Bombings in Context

While the New Year's Eve bombings in Bangkok are not to be taken likely, it's very sobering when the casualty figures (3 confirmed deaths and nearly 40 injuries) are contrasted with the traffic accident statistics over the end-of-year holiday period: on the last four days of 2006 there were nearly 300 deaths and thousands of injuries caused by traffic accidents nationwide.

Exotic destination

My preferred way of exploring a new city is to take some form of public transport to an area of interest and wander round the sights, soaking up the atmosphere etc. etc. However, this strategy does not work so well in Bangkok: while the central business districts are now quite well-served by the Skytrain and the single existing metro line, the "old" centre with the classic tourist attractions (temples, palaces, touts etc.) still has no mass-transit connections. My first attempt to get there by public transport ended abortively at Hua Lamphong Station - Bangkok's main railway station and the end station of the metro line - on a Saturday afternoon, from where I had vague plans to catch some kind of bus westwards on towards the river. However, I soon found that Bangkok's bus network is not really set up for the casual tourist: maps are hard to come by, destination blinds on the buses themselves are mostly in Thai script only, and it was not obvious where the bus stops were. I should have continued by taxi, but it was hot, I was tired and had no particular destination in mind other than "where all the temples are" and at that point no desire to negotiate with taxi drivers. At that point I gave up and headed to somewhere serving cool beer (which indirectly led to me being provided with a tour of parts of Bangkok not listed in my Lonely Planet guidebook, but that's another story).