Chao Phraya River Adventures (and more shopping?)

Hiya Internet! As I mentioned in my last post, I had wanted to do a khlong tour in Bangkok on my last day, but alas that was not to be, instead I decided to return to the Chao Phraya River. But this time I intended to explore the river and scenery and not use it as the quickest, cheapest, most convenient and least traffic filled way to get to the Grand Palace. Let’s talk about how that plan went…

In addition to my planned outing on the river, I still had my final souvenir items to track down before heading to the airport. Again, as I talked about in my last post, I had raced around Terminal 21 the night before looking for those souvenirs but found nothing as the shops closed around me. The only place I had not looked at thoroughly was the lower ground level with the food. So, that last morning saw me head back into Terminal 21 to actually investigate the lower ground level. Full disclosure, I had visited Terminal 21 both the first and now the second times in Bangkok but with all the levels and lack of lift to lower ground, I had not explored this level before. I still had a glimmer of hope that I would find my souvenirs there, but other than some interesting food stalls and a swish supermarket, not much to see. Until of course I happened to see a Miniso (which we do have in South Africa), but not a regular Miniso, a Marvel Miniso! To give context to the excitement, I am a huge Marvel fan, specifically the MCU (not a huge comic book person) and the idea of the typical Miniso cuteness combined with Marvel was very enticing. I went in and was not disappointed, the place was 85 or 90% Marvel merchandise with a sprinkling of the regular Miniso products, and most of the Marvel items were more cartoon-y cute than gritty comic book, it was like it was made for me! I eyed up many items and promised to come back to an overly eager sales person, funnily enough this was not a brush off, I had every intention of returning and buying everything. But my latest retail obsession would have to wait as I had an appointment with a river.  

The train trips to the River were the same as the last time and at this point, I had been in Bangkok enough that navigating the BTS system when I had my stops written down was pretty simple. Getting to Sathorn Pier was easy, however this time choosing which boat to take on the Chao Phraya River was more of a decision. There was obviously the choice of the Chao Phraya Express Boat which was what I used last time, this is cheap and very quick, but my main focus was seeing the river itself rather than getting to the Grand Palace. The Express Boat is public transport and you get a mix of locals and tourists using it, although when you go more in the middle of the day, the tourist versus local balance is more weighted in the tourist direction. This time I decided to speak to the exclusive tourist boats as their services probably made more sense this time. Now the Express cost me 15 Baht the first time but that day they were quoting all of us tourists 20 Baht, who knows why, but 5 Baht is not a big deal. I checked with the tourist boats, a full day pass with unlimited trips for 24 hours cost a whopping 200 Baht and a single trip cost 60 Baht. This was a huge price discrepancy. Now if I had intended to be on the water the whole day or get on and off at multiple stops, the day pass on the tourist boat made sense, but in my own head I had decided I was going to do a maximum of one stop with a turnaround at one point – which works out as 3 single tickets. Also, I had no intention of doing this all on the tourist boats. Thus, I happily paid 20 Baht and queued with the other tourists for the Express Boat.

Unlike the other tourists, I did not get off the boat at Chinatown, the flower market, Wat Arun or the Grand Palace. Plus, with each of these stops I lost more and more of the other passengers and was able to take better and better photos of the river and soak up more of the atmosphere. But it was after I did not get off at the Grand Palace that the conductor came to speak to me to ask where I wanted to go, I explained to her as best as I could that I wanted to see the river and once we reached the end of the line and were about to turn around, happily paid her for another ticket.

It was at this point that I had to make a decision on whether or not get off the boat at a particular stop and where would be best to possibly find souvenirs. I was thinking about this and deciding when I would need to move from the middle of the boat to the back, which is where you get on and off of the express. Just as we were already stopping at the Grand Palace, I started to move to the back. This was where things began to go pear shaped.

I was wending my way to the back and dozens and dozens of tourists were pouring in from the dock. The conductor was not pleased with the situation and was trying to instruct the massive crowd to let me through and told them to move forward on the boat. Meanwhile I was struggling against the sea of humanity coming at me and making slow progress to the back. I finally got towards the back and right up to the dock while it seemed like all those who were getting on had hopped aboard. I was busy stepping over, the conductor and another on the boat reaching to help me across and people on the dock were also reaching for me, which I thought was unnecessary. It was while I had my right leg already on the dock and my left leg still on the boat and was about to step across, when the conductor starts yelling at the driver at the front of the boat, angry and panicky, and I feel my legs being pulled away from me. In a split second I see the boat moving away from the dock under me and my feet on opposite sides still. The conductor and the other person on the boat have hold of my left arm and I feel another two people holding onto my right arm, while I still remain perfectly poised on these two opposite points which are inextricably moving away from each other. I know that I cannot get myself onto the dock on my own, as my weight is evenly spread and the space between my legs is growing and there is the very real possibility that I will fall from the boat and the dock into the river. At the same time, I have a sense of calm, sure my bags with my computer, my phone, my money and my passport will end up in the river, but I should be fine. Also, inexplicably, I feel sure the four people holding onto my arms will get me onto the dock somehow. The boat is moving, the conductor is screaming at the driver that he is about to dunk a tourist into the river, she and the other person on the boat push as those on the dock pull, and suddenly I am stumbling onto the dock, not falling into the river. The boat races away with the conductor still shouting at the driver and I am on the swaying dock with even shakier limbs, thanking those who pulled me to safety. I slowly climb up the steep, rocking, metal gangplank and make it to the solid wooden wharf above. Following the calm and clarity during the split second it actually happened, I was then flooded with adrenaline on the dock and had to quieten my beating heart and the panic that briefly set in. I may have been vacillating and trying to decide about which boat to take on the return to Bangkok, but after this little adventure, the more expensive tourist boat was definitely the choice for me. I think I am a bit too slow for the likes of Thai river public transport, or let’s put it this way, I was not going to gamble on another trip actually ending with me in in the drink this time.

