Emerging from the haze of jet lag, my spirit of adventure returned and I managed to make it to the Chatuchak weekend market on Saturday and on Sunday I tried a walking tour recommended by my travel guide. This tour went through Chinatown, an older section of Bangkok. Exiting the metro I did my best to follow the map laid out in the book. The streets in this part of town are not set in a tidy grid pattern and the author of the book was doing his best to show the highlights which meant winding around old alleyways, sometimes doubling back and crossing dangerous intersections that you had to sprint through in order to avoid getting hit by a car, truck or tuk tuk. The result was that I got lost a number of times. I had a map, but Chinatown is not the best place to pause and scrutinize a map. First, you are liable to get hit by a moving vehicle. Even on the sidewalk, you can get hit by a motorcycle cab or a food cart if you linger too long in one place. Second, you attract every cab driver in a 10 block radius who is willing to lie his ass off if it means getting a fare. “Hello, where are you going? I can help. I speak English.” This is your first clue that something is up. I tell him that I am doing a walking tour of Chinatown. He says, “the markets are not open today, it is a holiday.” I almost fell for this the last time I was in Bangkok. The hook is that he offers to take you to another tourist attraction in the area “very cheap, only 40 Baht”, but you have to stop at two tailors and a jewelry store where he gets a kickback. Anyway, I knew what they were up to this time. I hate it when someone tries to con me and when I first started traveling this sort of thing would really upset me, but I kept my cool and said, “that is too bad, but I will walk anyway.” This allows both of us to save face. He doesn’t get exposed as a scam artist and I don’t have to expose him.
The trip to Chinatown was nothing extraordinary. The markets were open, but there was nothing that I wanted to buy. I noticed that there was an excited anticipation for Chinese New Year and I made a half-hearted effort to look for a Year-of-the-Tiger calendar, but that fizzled out. The walking tour that led me down back alleyways left me a little embarrassed because this was the back of people’s homes or businesses and they were trying to go about their daily lives in the cramped quarters of Chinatown. They did their best to ignore me, and I hurried along without taking a single photo.
