Thai Your Mother Down: Bangkok With Kids
Bangkok is famous for many things; however, you’d have to say that
“family-friendly holiday location” isn’t one of them. For us, it was
just a stage along the way to Myanmar (of which much more in future
posts). Since our flight to Mandalay would have involved a stopover in
Thailand’s capital, we decided to break the journey and have a couple of
days looking around.
On seeing the Atlanta’s rooms you may ask yourself who they think they are, to be so picky. The facilities would have a Spartan warrior writing to Tripadvisor and complaining of the lack of frills. While the rooms are clean and well-kept, only the air-conditioning seems to have been changed since the 1950s. Don’t expect a TV or a fridge (though the Wi-fi is adequate). On the other hand, the Atlanta is centrally located, and very cheap. And it’s the only hotel I’ve ever stayed at with a scriptorium.
So we went easy on day one, with a stroll around Lumphini Park. This is the green heart of Bangkok, with a lake, paths for jogging and cycling, and statues and monuments dotted around. From there we headed up to Erawan, a Hindu holy shrine at the very center of the city. Here worshippers pay, and patiently wait their turn to pray while the dancers perform a ritual around them.
adverisement
This turned out to be one of the highlights of our time in Bangkok.
First though we had to get past the touts around the pier, and negotiate
the baffling profusion of lines and ticketing systems. In our confusion
we nearly took the free shuttle boat to the mall across the river. The
rule seemed to be that the further we walked the lower the price became,
from the RMB 100 we were first quoted, to a mere RMB 20 each.
Bangkok is an attractive place, relatively undamaged by war, imperialist pillaging, and civil upheaval, which have robbed so many Asian cities of their glories. On our last night my wife and I went out for a drink, and stumbled into the red light district, which turned out to be right next to the city’s premier hotels (if you book into the Holiday Inn with your kids, be prepared to explain more than just signs…) People were wheeling strollers up the street and carrying toddlers past the ladyboys and ladies of the night, without any concern. So perhaps Bangkok is a family-friendly holiday location after all.
Photos: Andrew Killeen, www.cnn.com, Karen Killeen,Fodor's, zicasso.com
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