Back in Bangkok

Three months after begining my journey in this city I have come full circle and returned to Bangkok. It is a city like no other in this part of the world, pulsing with modernity, a city of slick skytrains and expansive mega malls. The first time I visited, it didn't really strike me as anything special, I had arrived in a big, modern city from a big modern city. I wanted culture, adventure in exotic, developing lands. However after spending three months in 'less developed' parts of the world, the return to Bangkok brought a welcome change, ('oh wow, toilet paper!').

 The journey from Siem Reap was long, begining early in the morning and involving a mini bus, standing on the side of the road for two hours, a bus, walking through the casino filled no mans land between Thailand and Cambodia, stading in the tray of a ute, another mini bus, a skytrain. I felt oddly excited as we reached the 8 lane motorway but slightly nervous as our driver sped at 130km/h, overtaking unecessarily amongst the refreshingly calm and ordered traffic. I arrived in Bangkok alive and caught a skytrain to my hostel in the Sukhumvit, a cheaper but quality place in a rather more ritzy part of town. What did I eat that first night back in Thailand? Pad Thai street food style of course!

Standing in one of SE Asia's largest and most expensive mall, 'The Siam Paragon', it was hard to reconcile this world of opulent consumption and high end glamour with the Asia I had stood in just a day ago. One day, surrounded by beggars missing limbs, children forced to sell trinkets rather than attend school, people so desperate just to make themselves a dollar. The next, surrounded by the brand's of high end European and American fasion labels, on level four a shop selling Lamboughini cars, all air conditioned; polished chrome, glass and marble. World apart and yet only a days bus ride away.

I guess Thailand has been the lucky country of this region, one of the few nations to skillfully avoid colonialisation by ceeding parts of it's territories to it's colonial neigbours, the French to the East, the British to the West, it avoided invasion and maintained good diplomatic relations with the western powers. Eagre to be seen not as just another 'servile' race requiring western paternalisim, it has always regarded technological advancement as a high priority. There are pictures in the National Museum of the first steam train imported to Thailand back in 1893, today an elevated and underground metro sytem conects this bustling modern metropolis, something back in Sydney I think we all would envy. Thailand escaped the tragedy of the civil and American wars of the 20th century. Colonialiation, conflict and corruption have left Indochina impoverished with only Vietnam now experiencing an economic boom  that has brought prosperity into the country since it followed China into the global economy in the early 90s. Still Lao and Cambodia are languishing by the wayside in the middle, their recovery will take far longer. To the west there are rumblings of change in Burma, one country that was not part of my SE Asian oddessey but that I would love to go someday. Last night I met a woman in the hallway feverishly ironing US dolllars, she was going to Burma where they are rather pedantic regarding the crispness of US currency.

In the huge mega mall I did luxuriate a little at the movies. You know those moments when you do not realise how much money you just handed over in a foreign currency? Well, I ended up buying one of those ultra exclusive recliner couch seats with supplied pillows and a blanket infront of a huge screen. In the end I guess it was worth the money and the movie, 'The Lady', regarding the life of Aung San Suu Kyi was wonderful and I higly recomend it. Being the cultural city it is, I went and saw an exhibition of Australian Aboriginal Photography yesterday followed by a screening of the best films from Berlin's Interfilm short film festival which was great fun. There is but a week left on the SE Asian leg of my journey, next Tuesday I fly to Mumbai.