Each city has its own development rhythm. Buildings are constructed then subsequently modified or added on to. Sometimes the buildings are torn down to make way for newer buildings. In some cities (think Florence, Italy) the rhythm is very slow. In other cities (Hong Kong!) one can be surprised by how staccato the rhythm is. Here in Bangkok, it is somewhat in between, though closer to Hong Kong than Florence.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that a pair of shophouses adjacent to the Thong Lo Skytrain station (the one at the mouth of our soi) were being demolished. The process took several days and was done largely by hand – laborers with sledgehammers started at the top of the building and deconstructed it, floor by floor.
Interestingly, they are not removing the entire row of identical shophouses, just these two. The demolition process exposes the intimate way in which the buildings are connected: ghosts of the back stairs can be seen on the wall of the remaining shophouse. People are apparently still living next door to the demolished buildings: laundry is hanging on the roof area and tarps have been raised to keep the dust out.
The demolition also exposed a large open space that I never knew existed behind these buildings. It looks like there may have been a small pool back there. As of yet, there are no signs announcing what is to happen with this space. The house to the left is a large private home on a lot covered with a pond and lots of old trees. Behind the open space is a large but shadowy hotel (the orange building) and to the right is an apartment complex (in green). I would guess that these shop houses probably date to around the 1960s so they are being replaced within three generations.
I look forward to seeing what development happens here. It seems too small for a condo – lord knows we have plenty of those sprouting up all around Thong Lo station! – but stranger things have happened.
Last Sunday I attended a small fundraiser-slash-food market called Big Bite Bangkok. Originally scheduled for World Food Day last October, it was twice postponed due to the flooding. While the scale was small – ten vendors and perhaps 150 attendees – it was a good turnout for the first occurrence of this event and many members of the Bangkok foodie scene from chefs to bloggers were present.
Bit Bite Bangkok was organized by In Search of Sanuk, a small organization that is trying to help those in and around Bangkok who fall through the cracks of other, larger NGO and charity organizations, especially at-risk families.
Set up in the parking lot of the stylish Ma Du Zi boutique hotel on Asoke Road, Big Bite Bangkok included vendors such as Adams Organic. I’ll be visiting their farm in Korat on Monday, so stay tuned for the behind-the-scenes story about how this American couple and their Thai relatives are pushing the gospel of organic produce.
Other vendors included Roast Coffee & Eatery, serving their own roast of coffee, and BKK Bagel Bakery – the only source of authentic New York-style bagels in the Big Mango.
One of the vendors was a Sri Lankan family, selling homemade treats from their kitchen. The balls on the left (the ones the woman is scooping into a banana leaf tray) are a fish and potato croquette. The ones on the right are desserts. Sadly, I did not capture the name.
Birds in a Row, the catering arm of the tiny Seven Spoons restaurant (which I’ve twice visited but have yet to write about) featured some tasty Mediterranean inspired foods such as these lentil-stuffed bell peppers, left, and an eggplant casserole.
I spent most of my morning (and early afternoon) hanging out by Chow’s table, where she was selling homemade Sai Oua, a Northern Thai style pork sausage. Since I had helped stuff all the sausage (my, that sausage stuffer attachment for the KitchenAid mixer has sure paid off!), I felt some responsibility to provide moral support to its seller.
Look at that lovely sausage!
Served almost Vietnamese style in a French roll with homemade roasted tomato ketchup, coriander sauce, pickled carrots and daikon radish, and some fresh coriander. Tasty!
This event was a lot of work to prepare so I’m not sure if it will happen very often, perhaps quarterly. Next time, though, I’ll bake something to sell and do more to contribute to the cause.
On Saturday the Dusit chapter of Soroptimist International, an organization that concerns itself with issues surrounding women’s welfare, held their biannual Bangkok Homes and Gardens Charity Tour. We had the opportunity to visit three beautiful homes all located on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. One was a prince’s home, another was a merchant’s, and the third was a nobleman’s.
I’ve compiled a very nice (if I do say so myself) eight-minute video. Instead of duplicating the information below, I’ll post some pictures with very brief comments.
Wanglee House
This Chinese house was built in 1881 by a rice merchant. The Wanglee clan owns it to this day.
