to go around Bkk is Grab, the risk is to be stucked in the traffic for a looooooong time.

 

Beauty is nowhere..for a while

Bangkok is hot and humid but most of all polluted, shamefully polluted, so bring a mask with carbon filters. The others are simply useless. The city is a real jungle, crowded, full of traffic and people everywhere, with a urban structure completely incomprehensible for europeans, but it’s a personal opinion. There’re no squares, but areas characterized by big shopping malls. They are used by many locals as meeting points, aggregation areas also for tourists curious to discover the consumer side of the city.

During the firsts walk from the early afternoon I learned that my camera would have been useless till 4pm. When the sun starts to go down the atmosphere gets better. On this side of the world, from 9am there’s the worst light possible to take pictures. It’s extremely strong, dazzling and annoying.

 

Exploring Bkk

The next day we started to explore the city. Usually I’m always exited and fascinated about a new place or city that I visit but this time not too much. We decided to visit the Jim Thompson’s house during the hottest hours, really nice stop to consider! Later we came back to the chaos and I took time to find interesting subjects, some modern architecture in particular like the King Power Mahanakhon. Bangkok is developing continuously and some new building are coming.

 

 

I needed more time to familiarize and get tuned with the context probably because I was also annoyed by the bad and strong smog. I have to admit that after a while I saw some nice glimpses. Actually with the right light Bangkok south east Asia icon,  reveals itself as a pretty interesting place for urban photography with its lights and atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

China Town

Later we arrived in China Town and there things changed completely. The area, despite being a real mess, is definitely interesting and curious, an incredible place for street photography. Neons, banners, stands with several varieties of food, people everywhere, a crazy area.

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed away from street food, our stomach are not strong enough and the smell wasn’t so good everywhere. I still don’t understand this thing of a mandatory stop in Bangkok as a capital of street food. We chosen a place that was actually nice but…I spent the next 32 hours lying in my bed at the hotel walking just to the bathroom.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the food (I was the only one sick) but probably the criminal air conditioning in the subway that blocked my digestion. Man A/C in Bkk is seriously crazy, don’t try to be brave like me. Bring always something to cover you while inside there, taxis are well refrigerated  as well, so be prepared!

While recovering we made a plan dedicating the next days to something topically touristic and something bit off the beaten track walking randomly. I’ll tell you about this in the next chapter.

 

 

Cheers

 

 

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