Bangkok, the whirlwind city
For the unsuspecting European, especially if he doesn't know other big Asian capitals, the first impression of Bangkok will always be overwhelming. At night, if you get on the Sky Train, the metropolitan train that speeds through a mountain range of immense skyscrapers and phosphorescent towers, you will feel like you have fallen between the frames of Blade Runner, in the middle of that chaotic and dark city sparkling with neon lightning and illuminated advertisements. At any moment a replicant could appear, a car floating from above, a Buddhist monk or any of the extras that made this recreation of Philip K. Dick's nightmare unforgettable.
By day, however, it is the thousand-year-old rainbow-studded temples and houses raised on wooden stilts that suddenly take us centuries back, to the time when Thailand threw off the yoke of the Khmer empire, suffered invasion Burmese and resisted British colonialism from the Malay border. In few places in the world the past and the future, East and West, coexist in such a marked contrast and at the same time so harmonious, as day and night. The sullen parallelepipeds of the ultramodern buildings next to the pointed pinnacles of the palaces; the overwhelming pollution (which in some areas turns into fog and almost requires the protection of a mask) next to the greenery of Lumpini Park; the spectacular luxury of the enormous commercial blocks in fierce competition with the traditional street markets. Everything in Bangkok breathes life and movement, noise and smoke, darkness and colour, chaos in the mathematical sense of the term: order within disorder, disorder within order.
And in few places is that neat inconsistency as striking as the Royal Grand Palace in Bangkok, a seemingly unconnected agglomeration of multicolored pagodas, towering gold pepper shakers, and colossal construction. Its heart, the Emerald Temple, houses the small figure of a Buddha that contrasts with the gigantic golden Buddha of Wat Pho, very close to the Grand Palace, a languid reclining statue 43 meters long. For the Westerner, the feeling of being a simple foreigner without a face is accentuated among the crowds of Asians who accompany you on the visit: except for a few Australians, Germans or Americans, the slanted eyes roam freely and only then do you begin to truly distinguish between Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Indonesian.
Perhaps the most distinctive monument in Bangkok is Wat Arun, a fabulous 80-meter pyramidal tower on the banks of the Chao Phraya. After the ritual climb, from which a panoramic view of the city is offered, what the body asks for is a walk along the river. From the Sapham Taksim pier, the barge glides past the majestic hotels and grand temples of the tourist area, then plunges through the locks into a water maze where the attentive photographer can take home unforgettable snapshots: houses supported by pilasters , lush vegetation and even, if one is attentive, huge lizards running around the stones.
There are many means of transport, but the traveler should not fail to try two: the barge and the 'tuk-tuk'
Backpacker's Street
There are many means of transportation in Bangkok, but the novice traveler should not miss trying two: the barge and the tuk-tuk, those small motorcycles where first you have to haggle and then commit yourself to the vertigo of crossing the traffic jams that saturate the city at any time of day. It is the best way to get to Khao San Road, the mythical backpacker street that today bursts with restaurants and commercial stalls. Like many other big cities, Bangkok is strictly infinite, but no approach to the city would be complete without an immersion in Patpong, the night market full of counterfeits, with discos and nightclubs that are not very recommendable, and the spectacular Chinatown, a Chinese district It's amazing that it's like a city within a city, with entire streets dedicated exclusively to one activity, be it shoes, toys, hardware stores or motorcycles.
Guide
How to go to Iberia, round trip to Bangkok from Madrid, with a stopover, from 460 euros. Emirates, Air China and Aeroflot are three options to fly with a layover to Bangkok.
InformationBangkok Tourism Bureau and Thailand Tourism.
Bangkok is perhaps the best gateway to the Far East. In any corner, in front of a grandiose temple or sitting in a cafe, one feels the truth of that sentence that says that Asia is the future of the world. Yet beneath its seething surface and radical originality you'll find the same joys and sorrows, miseries and contradictions as anywhere else. Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, who went to die in his airport by pure chance, wrote Los pájaros de Bangkok only to reach the last line and discover that those strange and beautiful birds that infested his skies were only swallows.
David Torres is the author of the novel All Good Soldiers (2014).
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