The house is built according to the principles of feng shui, facing the river.
Designed in traditional Chinese courtyard style, the house represents a study of the Chinese culture brought to Siam by Chinese merchants during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Chakrabongse House
Pronounced “cha-kra-bong”, this house was built in 1908 by Prince Chakrabongse, the 40th child of King Rama V. While studying in Czarist Russia, he eloped with a Russian woman, bringing her back to Siam unannounced.
The house is now owned and lived in by the prince’s granddaughter.
There is also a small boutique hotel built on the property closer to the river.
We were provided a guided tour to the inside of the house. No photos were allowed so I have borrowed other photos that appear on the internet.
Praya Palazzo
An Italian-inspired mansion built in 1923 by a colonel in the customs bureau during an era in which Italian artists and architects were all the rage in Siam.
The palazzo is now a very exclusive 17-room boutique hotel, accessible only by boat. Very charming place.
The unseasonable rain finally caught up to us and the hotel staff rounded up umbrellas to shuttle us back to the pier. Made it back to the Shangri-La Hotel reasonably dry and appreciated the opportunity to get a peek at what life was like in Bangkok a century ago.
In early November, a new mall opened in Bangkok. Terminal 21, located adjacent to the Asoke Skytrain station along Sukhumvit Road, is a 9-story mall with 20 stories of serviced apartments and office space above the mall. What sets this mall apart is that it is themed as an airport.
By an “airport theme” I mean that there are many airport motifs throughout the complex. These range from information boards that looks like the digital “arrivals” and “departures” flight information displays you see at an airport, to the escalator signage looking like they indicate the directions to different gates, to each floor being themed after a different international city.
“Departure for Level 3” reads the sign above the long escalator that ascends from the mezzanine floor to a point halfway up the mall. Given its fantastic location, the mall has been crowded since its opening several weeks ago, filled mostly with local sightseers, much like the international airport was when it first opened.
Floors include Tokyo (left), Istanbul, Rome, and Paris (right) with each floor decorated in a manner meant to evoke the feel of the city. Lots of visitors are stopping to take pictures with these decorative items, leading to the likely chance that you will walk through the frame of someone’s picture at some point or another. Even the mall security and cleaning staff are uniformed appropriately for the floor on which they work. Yes, that means that on the Paris floors the staff cleaning the toilets are dressed like French maids.
The San Francisco floor has a miniature Golden Gate bridge spanning an atrium. The only shops on this floor are restaurants, which seems appropriate for a city well-known for its food. I’m not sure that the selection of restaurants would necessarily do the City by the Bay proud, though.
With its location adjacent to both the Skytrain and subway stations, Terminal 21 is positioned at a literal crossroads of Bangkok, accessible to customers from many corners of the city. The mall looks like it has targeted the middle of the market: there are many popular stores but no high-end ones and there are also a large number of smaller boutiques featuring local independent businesses. Compared to other malls in the city, it is not nearly as fancy as Central Childlom or Siam Paragon but is much nicer than Platinum or MBK. I suspect it will be a winning formula.
The thing that I find terribly ironic, though, is that in a city with an airport that has been criticized for being too much of a mall (the picture above is of the actual airport, not Terminal 21), we end up having a new mall that has an airport theme. To compare the two:
Suvarnabhumi Airport
Terminal 21 Mall
High end shopping
Local boutiques
Took 4 years after opening to get rail service, which is expensive and inconvenient
Served by rail service from the first day on both the Skytrain and Subway lines
Easily mispronounced Sanskrit name
Easily pronounced English name
Confusing signage and endless moving sidewalks
Clear signage and quick escalators
Intolerable waits at immigration
Breeze through metal detector at entrance
Insufficient toilets, often dirty
Plentiful toilets cleaned by women in French maid outfits
Quick (and hopefully final) update to the flooding situation here in Bangkok:
While the waters have started to slowly recede, many areas on the northern, western, and eastern edges of the city continue to be under a meter or more of water. This water has been there for, in some cases, nearly a month and has stagnated. Needless to say, residents of these areas are furious and have taken to tearing openings in some of the sandbag barriers to enable some of the water to more rapidly drain away.
