May 5, 2026
Lumpini Park Turns 100! Celebrating Bangkok's First (Best?) Park [S8.E42]
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Greg and Ed discuss the 100th ‘birthday’ of Lumpini Park. The guys begin by highlighting the improvements in the park over the last several years. More and cleaner bathrooms, landscaping, and an adjacent ‘hawker center’ are some of the highlights. Greg then reviews the different facilities that populate the 142 acre park, such as a fitness center, swimming pool, and even a lesser known library, one of the first in Thailand to be truly open to the public.
The show then shifts to a walk-and-talk in the park itself, recorded a few days before. With its proper roof and organized layout, the Hawker Center is a definite upgrade over random street vendors but in the end is just another Bangkok market. The boys tell some funny Lumpini-centric stories about their early days in Bangkok and their great memories of the park, before a discussion of the soft power possibilities of the park’s famous monitor lizards.
Next, they check out the status of the Green Mile, the long walkway from lower Sukhumvit and Benjakitti Park to Lumpini Park itself. There is now a twisting walkway leading down into Lumpini, suitable for bike riders. The guys walk over Wireless Road and note that the path seems wide open all the way to Benjakitti. Both guys celebrate the realization of a long dream of Bangkok cyclists: riding through Benjakitti Park, up onto the Green Mile, and then down into Lumpini Park without once having to dismount! It might have taken decades, but that dream is finally a reality. :)
Greg 00:00:05 On this episode, we take a stroll in Lumpinee Park to celebrate its 100th birthday.
Ed 00:00:10 So if you're like us and love the history, greenery and wizardry of Bangkok's first public park, you'll dig this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.
Greg 00:00:32 So what the crap? This is the Bangkok podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Bangkok in 2001 and was immediately overwhelmed by the complexity of the BTS and Lumpinee Park. What can I say? I'm just a small town farm boy from the Canadian prairies.
Ed 00:00:49 And the funny thing is this back then the BTS had had maybe one line and two.
Greg 00:00:54 It had Sukhumvit and and Silom and I was like so confusing. How do I navigate.
Ed 00:01:00 And I am Ed Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 25 years ago, fell in love with the realization that any Thai sign or menu can be years out of date. So I never left.
Greg 00:01:14 Nice. Oh, yeah. I'll have the Anderton special, please. At the restaurant.
Greg 00:01:17 The Prime Minister from 1996 or whatever that was.
Ed 00:01:22 Well, like that intro was sparked by. I was in my food line right next to where I live, and there was a a sign for coffee, like they have a coffee shop. But when I moved, when I moved into this neighborhood seven years ago, I tried to order coffee and they said, oh no, no, like the coffee shop closed and the sign is still up.
Greg 00:01:42 It happens a lot. Like I'll have this one. Oh, we don't have that one. So why is it on display and why is it on the list?
Ed 00:01:48 No, it's not just that they don't have everything. It's that the menu will stay wrong for years and they won't update the menu for years.
Greg 00:01:56 We don't make that anymore. Do you think maybe you should update things? No. Okay.
Ed 00:02:02 All right. We want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world.
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Greg 00:03:10 I'm telling you, man, Thailand's got to jump on this soft power thing. The the Isthmus of Kra. Sounds like I'm. I love that name so much. It sounds like a superhero in the New Avengers movie.
Greg 00:03:19 They've got to, like, have, like a Thai superhero that's fighting.
Ed 00:03:23 With.
Greg 00:03:24 Captain America or something.
Ed 00:03:26 I'm with you.
Greg 00:03:27 As always. If you have a comment, a show idea, or just want to say hi. Head to Bangkok podcast.com and click on the little microphone button at the bottom right to leave us a voicemail, and we'll play that on the show. Well, in this episode we come to the celebration a little bit late, but that's okay because we think it's a cause worth celebrating. Now, as you may have read, Lumpinee Park, the first public park in Bangkok, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Now, to mark the occasion, the park has had some serious TLC with a bunch of landscaping, renovation of existing buildings, and the addition of a few new structures that aim to keep it on pace with a modern tastes of modern Bangkok. Or Bangkok, as Ed prefers to say. Correct. Never wants to pass up an opportunity to head to the park and walk around.
