Bangkok 2012 - Part 4

I think his quest is a noble one, and a great way to sample as much variety as possible. As we delve into the tropical armpit of Asia, we are always on the lookout for the next taste sensation. Besides, the normal three modest meals a day in this climate is not ideal, and I find it best to follow local tradition when it comes to these matters. Therefore, we duly snack, nibble, munch, graze, and browse our way around town for the next three days.

On our way to a rendezvous with an old friend of his, we walk in the shade of the skyscrapers through the late afternoon hustle of downtown peak hour. As we leave behind the Chinese style wooden buildings — warehouses, shops & dwellings in the old part of town — they make way for the steel and glass monoliths of international hotel chains, multinational banking conglomerates, and impersonal mega malls.

Street side food vendors set up to catch the passing trade of office workers making their way home. In inverse proportion to the minimal inputs — a few fold up chairs and tables, and a couple of gas rings — they are able to conjure up the tastiest of snacks and light meals. We are snared; caught in their trap. The meal is only meat, but it is marinated and char grilled to perfection, washed down with an icy cold Leo. I think that was meal number four.

After hooking up with his friend, we enter the bowels of an anonymous office block and find his car in the underground car park. Joining the famously lethargic Bangkok traffic, eventually we make our way out of the larger streams and into quieter backwaters, where the rich locals and western ex-pats live cloistered in gated apartment blocks. I’m not sure what they are gated against, as there does not seem to be anything to be afraid of: the streets are safe, the locals friendly, and the biggest problem they have is the loss of their ultra-cheap Burmese maids.

These ladies have until now been sending home most of their meagre earnings to their beleaguered relatives, in the hope of somehow keeping them out of poverty’s gaping maw. To a degree, they have sacrificed themselves to relieve their family’s plight. Now, with the sudden unexplained reversal in direction from one of the most austere regimes on the planet, they are going home. At last, there is some hope that their country is beginning to climb out of the depths of poverty and despair, and they want to be part of it.