In the past few weeks, what had just been piles of sandbags in the Sukhumvit area (where I live) has turned into more extreme defenses against the likelihood of flooding, a vote of no-confidence in a government that has continued to be incapable of communicating useful information in a timely manner. Thankfully, by this point it seems unlikely that we will see any water but nobody is removing the defenses yet.
Outside an office building in the Ploenchit area, two rows of sandbags with a wall of boards sealed at its base with silicone or tar to hold back water. Of course, vehicles are unable to enter or exit this building so, like many buildings around the city, business is being impacted.
Along the road leading up to the international airport, mega-sandbags were laid out and pumps installed in case the road itself needed to be turned into a canal to channel the water out of the city. The airport’s retaining wall was increased to 2.5 meters (almost 9 feet) and, despite having been built in the midst of a natural flood plain, the airport has thus far remained dry.
Photo courtesy Bangkok Post
Not so the old airport, Don Meuang, which before the flood was being used as an air force base and for limited domestic service. It is still closed with more than a meter of water covering the entire airfield. It will cost millions of dollars and take at least two months to bring this airport back into service.
As of last week, walls and other barriers were still being constructed. Here, a view from the inside of the Villa Supermarket near Sukhumvit Soi 33, looking outside to the street. A wall of concrete blocks and sandbags was built, necessitating a climb over the wall with your groceries.
The subway stations, exits at a few of which were closed because of the flooding, had flood barriers installed. These were new additions but were added very quickly that I imagine they must have been prepared in advance and stored for such an event. I’m unclear why there’s a gap at the corner but I guess they would close it with sandbags?
Finally, while at Bangkok Hospital this past week, off Phetchaburi Road, I noticed the wide range of flood protection they had put into place, including concrete walls around the base of escalators so water wouldn’t damage the machinery. Kind of awkward to climb the wobbly wooden steps to get over the wall. Perhaps it is part of their plan to treat more slip-and-fall patients!
Here is a short video showing some of the other flood preparations at Bangkok Hospital.
As mentioned above, I’m hoping this is the last entry I write on this subject. The amount of damage and suffering in Thailand has been immense – 594 deaths as of this morning – and yet I’m not sure that there’s anything more I can add to the subject after this point. I’ll return to other subjects from this point onwards including an update on my attempts at container gardening.
The first IKEA store in Thailand, and the largest in Asia, opened this past week in Bang Na – the eastern suburbs of the city. I went with some friends to check it out. Here’s the video:
Bangkok’s Chatuchak Weekend Market is popular among locals and visitors alike for its almost endless maze of vendors selling everything from fashion to frogs, souvenir trinkets to silverware for your dinner table. Shopping isn’t the only reason to visit the market, though. Hidden amongst all these vendors are several restaurants that are worth a trip, even if you have no plans to shop. A few weekends ago, we ate at Prik Yuak, a popular place whose good food and convenient location makes it worth a visit.
Prik Yuak is a Southern Thai style khao gaeng place. Khao gaeng refers to the prepared curries (and other dishes) that are served with rice. I shared a bit about this type of food in the third volume of my “Great Eats in Bangkok” series.
Ordering at Prik Yuak is both easy and hard: easy because all you need to do is point and they will plate the dishes up for you. Hard because you have to figure out what each thing is. My advice: so long as you have no allergies, religious dietary restrictions, or adverse reactions to chilies, go ahead and point away!
Portions are small – think “Thai tapas” – and this allows you to try many different tasty dishes even if you come to the restaurant by yourself or just one other person.
The restaurant itself is modest, located next to the edge of the market, immediately adjacent to exit 3 of the Kamphaeng Phet MRT station. In fact, make a u-turn to the right as you exit from the station and then continue back as far as you can go (40 meters or so) and you’ll have reached the restaurant. Grab a table after ordering and they will bring the food to you.
Plaa kem tod – The name of the dish refers to the salty fried fish that is the main flavoring ingredient. In this case, it is being served along with broccoli, although it is also served with other greens. Salted fish is a popular ingredient in Thai food, especially in the south, where it is an easy method of preservation for a region that is close to the sea. For foreigners, the taste can take some getting used to because it is very salty. The saltiness is balanced by the clean, unseasoned flavors of the vegetables, though.
