For years, Bangkok has served as an eye-opening introduction to the splendors of the Orient. Locals call it Krung Thep, or City of Angels, and that isn’t its only similarity to America’s Los Angeles. Unlike Hong Kong or New York—dense, modern cities with well-defined skylines and central cores—Bangkok is a sprawling, chaotic place that sometimes seems to lack any focus or order. The sense of mayhem is only amplified by the noise, bustle, and teeming traffic, common to cities across Southeast Asia. Yet this metropolis of 10 million is a warm, welcoming gateway to the Land of Smiles. And it’s increasingly more livable. The BTS, an overhead monorail, offers great views over the city, and the under-ground MRT subway makes navigation a cinch. Always ranked among the world’s best shopping cities, with scores of home-design and crafts emporiums, Bangkok has in recent years amped up its nightlife offerings and plays host to a vibrant arts scene.
All of this is well documented in Bangkok 101, the city’s hippest and most up-to-date visitor’s guide. Its publisher, Mason Florence, typifies Bangkok’s increasingly international profile. Articulate and enthusiastic, Florence bristles with energy and ideas. Born in New York, schooled in Boston and Colorado, he has been a writer, a ski instructor, a tour leader, and a rodeo cowboy. But his first love is photography. After living for a dozen years in Japan, where he co-founded and still runs the Chiiori Project, which is dedicated to restoring a historic rural farmhouse, Florence covered Japan and Vietnam for the Lonely Planet guide-book series. He moved to Bangkok in 2003, and a year later, opened Gallery F-Stop, Bangkok’s first photography-only exhibition center.
Bangkok was a regular stopover for me for years when I was researching guidebooks on Japan and Vietnam. My threshold for the city back then was really just a few days—it was congested, teeming, crazy. But the more trips I made, the more it grew on me, and I was always discovering something new. It didn’t take long, actually, for it to go from stopover to the place I knew I wanted to live in.
The river. I’ve always loved that piece of Bangkok history, when it was the “Venice of the East.” There are still remnants of that today, a vibrancy—cafés and cool new small hotels, where you can sit and watch the boats go by, ferries, rice barges, and tourist boats.
One of my favorite places to take it in is from the Deck, a Thai-French restaurant at Arun Residence, a five-room Sino-Portuguese boutique hotel perched right on the river’s edge, directly across from the Temple of the Dawn [Wat Arun]. There’s a very cool bar upstairs, and you can hang out there and watch the sun go down. And there are trips down the side klongs [canals] where you can see the local scene. The river has a life to it; it unfolds in different ways everywhere you go.
The most stunning views of the river and city are from the rooftops of the Dome at State Tower, and the Banyan Tree hotel. When I’m entertaining visitors, I always take them up the 60-plus floors of one of these places, keep them talking, then watch their faces as they step out onto the open terrace to an amazing 360-degree view of the city. Unlike similar experiences in other cities, there’s no towering Plexiglas, no huge barriers except for a waist-high railing. The view is enveloping and exhilarating.
Bangkok’s markets are great places to get lost; it’s happened to me many times. For visitors, it can be intimidating to confront Jatujak [also called Chatuchak, or Weekend Market], for example. It’s thousands of square feet of stalls and objects from housewares to antiques and ethnic crafts to flowers, fashion, or aquarium fish—it’s Grandma’s attic meets handicraft village, but on a massive scale. You really need a map. Nancy Chandler’s printed and web-based maps are indispensable.
But Jatujak is also much more than a market, it’s a complete neighborhood, with its own restaurants and bars; it’s a local scene. It wasn’t designed for tourists, but it’s something tourists definitely want to experience. And it’s just one of Bangkok’s many markets.
Cynics might say, “What art scene?” There’s no gallery row in this city, no Chelsea or Greenwich Village. But there is great art here. The closest thing to an art area is around Silom Road, where the gallery movement has also contributed to the mounting effort toward historical restoration. H Gallery is in an old wooden schoolhouse, while the Kathmandu Photo Gallery, run by one of Thailand’s most famous photographers, Manit Sriwanichpoom, is run out of a beautifully restored shop house. La Lanta Fine Art is an art gallery in Baan Silom, a very hip new colonial-style complex. Another Silom-area institution is Eat Me Art Restaurant, which has, in addition to fantastic food, outstanding exhibits.
