The City of Angels: Bangkok

One look at the steamy, pulsating, yet smiling metropolis, Bangkok and one would know that it’s a place for people who want an escape out from their usual hubbub. Streets lined with bars/pubs and massage parlors, of various shapes and sizes, show how easy it is to find sex there. As darkness falls the city begins to dazzle with neon-lit signs welcoming visitors to go-go bars, clubs, restaurants and theaters to experience and explore. Places like Sukhumvit, Khao San Road and Patpong welcome people to the hedonistic pursuits like drinking, dancing and complete debauchery.

Nana Plaza, a favourite with tourists and short-term visitors comprises of three floors of nightlife activity around a central atrium. The place also has something to offer for people with varied taste with a well-known Katoey or a transgender bar on the second floor. The CM2 club at the Hotel Novotel and the in-house club at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok are two popular destinations for people willing to shake a leg or two.

Apart from the usual revelling and binging, Bangkok also is a shopper’s paradise. The place is full of stand-alone shops and shopping complexes offering fabulous deals on all kinds of goods. The choices are numerous ranging from upscale Siam Paragon, offering high premium designer luxury goods to the legendary Mah Boon Krong (MBK), with 2000 shops selling virtually everything from apparel to accessories to electronics under the same roof. The place also boasts of the largest shopping mall in South-East Asia in terms of CentralWorld Shopping Complex offering reasonable deals on various branded as well as non-branded goods. Another option for ready-to-wear clothing is the Pratunam Market transforming into a night market after the closure and by 8 O’clock in the evening, with various small makeshift shops opening on both sides of the road. One can also go to Patpong for various knick-knacks, open till wee hours in the night.

The city of Angels- or Krung Thep as it’s called in Thai- also has some of the treasures for sightseeing, which are a visual delight. The Wat Pho or The Temple of the Reclining Buddha is the largest temple in Bangkok. It is famous for its 46 meters long reclining Buddha statue covered in gold leaf.

But the most majestic, aesthetic and a complete must see amongst everything is the Grand Palace. Undoubtedly the city’s most famous landmark, the Grand Palace is a visual delight which leaves its visitors in a complete awe, with its beautiful architecture and fantastic craftsmanship. Inside the palace complex is the famous What Phra Kaew or The Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The temple is situated in the outer court of the complex, near the entrance, which used to house the government departments. The central court was used to serve as the residence of the king with halls to conduct business whilst the inner court- not open to public- is where the Kings royal consorts and daughters lived. Though the Thai Kings stopped living in the palace around the twentieth century but it is still used for all kinds of official ceremonies and auspicious occasions.

Bangkok as a tourist destination is a place that has something to offer to every traveler. My four-day trip to the place was enthralling enough to leave me craving for more.

The irony called Life

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

- Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam
Ernest Christopher Dowson

Perhaps a good question would be how fair life is.

The answer, in retrospect, with all certainty is very unfair. As beyond the beautiful vignette is a story, comprising of unfulfilled desires, disappointments and desperation. Our life which comprises of the past, present and future elements is mostly like a river that ends into an ocean of unrealized dreams. The past is a vestige of unfulfilled desires, the present marked by expectations and the future tinged with hope. Now fortunately or unfortunately most things that we desire don’t work out.

An optimist would like to say that it is our shortsightedness due to which we take all things that we think, to be best for us. It’s perhaps in our own best interest that most things don’t work out.

Honestly there is no denying this whole theory. But as humans we also tend to get disappointed, just as much as we tend to anticipate. Why is it then that we anticipate when we aren’t harbingers of good fortune? Shouldn’t we just take things, then in that case, the way they come to us rather than expecting and getting our hopes pinned to something, which has a likelihood of happening or not happening. Why think all together and why dream?

I guess it’s all interlinked. If we don’t dream, then we won’t aspire and if we don’t aspire, we won’t work towards it and if we won’t work to achieve our dreams perhaps we shall receive even less. So I reckon, we always will aspire and end up getting disappointed for the things that we don’t get. But who said life’s fair. C'est La Vie, such is life.

In the end I would like to finish off by quoting Helen Keller. “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Therefore some people still dare to aspire while others don’t…. to avoid disappointment.

Requiem for a Dream

I sit and think at the end of the day. In retrospect I realize that there is so much that I never said to you. So much more that I felt, which you perhaps never heard.

I never told you how it hurts to see sadness on your face. Smile is what I always wanted for you. I know I hurt you. But I never told you how much I bled for all your hurt. I never spoke about the innumerable sleepless nights I spent, thinking about the pain and the hurt I caused. I never told you about the weakness I felt in my knees, at your sight. The satisfaction and the restitution your presence brought. Never did I speak of the happiness that your smile brought to me. I never said how gratifying it was to see you sleeping, next to me. I never told you how heart wrenching it is to hear distress in your voice.

I never told you how I still remember the smell of your tresses. I know I never told you how much I loved you.