Bangkok has many impressive temples, but without a doubt the city’s biggest attraction is the people.

I spent the morning looking for a water taxi to take me to Ko Ratanakosin on the eastern bank of the Mae Nam Chao Phraya (the river running through Bangkok). Ko Ratanakosin is to Buddhism what the Vatican City is the Catholicism. Therefore, the area houses some of the holiest temples and The Grand Palaces dedicated to Buda and the royal family respectively.

After walking around the Grand Palace for over an hour with a new friend, I hoped on a tuk-tuk to see more temples and statues. The sites mainly consisted of golden Buda statues in various positions: sitting, lying or standing. Most the statues held some significance such as being lucky, fortunate and one even giving you a blessed marriage.

The golden temple or Wat Saket is a temple built on what looks like a mountain. Climbing the few hundred stairs gives you a scenic view around Bangkok and the breeze from on top gives much needed respite from the heat. My tuk tuk driver, who was suppose to wait on me at each temple, left me here without saying a word. The deal we arranged was for him to take me to four temples for the price of 40BHT (about $1.25USD). To good to be true? Yes. What he didn’t tell me was that one of the stops would be a silk factory. The tuk tuk drivers have an arrangement with merchant shops to bring tourists around while touring the city. If they buy an item, the tuk tuk driver gets a coupon for gas. If not, the driver is left in a debacle. I bought nothing at the silk factory, therefore the tuk tuk driver decided to cut his losses and move onto the next unsuspecting tourist. None the less, Ko Shan Road, where I’m staying, was only a 10-minute walk through the red shirt protesters, most of which were sleeping away the hot mid-day sun as I passed. The protests are fizzling away into nothing more than a few thousand people now.

However, I digress. On to the Thai people.

Ko Sahn Road is a backpacker’s mecca with all the accoutrements: food, beer, music and movies can be had for less than most would think. The food is made in the back alleys off the main road and shipped off to be sold on the street usually on make shift bicycles. Brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles slave away to provide backpackers with the freshest fruits, foods and sweets for practically nothing. The Thai people are hard working, yet through it all, they manage to be friendly and genuinely happy to help. On several occasions, curious Thais stopped me on the road wanting to know where I was from and where I was going and if I needed help finding anything. At first, I was reluctant because I expected a price to be associated with such advice. However, I was pleasantly surprised when after offering directions and chatting for a while, the Thai would simply walk away smiling, completely satisfied that he had helped someone and wanting nothing more.

This is just the first day of course and whatever I write here can be considered rambling. But so far, the coolest thing about Bangkok is its people.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 25th, 2010 at 8:22 am and is filed under South East Asia, Thailand, Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.