Of course, there’s the Jim Thompson House, which is practically a cliché, but it’s a great gallery with educational, interactive exhibits that cover the history of silk production in Thailand. The house alone is reason enough to visit. Other local standouts include Suan Pakkad Palace, M. R. Kukrit’s house, and Baan Khamthieng at the Siam Society; all are in stunning, classically designed, traditional Thai buildings.
The National Museum is definitely worth a long look. The new Thailand Creative & Design Center is amazing, showcasing the cutting edge of modern Thai design. Another distinct Bangkok trend is the growth of “lifestyle malls”—small, uniquely designed plazas that have high-end clothing, home furnishings, gadgets, and toys in addition to artists’ space, like Playground and the Third Place in the Thong Lo area.
The concept is really simple: We exhibit photographs. When I came to Bangkok, I was astonished to find there was not a single gallery devoted to photography. It’s amazing when you find out how many great, world-renowned photographers work or live here.
It came together in a funny way. Some friends found this place for a café and wanted to do something with the walls. I’d been wanting to do my own photo gallery since I’d lived in Japan. I had the designer and the architect—I even had the name, Gallery F-Stop, in mind. When I saw this café, it all just clicked.
I organize the shows, and the gallery is open to anything. We’ve had both Thai and foreign photographers, and a wide range of subject matter. It can be modern, landscape, street scenes, nudes, whatever. As long as it’s a unique view coming through the lens.
Before I came here, I was much slimmer. Now, I eat with Thai people and like Thai people—that is, 24 hours a day. Everyone who lives here will tell you the food here is irresistible. You have everything from amazing street food to Blue Elephant and Ruen Mallika, which both serve royal cuisine [traditional cuisine of the highest quality
and richest ingredients, fit for the kings].
There’s Le Lys, run by a French-Thai couple, which is a Bangkok mainstay for Thai comfort cuisine. It’s in an old house with a fantastic, homey atmosphere where Ricard-sipping cliques gather after work for rounds of pétanque [French lawn bowling].
Then there’s the uber-hip Bed Supperclub, where you can feast on innovative dishes while sprawled across white, fluffy couches. The building alone must be seen—a large, white, tube-shaped spaceship.
I’m a regular at Eat Me, which has amazing, fresh dishes, and La Villa, an Italian restaurant in a white hacienda near Thong Lo, run by Roberto Ferrin. He’s a real character who greets customers with lines like “Tonight, we have some serious clams.”
There are so many choices, spanning the cuisine of many different countries, that when it comes time to do the “Hot Plates” section of Bangkok 101 every month, we’re hard-pressed to focus on one restaurant.
Q Bar is jammed with people but maintains a cool atmosphere year after year. The rooftop bars I mentioned are always good.
One of my favorite hideaways is Café Trio, a stylish, art-filled bar with low couches, chill tunes, and Patti—Bangkok’s most gregarious hostess. Definitely not on the tourist path. (Take the alley to the right of the unnamed Chinese restaurant on Langsuan.)
For late nights, it’s Wong’s Place. This pub stays open as long as you are there and has the most amazing collection of old music videos. It’s the thinking man’s dive—you just help yourself to drinks, and pay when you leave.
There are plenty of stylish hotels sprouting up. Soi 31 is turning into a boutique hotel hot spot, with the Eugenia already established and a new place, Seven, just opening. Seven is a strikingly tall, narrow town house with a hip, modern revamp. Each room represents a different day of the week, which in the Thai tradition means that each has its own unique color.
My advice to visitors is to go to the river, hop on a boat, and just ride up and down and look at everything. Then, jump off. It doesn’t matter where, because as soon as you do, you will be swallowed up in all this fantastic atmosphere of activity and great aromas. Just wander around.
Post a comment
