One Night in Bangkok

Sunday 6th December 2009, 3am, Kohsaon Road Hostel - Bangkok

Tonight I chased the sunset on the back of a motorbike. Through the crowds and chaos and celebration on the King's birthday along the treacherous highways, roundabouts ands underpasses of Bangkok. I chased the sunset on a motorbike, and caught up with it from the 22nd floor rooftop garden of a condo apartment in the city. I chased the sunset on a motorbike.

I have yet to experience the mountain hikes, forest treks and wildlife walks that I know South East Asia has to offer but surely this, Bangkok, is the true jungle. A techni-colour metropolis that attacks the senses, a vibrant, living breathing sweating shouting organ of a city. If Koh Phangan was the heart, then Bangkok is the throbbing pulse - surging blood through the sewers so that the whole place rumbles and writhes beneath your feet. I have spent a lot of my life in cities; Belfast, Cardiff, Paris, Hong Kong, Sydney, Nairobi and of course my native London - but never before have I seen a city with such overwhelming character and exuberance as Bangkok. Food, music, traffic, tuk-tuks, lady boys, football, cooking, bartering, selling, shopping, fighting, flirting, drinking, carnage... the people do not live in the city, they are the city, and the city is it's people. This is when I wished I had any real talent for writing, travel writing in particular, because I know that my paltry attempts only do this place a complete injustice. Best not to take my inadequate words for it, come here and see it yourself.

Myself, the companion and a new friend arrived here after an uncomfortable overnight journey in the early hours of Saturday morning, purposefully on time for Bangkok's biggest public holiday and proudest cause for a party - the birthday of their beloved and decrepit King who it seems they adore whole-heartedly and for good reason. An insider and emigrant to the city informs me that the current 84 year old monarch has unified the banks and the military, brought stability to the economy and has been a force for peace amongst his people. Being woefully ignorant of Thai politics all I can say is this: if the party on the Kohsaon Road tonight is anything to go by then this man is doing a bloody good job.

After an afternoon revelling in this atmosphere - singing and dancing, carnival parades, the whole city adorned with banners, shrines and fairy lights and every local wearing a pink t-shirt (the King's favourite colour) - our group of six headed to the condo belonging to one of the party so that we could watch the sunset and the firework display from a good view. Good view Grace? No, BEST view. A firework display bigger than the Beijing Olympics and New Years' Eve in Sydney put together, twenty million people, all 22 floors below me rejoicing in the birth of a man they love in the most animated city in the world; I watched on with wonderful friends old and new, drowning my insides in Thai whiskey and probably happily weeping a bit actually. The King's birthday? I felt like it was mine.

I only got on the back of the motorbike because we were desperate to get to the roof garden in time for sunset. One of the group hailed a few Thai men riding motorbikes and asked them if for a small fee we could taxi on the back of them to avoid the congestion, so on I hopped with my new Thai friend and now, life-protector. I would usually avoid this kind of activity not because of fear but because I am well acquainted with my knack for falling off things/tripping up/banging my head - balancing on a motorbike at 90km/h through rush hour traffic seemed like taunting the Grim Reaper. I didn't die though, I lived, and lived better, more tangibly than I have in a long time. I'll be returning to Bangkok at the end of January, and plan to tease the Grim Reaper rotten with my new penchant for feeling the wind through my hair from the back of a motorbike taxi. What a truly incredible day, how undeservedly blessed I feel.