Kai palow – This dish of stewed eggs and pork belly is often prepared with a Chinese five spice sauce. In this case, Prik Yuak uses a palm sugar caramel and soy sauce. This dish is ordered to accompany spicier dishes, as the sweet richness of the dish helps to counter the spice.
Kuag gling moo – Shredded pork fried with spices, most notably turmeric, with a garnish of thinly sliced kaffir lime leaf. This dish, which is spicy hot, has very assertive flavoring, making your taste buds come alive. The texture is also very fun to eat, small shreds of slightly crispy fried pork and fried shallots.
Gaeng tae po – This vegetable dish features something known locally as “morning glory” – not related to the flowers – a tubular green that grows near the water. It is served in a curry and is quite spicy but in a way that is very pleasant.
Panang moo – Panang style pork curry, which is milder than many other Thai curries. It has a heavy dose of coconut milk which provides some richness on the tongue, countering other spicier dishes. What makes Prik Yuak’s version of this dish unique is that they braise the pork first before cooking it in the curry. The result is a bowl full of very tender pork.
Pad prik king gai – Shredded fried chicken, cooked southern style with a dry curry (i.e. no coconut milk). At first glance, this appears similar to the kuag gling dish, above. But the flavor profile is very different. Instead of having turmeric and lots of spices, this curry is made mostly of chilies, ginger, galangal root, coriander root, and lemongrass. It is much more herbal and has a kick to it.
Kai tom yang matoom – A common condiment for the khao gaeng shops is boiled egg. Here we have boiled duck eggs done to a soft, creamy yolk. Again, the richness of the egg helps counteract the spiciness of several of the dishes. It is also an easy source of protein.
To provide some more veggies, a little crunch, and some cooling relief to your mouth, a platter of crudité is served. From left: kamin khao (white turmeric), long beans, and cucumbers.
And to drink? How about a coconut bowl of the favorite local cola: Pepsi. While I normally don’t drink sodas, it is a very refreshing accompaniment to a meal like this.
Conclusion: The food at Prik Yuak is first rate in terms of quality, price, and flavor. Best of all, the small servings allow you to try so many different things. I hope that as you read the descriptions, you noticed how varied the dishes are and how they complement each other. Something spicy, something sweet, something salty, something rich, something astringent – this is the quality of a balanced Thai meal, a feature that is lacking in a lot of western cooking, particularly in fast food America. When I go for too long without Thai food, I find that my palate is bored from the lack of different flavors in a single meal!
Sunday morning, the city quiet as many residents have fled the flooding, I rode my bicycle for a first-hand look at the situation in the old city and along the river. What I found was not as bad as flooding further north, but it left me with the realization that our relative dryness is a tentative state, one that could easily change.
My ride took me west into the old city, around the Grand Palace, and then north along Sam Sen Road to the Rama VII Bridge. Most of the way, I was on the road closest to the river, giving me a chance to evaluate the neighborhoods. Like a checkerboard, some neighborhoods had water while adjacent neighborhoods were still dry. The dry neighborhoods were taking no chances, though, with walls of sandbags or brick and cement erected in front of shops, buildings, and homes.
Location 1: The Emporium
These photos were actually taken Friday night, when Tawn and I drove to the Emporium shopping center at Sukhumvit Soi 24 to watch a film. Both parking structures were packed, not with shoppers’ cars but with cars that had been parked there for safekeeping. Cars were double parked, left in neutral gear so they could be pushed out of the way. To park in the only available space, we had to push six other cars out of the way. I can tell you from this experience that classic Mercedes are very heavy and do not roll easily.
We noticed that someone had parked a pale yellow Rolls Royce Phantom with an auspicious license plate with the numbers 9999 on it. (The current king is Rama IX, so nine is considered a lucky number.) Inquiring with the guard, I understand that the car’s owner is someone very high up in one of the government’s ministries. The guard also shared that this person has parked 26 cars in the lot. Perhaps the government’s scheme to encourage car ownership is working too well?
All of these cars had a notice placed on them (after they were not moved at the end of the night) asking the owners to contact the management office before leaving the car park. Presumably, there will be some sort of a fine for unauthorized long-term parking. I would guess some people probably won’t have to pay that fine.
