Bangkok

[fivemack]

Is an oasis of peaceful calm, wealth and cleanliness. Perhaps a mite hectic at times, and steam-bath weather even at 0600, but relaxation itself compared to Delhi.

I admired the strange-looking sunrise for several minutes before realising that the difference from India is ... clouds. Several layers of them, excessively attractively arranged. It even rains - torrentially, but only for an hour or so.

Today I have mostly been buying tailor-made clothes; two cashmere-wool suits (one black, one dark-blue pinstripe), two cotton and one silk shirt, and three silk brocade waistcoats in different colours. Prices are about the same as the medium-range off-the-peg at M&S, and the range of silk brocades is very significantly wider.

The cushion covers here are 1/6 of the Indian price, which suggests that my estimates about how much mark-up the Indian emporia were adding were very low. Or that the production's mechanised here and the Indian shops were charging a handwork mark-up.

Google's wonderful; arriving with no guidebook, a Netcafe and 'things to do in Bangkok' got me at once to http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/Thailand/Central_Eastern_Thailand/Bangkok-1445238/TravelGuide-Bangkok.html and has given me three pages of sights to see. I'd also like to thank Kilda from the Exodus trip to India for her list of things to do; if you're reading this, Kilda, why not leave a comment? :)

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely.

Mmm, brocade waistcoats.

Zorinth, whose taste in suits is impeccable, says don't buy yellow, it isn't your colour.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the tailor would have disembowelled me with one of those many tailoring implements ideally suited to disembowelling if I'd even contemplated suggesting a yellow suit.

Red with gold dragons, blue with gold dragons, black with red dragons.

I'll have to post them home anyway; maybe I should post one set to Montreal instead :)