Quintessential Bangkok Sunday

Crazy Busy at Silom Festival
Originally uploaded by MadeByMark

(In a hurry? Not into details? Have a look at a few pics from the day.)

Today — Sunday, here — we get up early, have breakfast in the Club Lounge, and scoot over to the 7-11 to pick up a bottle of sunblock (the only item we forgot during Friday morning's packing craze).

That done, we wait in the lobby for Clyde's Dad, Joe, to appear. He strolls in right on time, and we spend the next hour or so up in our room, catching up and drinking icy cold Cokes from the complimentary mini bar.

At 11:30, Bobby — the young man we've worked with on seven of our eight trips to Bangkok — shows up to facilitate our progress through the city. The first stop is Gems Gallery, where we make a little purchase that's been sixteen years or so in the making: two wedding rings. No big, bright stones or odd designs. Our rings are like us: straightforward, solid, classic.

The rings must be custom-made, so after filling out the appropriate forms, Bobby magically produces an air-conditioned van and whisks us to our second stop: a new tailor he wants us to try.

Shopping for tailor-made clothes in Bangkok is an experience. You enter to much bowing and many smiles. You sit down and drink Cokes. You browse little books that show the styles of suit the shop can copy. (If you can describe it, they can make it.)

Upstairs, we pick our fabrics — I choose a dark blue wool with a faint pinstripe and a darker blue with no pinstripe at all. We dicker about price. The prices start very, very high — high enough to make me reconsider the whole tailored suit adventure. But Bobby speaks to the owners in his rapid, fluid Thai … and, like magic, prices plummet by a third.

Measurements, measurements, measurements … and then we're off to lunch at the Rain Tree restaurant, a high-end buffet that serves everything (and I mean everything) you can think of, in huge portions, and at very high quality. I start with the shrimp (cocktail and tempura), then have a grilled lobster, then switch to sushi, then decide to break my vegetarian streak by trying one of the quarter-sized Kobe beef hamburgers, then repent by switching to the tofu-stuffed ravioli, then sample the seafood salad. We have a champagne toast, then polish off dessert: white chocolate Swiss gelato, cake dipped in melted hot chocolate, hand-thrown truffles, and a chocolate flourless torte.

Bobby pops us in one of the speedy local taxis and whisks us away to the Silom Festival, a once-a-month street market of the variety that only Bangkok can produce. Imagine any street market you've ever attended in Atlanta: streetside artists, food stalls, crafts people. Now add live bands. Playing disco-infused Thai classical music. On antique instruments. On stilts.

There are hawkers with bullhorns, a thousand food stalls, a dancing chicken in front of the KFC, a cart full of Dunkin Donuts, a dog in custom walking shoes that render him incapable of walking, random performers handing out balloons and face cream and cough drops and Internet price plans.

The noise and crowd make us crazy, so Bobby summons another cab and whisks us off to Health Massage, which starts out equally crazy-busy (the lobby is packed), but calms down once we get back into the spa itself. The place is spotless, with marble floors, teakwood walls, classical Thai naga (serpent or dragon statues), and candlelight. Drowsy music oozes from concealed speakers.

Clyde and I wind up in a couple's massage room, where we shower, lie down on the cushioned tables, and spend the next two hours being rubbed down by dark-skinned young Thai masseurs in starched white shirts and black uniform pants. (A two-hour spa treatment here, by the way, goes for 800 baht per person. Thats twenty bucks. Yes, I'm serious.)

And then: home to the hotel, where we down some complimentary beer and order up room service spring rolls and garlic spaghetti.

And that's how you spend a Sunday in Bangkok — a jewelry buying, suit making, buffet eating, street shopping, massage getting Sunday … the sort of Sunday that makes a 24-hour plane trip well worthwhile.

As Bobby says, "This is Sunday. It's like a holiday. So let's just take it easy. We won't do much at all."