Alex Wright


Siam Diary: Part II

May 13, 2004

Bangkok

Here and there in the distance, above the crowded mob of low, brown roof ridges, towered great piles of masonry, King's Palace, temples, gorgeous and dilapidated, crumbling under the vertical sunlight, tremendous, overpowering, almost palpable, which seemed to enter one's breast with the breath of one's nostrils and soak into one's limbs through every pore of one's skin.

- Joseph Conrad, on Bangkok
Bangkok feels at once like a 21st century megalopolis and a network of tiny villages. Nestled amid the highways and neon you find sidewalk fruit sellers and barefoot children playing by the river.

The Chao Phraya, the River of Kings, constitutes the city's main artery, uniting the great wats and palaces downtown with the old canal city and the floating markets.

Chao Phraya river

Canal city

We spent our first two nights at the Oriental, an eminent old hotel that boasts an imposing literary pedigree, having played host to the likes of Graham Greene, Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Gore Vidal, and Paul Theroux. It’s a writerly place if ever there was one, with the white wicker seats in the old lounge beckoning you to sit thinking grandiloquent thoughts while the waitresses bring you tea and finger sandwiches.

Oriental Hotel

It is also the most impeccably run hotel I have ever stayed at. Walking in the front door, no fewer than 5 staffers greet you with a wai between the front entrance and the elevator. Once inside your room, you have a “butler” button (which I confess I was too intimidated to push).

Whether you push the button or not, every morning the floor butler brings you a gold-colored plate with a new kind of Thai fruit - one day mangosteens, the next lychees or guava - accompanied by a hand-drawn illustration explaining the provenance of each fruit.

Mangosteen

The Oriental is exactly the place you want to stay after 23 hours stuffed in economy class across the Pacific.

We spent most of our first two days visiting the great wats (Buddhist temples) along the Chao Phraya river:

Wat Phra Kaeo

Wat Phra Kaeo

Wat Phra Kaeo

Wat Pho

Wat Pho

Wat Arun

Wat Arun

Wat Arun

>>
more Wat photos

Just outside Wat Pho we met Sawong Kontong, an astrologer and fortune teller. The Thai place great stock in their particular brand of astrology, a homegrown amalgam of Chinese astrology, Buddhist psychology and palm-reading. For the Thai people, fortune-telling amounts to something more-or-less like psychotherapy.

Sawong Kontong

To perform his reading, Mr. Kontong asked for my date, time and place of birth. He then proceeded to spend several minutes performing an elaborate series of calculations using a diagram and a well-worn book of numerical charts. He then began offering his reading, describing my personality, my habits (good and bad), and offering up prognostications, advice and the occasional word of caution. Finally, he wrapped up the session with a spot of palm reading.

I'm sufficiently superstitious about these things not to repeat much of what he said here, but suffice it to say Mr. Kontong's hunches seemed eerily insightful, and in a few cases downright spooky. What impressed me most, though, was the absence of any hint of "psychic" hooey. His methodology - which of course I don't claim to understand - appeared entirely scientific, based on fact and procedure. The whole experience felt less like having my fortune told than like having my taxes done: an exercise in the creative interpretation of facts.



>> more Bangkok photos

next: Phuket and Ko Samui


File under: Travels

_____________________
« Siam Diary: Part I | Siam Diary: Part III »

 

Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages

GLUT:
Mastering Information Through the Ages

New Paperback Edition

“A penetrating and highly entertaining meditation on the information age and its historical roots.”
—Los Angeles Times     

Buy from Amazon.com