Dear Bangkok,
By the time you read this I will be gone. I hope you can understand, it was never going to last. We’re just too different. You with your traffic, pollution, happy ending massages and ping pong shows, me with my Canadian sense of open spaces, fresh air and… well I’m not sure what the opposite is for those last two, but trust me we’re not compatible there either. So you see I must leave you now. It’s just not fair of me to hold on to you when you have so much to give to so many people (like your 8 million inhabitants and 16 million annual visitors).
To be certain, I enjoyed my time with you. I will always remember the stunning colours and smells of your flower markets. Walking along the stalls with their lush orange, yellow, purple, green and white flowers piled high. I loved watching as diligent shopkeepers strung the flowers into the many wreaths and garlands that decorate your boats, tuk-tuks, buses and shrines. Never have I seen a city that embraces the beauty of flowers as you do. But for all the beauty of the flowers, they cannot mask your pollution. At the end of each day I was with you, my eyes would sting just a little and I when I shower, the water running down the drain was stained by you. Your air is so thick that quantitative measurements indicate it is a health hazard to all people – not just those of “sensitive groups”. The extent to which you embrace disposable goods far outpaces your neighbours in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. Is it really necessary to tie a plastic bag onto a plastic cup just so people’s hands don’t get cold?
I loved your public transportation – the metro, the sky train and the many boats along the Chao Phraya River. I loved participating in the daily dance of boats, cars and trains that move so many goods and people. I loved the way you have made so many of your services so easy for tourists to use but also reward those willing to put forward more effort with a plethora of free shuttles to hopscotch their way around. But for all I loved about your transportation systems, I cannot get used to the gridlock that caused me to spend 90 minutes to travel 6 km in a taxi while trying to get to the Vietnamese embassy in time to retrieve our passports before it closed for the weeklong holiday and I know this is a run-on sentence but that’s how life feels when I’m stuck in your traffic and sometimes I just have to deal with your traffic because your metro and sky train are different services so I have to buy two tickets just to get kind-of close to where I want to go! (pause, catch breath, compose myself)
I loved your food. Everyone raves about your food. It was everywhere I looked and the dishes I sampled were among the best examples of your cuisine I could have imagined. Papaya salads, green curry chicken, mango sticky rice all of it served with enough spice to melt a Canadian winter. But your food taunted me since my children were too often tired and grumpy from wandering your streets and overwhelmed from your lights and sounds and smells. Their weariness was such that I repeatedly had to pass on your wonderful aromas in an effort to get everyone home as the meltdowns occurred, hoping – desperately to get back before anyone went nuclear! You see yet again, it’s not you… it’s me.
I love your Buddhas adorned with gold and the way they are cherished by your society. I love the temples built as safe havens for these Buddhas, so colourfully decorated and so welcoming to people of all faiths to observe and learn from (so long as they leave their shoes outside – but you often have special places for those as well). Um, okay this one breaks with the pattern of this letter because there’s no downside to this stuff, it’s amazing!
Alas Bangkok, may you continue to be the love of many. I will remember you fondly but I just can’t love you the way you deserve and so I bid you farewell.