The Skywalk! The Unique Pleasure of a Pedestrian.

Van Bangkok-HuaHin-March2009

Today we did the skywalk. I hear you asking: is that something like Michael's Moonwalk? Well, it isn't!

Bangkok is worldfamous for not being pedestrianfriendly. It's frankly impossible for pedestrians to walk the city. Not because of the heath. Not because of the pollution. Not because of the traffic. Simply because of the bare fact that there is no pedestrian road to walk on. Ah, indeed there is a reserved zone, that's true, but it's packed with everything else then pedestrians: stables, hawker's tents, chairs and tables, suncovers, drains, poles, signs, just name it: it occupies the pedestrian zone, and it prevents you from walking as a regular pedestrian.

Does that mean that Bangkok hates pedestrians that much? No, nothing of that sort. On the contrary: Bangkok invented the skywalk for them. It is was it says: you walk in the sky. To be precise: you can walk all the way from Siam to Chidlom, in a level under the skytrain, totally and fully reserved for the humble, non motorised, almost rural species called pedestrian. You get the priviledge of viewing the city like an eagle, with the view from above. You see all those miserable cars standing still in the congested traffic. You laugh all all those debutants who still hope to walk the ground level. You are the master of the world, you are a Skywalker (even when your Christian name isn't Luke). 

The Skywalk even has SideWalks, like sidestreets, leading to offices, or shopping malls. We used them, if only to get a peeping inhalation of airconditioned oxygen, before franatically diving back into the NOx-perfumed skywalk. Once a skywalker, always a skywalker, even if we have to come back to Bangkok to do our much needed skywalk! No doubt it's addictive :)

Memo: HL discovered for the first time the Central World & Zen shopping mall. Lots of local designers, he even bought a piece (black shirt). And we acquired our fetish: the local underwear. Remember this when you'll see us stripping, back home: maybe we'll be wearing Thai underneath :)

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