I went to Bangkok as a part of a work trip and stayed there for 2 weeks. As the name suggests, it wasn’t a holiday. Although I do think I couldn’t experienced the city as much as I could be, I have some things to tell about it.
While I was there, I decided to capture some footage with my phone. After that, made an edit of them and I suggest you watching it before continuing.
Streets
My first impression of the city was is how well organized it was. Even though there are lots of cars and motorcycles on the streets, traffic jams were getting untagled sooner or later. To a person who lives in Istanbul, this was definitely a breeze.
Also another thing I noticed about traffic was that, most of the vehicles were either taxis or food deliveries. Even the “normal looking” cars were doing taxi work with mobile apps. Almost all of the 2 weeks I used taxis for transportation and rarely been a passenger for a regular looking taxi. Most of them were normal people with their own personal cars. This was kind of interesting.
Last thing about streets is there weren’t much of pedastrians to be speak of. I and my colleagues were the only pedastrians walking on sidewalks on those busy streets, most of time. I don’t know if we were almost always hung out on turistic areas or people of Bangkok don’t really walks. Still, it sometimes felt like I was in a ghost town with so many cars around.
Another thing I noticed, while I was walking on the streets is the little temple like miniature buildings with little statues on it. I obviously understood that they were shrines but didn’t know what exactly they were called and meant. I didn’t get curios about the details of them, until just now. Apparently, they are called spirit houses and I have to admit that I feel kinda bummed not to get a small replica of those houses as souvenir.
People of Thailand seems to prefer eating out as much as possible. Because of that there are huge number of street food option is available. Because I am a picky eater, I couldn’t dare to taste any of them. Also there is this market called “Seven-11” that is at the start of every street. I am not kidding about it; I literally saw it. Well, let’s not say “every” street of Bangkok. But some of the avenues have multiple of them. It is overkill people, come on.
Wat Pho
Only temple I visited was Wat Pho. There were lots of shrines and all of them were just simply gorgeous. My colleagues suggested that we should visit Wat Pho. Silly me, if noone on that day suggested to go here, I wouldn’t be visiting any temple.
Wat Pho is famous for the Reclining Budha statue. I am not ashamed to admit that we had some trouble finding the statue; We did go round and round multiple times. And the thing that wasn’t obvious to me at first was that the statue, is in a building and is very, very long.
Skyline
I am a fan of skyscrapers. I simply enjoy looking at them. And Bangkok, has lots of ‘em. Unfortunately, I am not an architecture nerd. So, can’t say what are the things are most impressive about them.
There were, so-called “rooftop parties” on some of those skyscrapers. I was really keen to take a look at some of those views. But was very tired, when my colleageus has decided one night to go one of them. So, I decided not to go, shame.
Final Words
People of Bangkok was quite unstressful and welcoming. This was a bit surprising for me because I live in a similar city (as in size and chaos) and people here are extremely stressful. But can’t say turkish people are not welcoming; We are also hospitable.
I am a picky eater and the food was not for my taste, honestly. But had an incredible and cheap brisket in a place called Holy Smokes. This was my first time eating it and I just fell in love. I think I never had eaten any meat quite that good.
Used an app called Grab for literally everything. It is easy for foreigners to call a cab or order food from that app.
It is safe to say that city never sleeps. And I didn’t experienced this to it’s full potential. It was a shame but I am now only looking at the things I experienced and not thinking about what I didn’t. I definitely want to visit Bangkok one more time in my lifetime. Only this time, as a holiday and not anything else.