Hi Gram!
The past week has been pretty alright, if a little boring. I’m getting over the jet lag and getting into a morning routine of walking, but I haven’t been adventurous. I’ve been thinking about how to write about that – I’m used to writing logs of my daily adventures, but there haven’t really been any adventures yet. Maybe I just need a little time to unwind and get back into some good habits before I start exploring the world around me. Much of the “unusual” here, like the weird foods at the grocery store, traffic being on the left side of the road, having a hard time reading and understanding the local language… these are all things that are a little bit of a repeat from last year. On one hand, I feel guilty for not learning or experiencing or seeing or eating something new every day, but on the other hand, I did so much of that for the past year that I think I just need to be boring for a while.
One thing that’s still a little shocking is how many big malls are here, pushing the western world’s idea of glamour and ritz, combined with tourist-centric tchotchkes and knick-knacks, interspersed with cheap knock-offs and imitations. I’m not saying that I’m surprised that there’s a big mall. I’m saying that I pass 5 or 6 huge multi-story malls on my morning walk, and I know that there are probably 20x that just in the city of Bangkok. I don’t understand how they can afford to all operate so close to each other, yet they’ve all been full of people when I walk through (well, I haven’t walked through all of them, but at least 3 or 4 of them, I think). It was similar in Hua Hin, the seaside escape town that I was in last year. Being a smaller town, there were only 2 big malls on the main strip, with a few others that I heard about but didn’t visit.
What’s nice about the malls is that in their efforts to draw people in, they build elevated sidewalks from the BTS stop (elevated train) to their door, or in one case, from one mall to the next (owned by the same company, both huge, less than a block apart). That gives me a nice spot to walk out of the rain and direct sun, and an excuse to do a lot of stairs, which are good for the cardio. They’re each well maintained, filled with trees and manicured greenery, and clean.
I’ve found a decent route for my morning walk along the noisy streets for a bit, then up and down stairs to use the elevated walkways when I have the chance, and finally to a park with a walking path around the perimeter of a lake with a fountain in the middle. There’s a boat concession for people to paddle around during the day, but I walk too early for them to be open. Walking early in the morning gives me cooler temps, usually dryer weather (it tends to rain here in the evenings), and fewer people as the citizens are all working and the tourists are all getting over their hangovers from the night before. There are still quite a few people along the sidewalks headed to work, I’d presume, and a small number of people walking or jogging in the park, but far fewer than I see when I walk these same paths later in the afternoon or evening.
I’ve seen a couple of signs that amused me that I thought I’d share here. Whenever I’m out walking around, I try to capture things that are unique or catch my attention. There was a sign in a bathroom stall asking each person to be kind to the next person. Of course, the bar with a sign advertising their cold beer, and the sign at the playground entrance within the park that merely suggests that you supervise your children, and make sure they’re 5yo or older before playing on the metal and plastic modern art sculptures embedded in concrete. The playground and sign wouldn’t survive in America after the 1970’s. I miss my childhood. haha
Well, that’s all that I can think of for today. The sun is shining, so I think I might go for a stroll to one of the malls and do a little people watching.