With wobbly legs, I scour the little market around the pier, searching for those last souvenirs. Alas both inside and out, there seemed to not be anything I was looking to buy. It may have just been my perception that day, already soured by the near dunking, but it felt as if there was a smaller selection on that day than when I had been to the Grand Palace almost four weeks prior, the first time. There were lots of fruit, drinks and other food, sun hats, fans (both decorated craft fans and dinky battery powered plastic things) and other assorted items but not what I stopped there to find. Although at that stage I was very used to the heat of Thailand, it certainly felt quite a bit hotter here than in the rest of Bangkok. This was a perception I had also had when I visited on my first full day in Thailand. Then I had put it down to jetlag, having just left a Cape Town winter, just the wait to acclimatise to the local conditions and the stupidity of going during the heat of the day. I will say it felt like a form of temperature torture that Friday on my first full day in Bangkok. Now weeks later, although not nearly as extreme or unpleasant, it still felt hotter and I was less than amused by this added heat while trudging the streets looking for my souvenirs and dodging the vendors accosting me trying to sell me anything but what I wanted. After about fifteen to twenty minutes searching, it became clear that I was not going to find what I was looking for there and would have to look elsewhere or give up. It seemed like my narrow escape from a closer relationship with the Chao Phraya River was for naught.

I went back to the pier and was instantly accosted by the tourist boat punts looking to sell me tickets. Obviously, I was going to choose one of these, even before the little almost-adventure on the Chao Phraya Express boat, I wanted to go with one of the double-decker boats. These are the boating equivalent to the red sightseeing double-decker tourist buses on many roads around the world (Cape Town has loads of them on different tourist routes). There were a few companies operating those boats that day but I didn’t want to mistakenly buy a more expensive tourist ticket and not get on the boat I wanted. The first tiny, eager, young woman who swooped in on me immediately assured me her boat company had the open-air, upper viewing deck that I was looking for, so I handed over my 60 Baht to return to the BTS station, took my receipt and leaflet for the company (which looked promising) and went off to wait. She happily told me the boat would come in a few minutes, but looking at the time and the tourist boats’ half hour schedule, it seemed like I would be there twenty-five minutes. The ticket vendor looked like she was barely in her teens and was so tiny, she was child-sized, especially next to me and comically kept trying to get me to sit down on the concrete benches to wait which I was not going to do as they looked grubby. Meanwhile, the express and several other fast boats came and went several times before my boat came. In the interim a Spanish family arrived and asked the tiny vendor for a new map, a request which she did not understand, I showed her my brochure and tried to articulate what they wanted to her. Both sides were appreciative to the native English-speaking South African intervening and translating between the Thai and the Spanish on either side. I received a grateful “Gracias” from the family. That is the sort of thing you are part of when you travel. And a few minutes later the nice, swishy, boat arrived and we boarded while a number of crew members directed everyone aboard and made sure we were all settled before the boat departed again. Clearly, I was not on the Express this time.

Sitting on the upper deck of the vessel with not too many other tourists, I had an incredible view of the Chao Phraya River, and with the much more sedate pace of the double-decker boat compared to the express, I saw so much more of the river than I had at any previous point. It was well worth the extra money for the sightseeing and photo opportunities. I was like every tourist cliché on steroids, with a digital camera in one hand and my phone in the other taking snap after snap of the river, the other boats and the impressive architecture on every side. This trip was exactly what I had been looking for when I had decided to return to the river the day before. The only place where the express had the advantage over the sedate tourist boat was the speed of the express cut down on the river currents completely, leaving a negligible amount of bobbing. The tall, broad, large, slow-paced boat tumbled up and down every wave and my stomach felt every moment of it, especially after I had been taking hundreds of photos looking through two sets of digital screens. I had even planned on this; I had had every intention of taking my anti-seasickness medication I had brought with me from South Africa to cope with ferry and boat trips … but I forgot to take the wretched pill that morning. So, for the second half of the trip I focused on breathing in the refreshing breeze and enjoying the sights and the boat ride itself and not being snap happy and ended up feeling less nauseous. Also, I was experiencing the moment rather than documenting it. That’s a thing, right?

After my longer, slower bob along the Chao Phraya and indulging in the glut of sightseeing, the boat docked at Sathorn Pier and once again the crew of the boat ensured that we were safely on board the dock before loading on the new passengers or disembarking again. Spoilt little baby I am, requiring that sort of transport rather than the excitement and unpredictability provided by the express. But after my adventures on the river, I still had my last souvenirs to buy and headed back onto the skytrain. However instead of going back to home base at Asok, I headed back to MBK Center (yuck, yuck, yuck, I hate misspelling centre every single time) in semi-defeat to buy what I had left behind the day before. This time I knew exactly where I was going and raced through MBK to find what I wanted and got out of there as quickly as possible to return to the train. When I was back in my Bangkok neighbourhood of Asok, I returned to Terminal 21 one last time, finally to do some buying, and went back to the Marvel Miniso to slake my fill of Marvel merch. I bought as much as I could justify space-wise in my suitcase as these were not items I could buy back home, and I knew these were the last things I would buy before I left Thailand. Then it was back to the guesthouse to repack my bags with my new purchases, eat, shower, rest and pack away the red hat for the return trip to South Africa as my time in Bangkok and Thailand itself had come to an end…