Royal Palace Bangkok

A tangle of power lines festoon streets here like tinsel. Street grills release appetising aroma into the fume filled air. Many locals wear face masks for protection. Some even colour coordinate their masks to their outfits such is the Thai style.

After a work day yesterday I had a day to explore a little of this ancient Asian trading nodal point. I took the new sky train rapid transit to beat the endless tailbacks on the gridlocked streets. This railway line is perched on incredibly high pillars. I am not sure if this is because of future proofing against rising sea levels or in anticipation of many of the suburbs having high rise communities which will benefit from easy access to the rapid transit network.

My DIY tour also involved a very unsafe gondola on the bustling Chao Phraya river highway and a more sedate return by water bus. I spent three hours in the Royal Palace complex. It was an incredible insight into Thai royal heritage and traditions. (The majority of the visitors, as in Edinburgh, are Chinese.) Despite the throng I found some quiet corners to appreciate the scale and impact of this ancient architectural wonder.

I walked 6 miles in “feels like” 37 degree sunshine. I would love to come back here and see more of Bangkok and Thailand. Part of that walk was back to my apartment at dusk. I was sharing the very uneven pavements with exhausted Burmese domestic maids waiting their rickety buses home and equally exhausted Bangladeshi labourers lumbering home in crazily overcrowded lorries. Scooter taxis plied for fares. Rib-revealing street dogs added an extra frisson. Even they had no appetite for the tyre flattened frogs and were too slow to spot the turbo charged lizards.