A Traveler's View of Bangkok

The huge airport reflects the importance of Bangkok for world travel.

 This is the first impression one gets as one sees the long queues of foreigners waiting to be officially allowed to enter this favorite tourist destination.

 One also observes different nationalities, hears different languages, imagines different expectations and different destinations among the millions of arriving tourists – literally the whole world at Bangkok’s international airport.

 Then, one starts to learn some more about Bangkok outside of immigration. Arriving passengers are offered various transportation choices to get to the city or to their other destinations. One can choose the fast sky train, the taxis, among others.

 From inside the train, one notices the similarities between Manila and Bangkok:the infrastructure, the mix of tall buildings, hotels, and various types of residential housing. Population density is obvious as one notices how crowded houses are closely built and crammed within limited spaces. The notorious city traffic scenes are also familiar. Advertisements also alert one to the global touch of world trade and investments.

 Just when one is about to conclude that Bangkok is so much like Manila, the tall golden temples and the many green and wide public park spaces alert one to the uniqueness and difference between Bangkok and other cities throughout the world.

 This is a place that reveres Buddha and the King. The reverence is palpable all throughout, especially in special areas of worship located throughout various portions of the city and which are open for free to the Thai people, and for minimal fee to the tourists.

 Everywhere in Bangkok are reminders of the prominence of Buddha and the King. Visits to various temples show one the worshiper’s view and relationship with Buddha- there are images of the child-Buddha or the adult Buddha who may be in a reclining position, in a smiling or serious pose, or in various sizes, from the tiny Emerald Buddha to the mighty Buddhas in various locations within and outside Bangkok.

 The ever-present gesture of welcome, hands linked as if in prayer accompanied by a slight bow of the head and the warm “savadhi” (pronounced as sawadee) is so infectious, foreign guests start to imitate the gesture and to say the Thai greeting almost instantaneously wherever and whenever they are afforded the opportunity to do so.

 One realizes that common language brings out the smiles and the warmth even more. And so as one stays longer in Bangkok, one starts to add new vocabulary daily to allow one wider entry into the world of the Thai people and culture.

 The Thai script is something else though. Most visitors will be content with picking up a few words here and there but the serious student of societies and cultures will make a mental note to learn more about the Thai language, written as well as oral, for future visits and/or study about this very fascinating society and people.

 Some visitors will probably be content with seeing the regular tourist spots throughout the city. Some will want to proceed to rural or non-city tourist destinations beyond Bangkok.

 Our group from Toyo University visited one inner community of Bangkok, Klong Tei through the courtesy and kindness of Keisuke Yoshida who introduced us to the Duang Prateep Foundation. Established to help the poor people in Thailand, the founder, Ms. Prateep, won the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award and used the award money to launch the foundation.

 The visit to the urban poor community of Klong Tei allowed us a deeper view of Bangkok. The foundation-run kindergarten brought us to the world of some of Bangkok’s children – energetic, smiling, enthusiastic to learn, genuine and pure, just as children are back home in the Philippines or elsewhere in the world. 

 The same vibrant energy, however, was not present among the community residents of Klong Tei, who face the perennial problem of eviction just like many urban poor dwellers in Cebu or in Manila or elsewhere in the world.

 As one moves away from the airport and as one spends more time in Bangkok, one is taken beyond the façade and into the inner realities experienced by the Thai people in their communities.

 Then one realizes the presence of the same contradictions faced by most developing countries: a segment eager to jump into the future and modernize but larger portions of the population left lagging behind and in poverty, all in the name of so-called progress and development.

 In Bangkok, as in all cities and societies elsewhere in the world, including our own, the pervasive reality of inequality is still clearly evident in massive private homes of a few rich and the densely population homes of the poor, the busy shopping malls and the struggling street vendors. And yes, the ever-present beggars, the elderly man and women, the mother with her child, continue to remind everyone about the still missing, still illusive yet genuine end and goal of genuine development: a world of equality for all.

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