Location 2: Phra Nakhon District
The ride to Phra Nakon, the oldest district of Bangkok, was smooth as so few cars were on the road. Along the way, streets were dry and canals were at close to their normal level. When I came up to Khlong (canal) Khu Meuang Derm near the back side of the Ministry of Defence, I encountered the first flooding. While not deep – about 10 cm (4 inches), it covered most of the blocks adjacent to the canal.
I rode around the north side of the Grand Palace where the street had moderate flooding (the far two lanes in this picture) in some areas. The entire road around Sanam Luang, the large field to the north of the Grand Palace, was flooded a bit more, with the entire road under about 15 cm (6 inches) of water.
The Grand Palace was open for business (tourists note: the Grand Palace is open every day, no matter what any scam artists may try to tell you) but there were few visitors. The entry gate, pictured here, was under about 30 cm (1 foot) of water, requiring visitors to balance on sand bags as they made their way inside.
Around the corner from the Grand Palace, closer to the river, is Maharat Road leading to Thammasat University. Flooding was more severe in this neighborhood and a barrier had been built in the street to contain the water. Vendors were still working on the sidewalks and residents (and monks from the adjacent Wat Mahathat) were coming and going as best they could. One vendor explained that the area had been flooded for the past four days. When asked whether the water was still rising or was falling, he replied that it depended on the tides.
One block away from the river, Na Phrathat Road runs along the west edge of Sanam Luang, passing the National Theatre and National Museum. It was closed to through traffic and has about 15 cm (6 inches) of standing water.
Location 3: Sam Sen Road, Dusit District
Heading north from Phra Nakhon, I rode along Sam Sen Road through the Dusit District. There, I found the same checkerboard pattern of flooding. Some stretches I rode through the water that reached the bottom of my pedals, about 15 cm (6 inches) high, although waves caused by passing vehicles left me with wet shoes. There were points where the roads were impassable, so I cut east one block, rode a few blocks north, and then returned to Sam Sen Road to find it dry again.
The dry areas looked like they might not be dry much longer. Here, I passed through an otherwise dry neighborhood and found water bubbling up through the manhole cover. Passing motorbike riders gazed warily at the water, which ran across the road and into the storm drains.
Location 4: Bang Sue District
Underneath two railway bridges just south of the Rama VII automobile bridge in the Bang Sue district, the river threatens to spill over its banks and an extra layer of sandbags marks a last line of defence. The bridge belongs to the State Railways of Thailand. Just to the right of the frame is a second bridge (to the right of the crane) for the under-construction pink rail transit line.
To the left of the previous picture (of the bridge), the road comes immediately adjacent to the brimming river, right at the entrance to Khlong (canal) Sung. The water gate for the canal is shut in order to protect the district from flooding. Soldiers from the army were on hand monitoring the situation and adding sandbags as necessary.
Just a short distance north, I rode across the Rama VIII Bridge and stopped to take pictures. There were several people fishing from the bridge, but I noticed this man who was fishing from the waterfront park underneath the bridge. Because of the flooding, it is hard to tell where the river ends and the park begins.
In the same waterfront park, a boy ran through the water as buses passed on a moderately flooded frontage road. After having pedaled about 30 km, I headed inland past the closed and sandbagged Chatuchak Weekend Market (which I’ve never seen closed on a weekend!), taking the Skytrain home from the Mo Chit station.
Conclusions:
While I didn’t travel further north into the more severely affected areas of the city, what I saw was enough to make me realize that even though we’ve passed this week without flooding in many of the central parts of the city, those areas that are still dry, remain so only because of luck and limited rainfall. Water is bubbling up through the drains and seeping through the sandbags and dikes; it seems inevitable that some of those defenses will fail before the excess water is moved safely to the Gulf of Thailand.
I suspect that the risk to the area I live in is relatively minimal, but I think we have another week or two before the city as a whole is out of the gravest danger.
How good would a bowl of bamee, the ubiquitous and simple Chinese-style egg noodles, have to be in order to justify a wait of ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes? For many residents of Bangkok, they would have to be as good as Uncle’s.
While practically everybody knows about this noodle shop, I only learned about it by reading Chawadee Nualkhair’s “Bangkok’s Top 50 Street Food Stalls,” a handy and well-written English language guide for anyone who is serious about eating good Thai street food.
