Exploring Bangkok

Today was my first full day exploring Bangkok. Elizabeth and I split up for the day – mostly because I just need some alone time. I love Elizabeth but being that I’m an only child and am used to having my own space I just need a few days of being on my own. Around 9 am I headed out in the direction of a café I found online. Although I don’t really want to be spending all my time at Western cafes and eating Western food, it can be surprisingly helpful when exploring a new city to at least have a goal. It gets you out, gets you walking the streets of city, and introduces you to parts of the city you may not have otherwise visited. The coffee shop was 2 kms away from the hotel. I studied the route on Google maps, marked the location on my paper map, and headed out.

Bangkok is not necessarily the most pedestrian friendly city out there. It isn’t especially non-pedestrian friendly – it’s better than KL where there are almost no pedestrian crossings at all – as they have crosswalks, but at many intersections the entire pedestrian walkway system is elevated. This is great if you can do lots of stairs easily as it gets you above the crazy traffic and you can walk easily around a very busy intersection with no problem. But imagine if you can’t walk well – or god forbid are in a wheelchair – you’d be screwed. There are no elevators (at least none that I’ve seen yet) and at these intersections with elevated walkways there are no street crossings so there is no other option. I’m just glad I have two well functioning legs – and I’ll have some even better looking ones by the time I leave.

It took me maybe 30 minutes to get to the area where the café was. I will be quite honest I did not really enjoy the walk. I was stressed out – walking somewhere new, in a new city, not sure how people would react to my presence (we’ve been so used to being harassed constantly in Malaysia I was on high alert for this) – and just wanted to get there. I walked rather fast, I’m sure I looked nervous, and I tried not to interact with anyone. Closed off body language, that’s for sure.

When I made it to the neighborhood I quickly realized how detrimental it could be not to have written down the address and not to have a phone with Internet so I can use the map function. I wandered in circles for maybe 20 minutes before finally finding the café, not very far from where I thought it was, but not in the exact spot Google maps had said so I almost missed it. How upset I would have been to walk 2kms in the “wrong” direction from all the tourist attractions only to have to get a coffee at Starbucks! I went into the café, had my coffee, did a bit on the Internet, and then headed back out onto the streets of Bangkok towards my activity for the day, the Jim Thompson house.

This house was approximately 3 kms from the coffee shop but just off the same main road as the coffee shop (and near many places I had been the day before) so I didn’t really have to focus as I walked. I was able to relax, enjoy the walk, smile at all the people I saw, buy another coffee off the street at a much more reasonable price, and enjoy a bit of the street food. I wandered on and on down the road, through many food markets, over and under many elevated walkways, across main roads, and rivers. Somewhere along the way I was pulling shut the zipper of my purse when the leather pull-tab broke. This was fabulous because this now gave me another thing to do – go to the store and see about getting it fixed! Nice – another task for the day!

The Jim Thompson house is very close to the largest shopping malls here in Bangkok so before heading to the house I went into the shopping mall, found the store I needed, waited in line to get in (this is a bit ridiculous but seen all over Asia) and then talked to the sales clerk. She said they would fix it free of charge (Bonus!) but they have to send the purse away for repairs, which takes a month. I cannot send it until I am in Singapore as they send it back to the same store from which it came. (Now another reason I really need to buckle down in Singapore and get a job – I need to stay at least one month to get my purse back!) Errand complete I headed for the house.

By this time it was approaching 12 and I hadn’t really had a real meal for the day. I had eaten half a pineapple and had 2 coffees but was getting hungry and wanted some street food. Near the malls at this time of day there wasn’t much to choose from but I was hoping closer to the tourist attraction there would be – and there was. I had a large slice of watermelon (so much fresh, cheap, fruit here in Asia!!!) followed by a big plate of chicken fried rice with a fried egg on top plus a bottle of water. And all for less than USD$3. This place is amazing for the pocket book!

With lunch complete I wandered along the water to the Jim Morrison house. I arrived just in time to get a discount (under 25 is only THB$50 – half price – and I turn 25 in less than 3 weeks) and just in time for the English language tour. I really didn’t know what the place was but it’s one of the top tourist attractions in Bangkok so I went there.

This is what I learned:

Jim Thompson was in the US Armed Forces serving during WWII towards the end of the war he was sent to Thailand and fell in love with the country. He ended up moving to Thailand permanently and setting up residence in Bangkok. He somehow (I couldn’t totally understand the tour guide) got involved in the silk trade and ended up reviving the traditional hand woven silk that Thailand was known for. He started the Jim Thompson Thai Silk company that because quite famous and ended up building a home in a rather central part of Bangkok so he could be close to his weavers.  He lived in the house for a number of years before disappearing on a trip to the Cameroon Highlands in Malaysia in 1967. He was never seen again and no one knows what happened to him. Suspicious! (I might buy a book about his disappearance to be my book for Thailand).

The tour took you through all the rooms in his home and you got to peruse his massive antiques collection. His home was beautiful and so was everything inside. After the tour I lounged around in the garden reading and met a wonderful Thai gentleman who was born in Hat Yai (where we were the last few day) but has living most of his life in New Jersey. Now that he is older he is splitting his time between Thailand and America, getting back to his roots a bit. He offered to help in any way he can with our time here – so nice!

With this tourist attraction being exhausted I went back to the mall in search of a book about Thailand that I could read. While in Malaysia Elizabeth and I read a book about Malaysia and that was really cool. I’d like to do the same here, but after a good chunk of time looking at all the Thailand books at the bookstore (or which there weren’t many) I gave up and didn’t buy anything. Maybe I can find a more specialized bookstore tomorrow.

