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By Graham K. Rogers
This Friday marks the end of my main vacation this year. Having made photo-trips on the railways and along the river (links below), I thought I would also take a run through Bangkok's Chinatown. Rather than walking - it is hot after all - I usually take a bus. I had not taken into account route changes and the first try ended up as a failure. The next morning, using Plan B, despite a couple of false starts, I made the journey.
On Thursday, the plan was to start at Siam, pick up a number 40 bus and take a seat on the left side, from which I could take lots of photographs as the bus slowly made its way through Chinatown. After a short run on the BTS, Skytrain, I waited for the bus at Siam, opposite the Paragon shopping mall.
Although a couple of air-conditioned buses on the 40 route stopped, these are not suitable as the reflections from the windows spoil pictures, even if I am careful. No normal bus 40 came for almost an hour, so as lunchtime had arrived, I retired with a friend to Siam Paragon where we ate Italian.
After lunch, we tried again, but it dawned on me - I had not seen any number 40 buses travelling the other way, that there may have been a route change and remembered the last time I had passed the 40 depot up at Talingchan, the area was full of the older blue and white buses. After about 40 minutes, we gave up, wandered through Siam Paragon, Siam Center and Siam Discovery, then had a look outside the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center before heading home.
The next morning, I formulated Plan B. We would start just to the west of Central Pinklao and pick up an empty bus there, but persuading a taxi driver to go where I wanted, was not so easy. The first one wanted to use Petchkasem Road and Rajapruek which would need a longer journey including an extra couple of kilometres to make a U-turn.
We left that cab but the second one also wanted to turn into Petchakasem Road. I did persuade him to continue along Charoen-Sanitwong Road but he wanted to take a turning and use a new road alongside the railway. As this would also have an extended U-turn problem, and the road I wanted was just another 200 metres, I dug my heels in.
A few minutes later, the taxi dropped us off at the end of Chayapreuk Road and we crossed the footbridge there to wait for the 40 bus. A couple of the yellow air-conditioned 40 buses came along and I began to think of Plan C and even D, but an orange private 40 came along and we were off.
Photo by Korn
Although the project was Chinatown, there were a couple of interesting views along Issaraphap Road, so these were included. Chinatown was not too busy and the considerable roadworks for the new MRTA suburban underground railway put some of the interesting areas out of sight. Nonetheless, the area has enough character to make up for this and with the two cameras, we took over 300 shots.
Of course, with the moving bus, many of these had focus problems, so were trashed, while others were not well composed. Out of series three or four might be OK, while one was useful.
Photo by Korn
I tend to concentrate on faces when I can these days as these show much about the character of people. Colour and shapes are also interesting for me.
Photo by Korn
As we left Chinatown and turned into the end of Rama 4 Road, the bus stopped and the last passengers alighted. I asked the driver about going to Siam, already anticipating the answer and he confirmed that the route had been changed: the smaller buses now turned round at Hualumphong.
Photos by Korn
Photos by Korn
We jumped off and after a few minutes I was able to hail a taxi that took us to Siam Paragon for lunch.
Photo by Korn
See Also:
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.
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