This morning it rained and rained, and then was cool and grey. I dawdled a bit and then took the BTS down to Lumphini park, stopping along the way for the Michelin recommended fried chicken in the vicinity. Curious what an economy has erupted around the Michelin guide. I’ve been coming to Bangkok since before the guide and recall all the fuss around it here (and in Singapore and HK). Hopefully it does its job of channelling visitors like me to good spots while locals can feel their own favourite places aren’t swamped by clueless types (unless they are unlucky enough for their favourite place to appear in the guide). The honoured stalls also do a good job of telling the clueless what they want, like directing them to whichever permutation of their dish was specifically mentioned in the guide. Aside from a few chancers like the thousand baht crab omelette.
Anyway. It was nice chicken, though they clearly had a somtam for foreigners without any chillis, so sweet that I had to request chillies to add in myself. But not any better, I thought, than the ayam goreng with my nasi lemak in KL some weeks ago.
The park itself was pleasant, green and quiet, with several lakes and water channels, inhabited by large fish tortoises and immense monitor lizards with tiny heads. I do like seeing all the different types of city wildlife, though Singapore’s chickens have a special place in my heart.
From Lumphini I took the walkway to Benjakitti park. It was nice not to walk on the roads, though I did feel for the residents of the small houses on either side which were now completely overshadowed. Surely the walkway could have been half the width and still had space for both walkers and cyclists.
Benjakitti was spectacular. I’d heard positive things about it, but had no idea. It is a wetlands, with raised pathways swooping over it, and small walking paths snaking through it. It was lush, full of life. There were countless dragonflies about thanks to the morning rain, and the sounds of birds and insects drowned out the city’s roar. Really, really lovely.
I wondered if it’s something to do with the sponge cities concept. I’m surprised there’s not more talk about it, or maybe it is talked about with different names in Anglophone circles because of the China connection (sigh). I would like to find out how it has done in Chinese cities.
Inevitably my mind went to how this could be done in Lahore, and I thought how the Walton airport, a quiet green airfield in the middle of Gulberg, is now being developed into, what else, shopping centres. Imagine a wild natural space there. Then I thought, there’s no way women would enjoy it, not in Lahore. So maybe it would maintain gender balance, as the Istanbul nightclubs call it, with men only allowed in if accompanied by a woman. But no, even that wouldn’t be enough, you’d get groups of young men bringing a couple of sisters for cover and then they’d go off and do their usual thing, so why not make it a women-only park, no men allowed at all, only boys below 14 and men above 70, and only if accompanied by a woman. Men have all the public space, why not set some aside for women? And all the gardeners and caretakers women, and a couple of stalls inside, no more, owned and run by women. The only men would be the security guards on the perimeter and they would be the massive moustachioed sorts meant to terrify. And high walls on every side, and shelters from the sun over the walkways. How lovely it would be.
Why is it that as I travel I see things and think how they could be translated back to Lahore. A place I will never live, and which causes more hurt than joy.