Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year Celebrations in a major Asia-Pacific City

We started off surrounded by exuberant displays of dragon dancing,  Chinese lanterns, and Oriental culture in general. Then we left Auckland and flew to Bangkok. We finished that first day Frank told you about at around 6 PM, we were both exhausted and still on NZ time.

30th January

On our first and so far only full day in Thailand, we woke up at 4 AM, (like 11AM body-clock time)  and I figured we might as well take advantage of it and go see the city wake up. We wandered the streets more-or-less aimlessly, strolling along silent canals and skulking down dark alleyways, being startled by the occasional scooter roaring past or small mammal scuttling by.

Eventually we started seeing people pushing carts of vegetables and the like towards their street food stalls, and we went the opposite direction to them until we found ourselves in the hustle and bustle of a pre-dawn market. We saw great piles of fresh fruit and vegetables, wriggling live fish that didn't seem to need water, and a morally conflicted butcher,

A butcher in the wrong line of work or a passive-aggressive neighbour?

We carried on past the royal palace, and around the edge of the Dusit Zoo. Seeing an employee wander in an unlocked door by the front gate (still hours before opening time), I figured it was better to get forgiveness than permission, and decided to treat myself to a zoo tour while my wiser half elected to remain outside.

Turns out the people who say the animals are way more active and interesting first thing in the morning aren't kidding! I conversed with the monkeys, saw crazy African birds fighting, crocodiles swimming about, some pretty comical attempts at making baby giraffes, and more—all while trying simultaneously to avoid the cleaners and zookeepers getting ready for the morning and to look like I was totally meant to be there and you should just keep doing your job and ignore the white guy if I was spotted.

Tastefully censored giraffes looking irate at being photographed just after some sweet giraffe love

We carried on past the palace district, saw a military parade and were stopped along with vehicular traffic for a while for the new king. We finally caught a canal boat back to our accommodation some three hours after we left. No sedate Venetian pole-boats here though, these are commuter services that people use to avoid the traffic, and they aim for speed: throwing huge bow waves across the canals and bucking like scared horses when crossing the wake of a boat going the other way. The view of riverside life is sadly somewhat impaired by the plastic sheeting the passengers can raise along the sides to avoid catching an alphabets worth of Hepatitis from the dubious canal water and aggressive driving.

Rested and revived, we set off for the travel clinic at a local hospital for our JE vaccines that our NZ doctors had told us we were better off getting in Thailand. Very professional service for vaccines and picking up some just-in-case medicines, and a fraction of the cost of NZ, I'd recommend it. We also ended up enrolled in a study on traveller's diarrhoea, fingers crossed we don't end up providing any useful data.

On the way back, we took a shortcut through Siam Paragon, an upscale shopping centre.

Ho. Lee. Shit.

I'm pretty sure this was one of the flashest places I've ever been in any case, and when you arrive just after spending hours spotting rats and dodging rubbish piles, cracked pavement, tuk tuks, and diesel buses in tropical heat and humidity, and are suddenly confronted with ridiculous extremes of luxury design, soft classical Thai music, and of course good air con, then the effect is like walking into a palace. One floor looked like an Economist ad, with flagship stores for all the watch brands I only ever see next to job ads for senior UN positions.

This water feature stretched for maybe a hundred metres, and looked much better in real life.

Of course, the King was here too, (perhaps he's following us?)  although hard to get through security to photograph.

Despite this rebel's best efforts.

By this stage, we had walked about 25 kilometres that day (me wearing jandals) and were pretty much spent. We barely managed to rouse ourselves to go and get dinner from next door, and had another early night.

31 Jan

Our brief stopover in Bangkok completed, we set off for Myanmar. On our way to the airport bus, all pedestrian traffic on the sky-bridge around the Victory Monument Roundabout, was halted and we were corralled into a few large groups, as the rush-hour traffic below us was also brought to a halt. Was this some sort of morning patriotic display? A flag raising or national anthem? After several minutes of fevered anticipation, eventually the same enormous motorcade of champagne-coloured Mercedes bustled it's way through and the hoi-polloi were permitted to continue with their lives. I sure do appreciate the privilege of  being repeatedly routed around His Majesty, who it is super-illegal to criticise in any way, and am really envious of the Thais who get to put up with this all the time.

Yangon (nee Rangoon) reminds me of a cross between Delhi and Penang. Crumbling colonial-era architecture abounds (alongside newer and bigger buildings),  but it's also a bustling hive of humanity. We've swiftly adapted to the traffic, crossing the road wherever there's a gap or a slow patch of traffic, and just have to remember to keep an eye out for vehicles while also being assaulted by a barrage of food smells, less savoury smells, hordes of fellow pedestrians carrying all manner of wares, and tiny stores and workshops making and selling anything you can think of.