Back towards the hostel I arrived about 15 minutes before our scheduled meeting time of 4 pm and Elizabeth was there in the lobby. We went up to the room. I had a quick shower, and then I headed out for a late lunch of friend noodles – delicious! Then back to the hotel, did my exercises and stretching, took a nap, read a bit, watched a bit of Netflix, and then off for dinner.

Elizabeth was interested in going to Chinatown but the Tuk Tuk (Thai taxi) was going to cost THB$150 – way more than I wanted to spend. I voted we stick nearer to the hotel, which we did. After browsing the markets a bit we both put together a hodge-podge dinner of random items, found a nice place to sit and eat and people watch, and enjoyed our dinner.

I decided while we were wandering the market (that is full of so many usefully items like clothes) that I am going to try and completely replace my wardrobe while we are here for a mere THB$1000 or about US$35. I am sick of the clothes I have and for such little money, why not? Another goal to work on over the next 8 days!

After dinner we had to head back to the hotel as we had a Skype call scheduled with Parthiban, the author of the book we read about Malaysia. Parthiban is currently a graduate student at the University of Illinois and since he is not yet done with his doctoral thesis I assumed he wouldn’t be too famous to field a phone call from some interested readers.

For a bit more back-story, Parthiban was born in KL and lived there most of his life. His parents are Indian (one of the two major ethnic groups in Malaysia, along with Chinese) and he grew up a rather privileged life. He has spent the last 10 years now away from Malaysia but has chosen to do his doctoral thesis on temporary migrant workers in Malaysia and thus has returned multiple times to interview workers. The book, Politics of the Temporary, is a collection of blog posts he wrote during his trips to Malaysia (it doesn’t say they are blog posts in the book but he told us this on the phone).

I read the first section of the book, interviews with migrant workers, alone. I then started reading aloud to Elizabeth and then it became our project that we worked on for the following week. I though the first part of the book was fabulous, but as it progressed we found it more and more difficult to relate to what he was so frustrated about and thus really wanted to have a chat with the author.

We are so happy we did. Now, after learning that the book is mostly blog posts written in the moment – the same day he had most of these experiences, makes much more sense. In many of the chapters, especially later in the book, you can really feel Parthiban’s anger/frustration/disgust at the situation the workers are in, but cannot always tell where he is coming from. Once we spoke with him on the phone it was much more clear.

The book follows the situations of temporary migrant workers in KL and Penang, a group of people with very few legal rights, who work the lowest jobs in society, work for minimal wages (there isn’t actually a minimum wage in Malaysia), and are exploited by their employers. Many of them come to Malaysia and live for years without any possibility of ever gaining citizenship, without their families who are not allowed to legal join them, and on visas they are at risk of losing very easily. Many of them in the book, however, expressed gratitude for the opportunity they’d been given and content with the situation. Parthiban would often get quite frustrated about their lives, but Elizabeth and I couldn’t understand why since the immigrant themselves was usually quite positive.

This is where talking with the author really helped to illuminate what was going on – many of the workers were being obviously exploited by their employers (obvious to Parthiban and to the workers themselves) but because not only the worker, but their family and community back home depended on the income, there was really nothing the migrant could do. They had to endure the treatment because they didn’t have another option.

The Malaysian legal system also works against the migrants when it comes to immigration law. Here are a few examples:

-       Only Bangladeshi men are allowed to go to Malaysia as temporary migrant workers. If they have a wife or family they cannot bring them along. Once in Malaysia they can continue to work there for 12 years (granted they continue to get sponsorship) but have no possible path towards residence or citizenship. After 12 years they must leave and return to their home country.

-       The visa they get is tied to the specific job. If they lose their job or quit, the visa instantly becomes invalid and they must leave. They are given no opportunity to switch jobs or find another job.

-       Although this is not legal, employers will hold the employees’ passport and papers so they cannot leave the job. The employer who is required to provide accommodation to employees (and legally cannot charge for that) also tends to withhold wages to cover the living expenses. 

-       Migrant workers are regularly harassed by police and immigration officials about their legal status, sometimes held overnight without any proof they are illegal and even despite having the proper papers.

Many of the workers, because of their temporary immigration status, are treated differently by employers and by society. Employers will abuse the employee – paying them less money, working them longer hours in worse conditions. But society also looks down on them as well, and this is what Parthiban is trying to change. Many of the jobs the migrant works do are “dirty” jobs – cleaning toilets, picking up litter in public places, cleaning houses, etc… Because these jobs are deemed “dirty” and the migrants are going them, they are also deemed “dirty.” They do not get the respect they deserve from society for doing a job that needs to be done and are not fairly compensated for their work. (Side note here – the use of the word “dirty” I took from the book. This was very hard for me to understand when I was reading but when Parthiban talked to us about it, it was clear this term “dirty” has a whole other meaning here, something much stronger than I know it as back in America. The roots are from the Indian Caste system – nothing like what we have in America.)

The book was very interesting overall, especially Part 1, but the discussion with Parthiban was invaluable. We are so happy to have had the opportunity to speak with him; it helped add to our experience of reading the book immensely. Thank you, Parthiban, for taking the time to Skype with us. We greatly appreciate it.

After this Skype call I had another short one with a friend, then wrote this blog post, and now it is after 1 am and I am heading to bed. Another big day of exploring tomorrow. I need to get a purse (wish we were back in KL where they had the best fakes I have ever seen – never thought I’d want to go back there) and some clothes so I will likely head to Chinatown.

Chat later!