You can find Uncle’s noodles (the stand also goes by the name “slow noodles” because of the wait) at the corner of Ekamai and Ekamai Soi 19. His cart is built on the back of a small pickup truck, a nifty arrangement that reminds me of the food trucks of Los Angeles, except with no Korean tacos. You have to place your order by writing on a pad – in Thai, of course. Best to have a friend come with you, write out your order in advance, or as Khun Chawadee suggests, if you are brave you can just copy the previous customer’s order!
The menu is quite simple: bamee (egg noodles) served either in soup or dry, with barbecue pork (“red pork”) and pork wontons. The ingredients are on display: your guarantee of freshness. Say, what are those black things in the display case? Nothing like a few phallic good luck charms to ensure good business. It seems that they’ve worked!
All of the seating is on the sidewalk, either on the Ekamai side or heading down the side soi. Orders to go are welcome, too. I’ll say that the location is a bit of a curse from an enjoyment perspective. There are a lot of big trucks traveling on Ekamai at night and the smoke and fumes take away from the experience. The stand doesn’t open up until after 8:00 each night, so at least the gridlock of cars isn’t there anymore. That might be worse.
Every noodle shop in Thailand – and I do mean every – offers customers condiments to dress their own noodles. Dried chili flakes, sugar, vinegar with chilies, and fish sauce (sometimes with chopped chilies). This allows each customer to perfect the seasoning.
Here’s my bowl of bamee with barbecued pork, chopped pork, fried pork fat, and a special ingredient: soft boiled egg. Pork-a-palooza! If you order the red pork at a rice and red pork stand, boiled egg is a standard condiment. However, at a noodle stand, the soft boiled egg is an unusual addition.
The question is, what makes this particular bamee so special? As I mentioned, people will wait up to thirty minutes to eat it and, honestly, at a certain level I think that bamee is bamee is bamee. But, there are a few things that separate good from mediocre bamee: Noodles are fresh, tender, and flavorful. Broth has a rich flavor. Ingredients are of high quality and are fresh. Uncle’s noodles has all of these qualities. The addition of crispy fried pork fat adds a little extra texture that is very flavorful, and the boiled egg is a nice addition, too.
We also ordered a bowl of wonton soup, which featured beautiful fresh wontons with a tasty interior along with some more of the red pork and chopped pork. Something that set the wontons apart is that the wrappers were especially delicate and thin, not chewy at all.
All in all, Uncle’s noodles are well worth searching out, although the location makes for a less than ideal dining experience.
After two trips to the old city on Saturday to visit a lock store (which gave me the opportunity to see horses on the expressway while driving there), I needed to make a third and final visit on Monday, since the store was closed by the time I arrived on my second trip Saturday. This time, facing the prospect of weekday traffic, I decided to ride the Khlong (canal) Saen Saeb express boat into the old city.
I’ve written before about the Saen Saeb express boat in an entry about a journey on seven modes of transport in Bangkok. It is an 18-kilometer water route that cuts east-west through the middle of the greater Bangkok area, running from the northeastern outskirts of Bangkapi all the way to the edge of Rattanakosin Island, stopping adjacent to the Golden Mount. While the water is filthy and the boats are very crowded during rush hour, the express boats are not only an interesting way to get around, they are also a bargain with fares topping out at 20 baht, or about 65 American cents.
While the inbound ride was packed – some 50 people sitting and another 30 or so standing – the return trip from the heart of the city at 9:00 am was almost completely empty, just me an a handful of passengers. This gave me a chance to appreciate the breeze, which makes the canal express boats one of the coolest ways to travel. However, with the murky water sometimes splashing over the plastic barriers, your risk of Hepatitis A infection is also higher on the boats than on any other form of transit.
While enjoying the less crowded ride back home, I noticed the safety equipment that is lashed to the inside of the boat: flotation devices with a rather sinister man demonstrating their proper use. His reminds me a bit of Sean Connery as James Bond. What disturbs me, though, is not that James Bond is demonstrating the floatation devices. What disturbs me is that the man appears to be standing in water that is only hip-deep. If you’ve seen the water in Khlong Saen Saeb, you wouldn’t blame him!
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