To be clear, I’ve had Singaporean style Thai food, Taiwanese style Thai food and American style Thai food, but I know that none of these are truly authentic. Since young my impression of Thai food isn’t the spice or sour, but one particular dish – Pineapple fried rice. It’s always been my favorite and the one thing that I look forward to. However while I was in grad school and told my Thai classmate how I loved Pineapple fried rice, he just had this strange look on his face. Apparently, pineapple fried rice is not Thai at all. Since then I’ve had doubts on every self-proclaimed Thai cuisine and is determined to seek the true authentic Thai taste.
Also, talking about impression of Thailand, of course there are many positives expectations that the media has portrayed. Then there’s others like the movie Hang Over 2…. On well, exciting!
The most famous shrine in Bangkok, people who have asked for blessings come back to pay tribute and show appreciation, hiring the dancers to perform a brief dance and song.
Just like many, but not all, airports in South East Asian countries, the airport is not much to be desired. Granted that we took a budget airline and landed at a not-so-international airport, the immigration officer just doesn’t seem to be very keen in getting people moving. Strangely, this reminded me of US customs at the “Aliens” line.
Bangkok is a very polarized intersection between ideologies and reality. It is a mixture of polished surfaces and grit, with some very interesting and adventurous architectural designs, something that doesn’t exist in Taiwan, but the chaotic street scene is what I actually find familiarity in. It is also a very polarized intersection between ideologies and reality, with the said polished architecture, massive malls and MRT filled with relatively well-to-do folks and the roads frequent by very expensive cars, along with street vendors, Tuk-Tuk, old public buses and homeless folks. Ok this isn’t really anything strange so there’s nothing much to debate here. However, being a religious country, and unlike many other religious countries, Thailand has opened its welcoming arms to tourism from very early on, and the influx of foreign influences has since co-existed with traditional values in a strange yet interesting way.
It’s like night club on wheels!
Everyone’s a VIP in Thailand!
A tunnel of temptations for shopping addicts.
I am sure that any western tourist will not find it hard to navigate in Thailand because the infrastructure has long adopted to English speaking users. English is already a normal part of Thai lifestyle, unlike Taiwan, and foreigners on streets are as common as Tuk-Tuks. To me, the contrast/irony comes with the intersection between religion, tourism and everything in between.
Bangkok, or rather Thailand, is filled with temples. To say that Taiwan has too many temples, it will be lame to compare to Thailand. Thai Buddhist temples are also almost always in gold. Very bling, but in a very graceful way. People pay their respect to rules and regulations when visiting temples especially the very tourisy ones. However it is also in such places where crimes take place most frequently. Warnings that remind tourists to secure their precious belongings against thieves are everywhere, and to me this is such a huge contrast with what I know about Thailand, which mainly is its beautifully kind people. It is also said that most of these thieves are actually foreigners from surrounding and less fortunate countries, which I will believe because this is similar to other high crime “first world” cities, especially in European cities. I just find this a very unfortunate situation. Otherwise, like its weather, Thailand and its people are warm and welcoming.
Such a pimpin’ ride!
It like a video game!
Grand palace with Chinese style statues.
They even have robes for tourists who’s had too little to dress to enter temples.
The sign actually says “Do not take off shoes here”, yet accompanied by a graphic that puts a big “cross” on a shoe icon. It seems that people are just unsure what this conflicting message means and choose not to take the risk, therefore all the shoes at the steps where they aren’t supposed to be.
Wandered into a side alley and caught this scene. Passer by kept walking with her eyes affixed to TV despite all the chaos surrounding it.
HYPERDRIVE MODE!!!
One of the most popular seafood “restaurant” in Chinatown.
Getting ready for Chinese New Year
Thailand has arguably the best Hainanese Chicken Rice!
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