Greg 00:04:08 And. And I stopped by this past weekend and took a walk to check things out. So in this episode, we're going to start with some in-studio recording. And then cut to the conversation we had while we were walking around the park, being shown up by sweaty old men with their shirts off, trying to find some monitor lizards, and of course, admiring the view of Salem's skyscrapers, which never gets old. So yeah, I hear you and I headed out the other day. We had a nice, short, sweaty walk around the park and I just always really, really love it. Like I said in the interview, you'll hear, I'd love that it exists, and I love that it's still so important, for sure.
Ed: It was quite hot and humid, and it was funny. It was actually a little bit overcast. It wasn't a great day, and it even started to rain. But, this is just the time of the year, man.
Ed 00:04:54 It was It was brutal. But as always. Lumpinee crushes. It wins.
Greg 00:05:00 Lumpinee crushes. There we go. That's another poster. That'd be a great slogan for the park. You should sell that to the team in charge. 20 baht every time someone uses it. yeah, it's a fantastic place. And, like. Like I said, again, you'll hear this in an interview, but, you know, so much stuff in Thailand gets built and then people are like, ta da! And then it just gets forgotten about and it falls into disrepair. But you have to wait ten years for it to happen.
Greg 00:05:28 Right? Right. And, it's not a perfect park and it's not the, you know, it's got some, some issues that I think I wish would get sorted out, but I just I just love it. I think it's, it's it's beautiful. And it played a very important role in my early days in Bangkok.
Greg 00:05:42 I think a lot of people can say the same thing. so before we jump into the interview that we did while we were walking around, I just want to touch on some of the buildings in the park, actually, which I looked into. And, there's some interesting history here that I actually didn't know about. So along the southern side of the park, along Rama four, there's Lumpinee Hall. Have you ever stopped to look at this building or notice it?
Ed 00:06:08 I've walked past it, but that's about it.
Greg 00:06:10 Yeah. And if you look online, you'll see some really nice pictures inside. It actually used to be, like a really popular place for ballroom dancing. Like in the 1970s.
Ed 00:06:20 Oh, I didn't know that.
Greg 00:06:21 Yeah, it was like the hip place to go. this is sort of sort of like a modern import from the West. Ballroom dancing was not a big thing in Thailand. So all of the people who used to do it went to Lumpinee Hall to do it there.
Ed 00:06:35 Oh I.
Greg 00:06:35 See. Yeah. And it closed down in 2014 and it's kind of been abandoned since then, but I think it's been renovated for the new 100th years. and right across from there, sort of right along the edge of Beaufort Road, there's the Lumpinee Recreation Center. And again, I've walked by it a million times, but I've never gone in.
Ed 00:06:55 Have you? I've never gone in, but I. I've gone past many times. It's pretty good.
Greg 00:07:00 Yeah. Everyone says it's a really nice workout place. It's got basketball courts, it's got badminton courts, it's got tennis courts. It's got like a gym, weightlifting gym with a ton of machines. It's got a really nice covered swimming pool. And check this out, membership 300 bot a year.
Ed 00:07:15 Okay, that's a little ping.
Greg 00:07:18 Too much a.
Ed 00:07:20 Well, the funny thing is I, I, I looked into it years ago and I was always afraid because it's so central in Bangkok and everyone knows about Lapine Park. I just assumed it would be super crowded all the time, but when I walk past it, it often does not look that crowded as you think it might be.
Greg 00:07:45 Yeah, I've never seen it full of people. I've never seen people outside or anything. Like if you had told me that this was close. Most of the time I would totally have believed you. Maybe it is, I don't know, but. But yeah, it looks really nice. And I think it's easy also to sort of think a fitness facility at Lumpinee Park is probably pretty skanky and rundown, because I think what a lot of people do see is the open air weightlifting area. Right. Which is, you know, buckets of cement and tractor tires on iron bars and stuff like that. Just super old school. Now, the guys who use that gym are absolutely jacked, right? Right. So they they, they know what they're doing. But the actual gym, the actual fitness center is apparently really, really nice. I should make it a make it a point to go in and check it out sometime.
Ed 00:08:32 Yeah. No, it looks nice. And I think people often assume that public facilities by the government are going to be in disrepair.
Ed 00:08:41 But that's not always true. I mean, maybe it's maybe it's a safe guess, but it's not it's not always true because, you know, because I've looked in in there and it looks pretty well kept.
Greg 00:08:52 Right? What do they say about being a pessimist? The good thing is that you're either being constantly proven right or are pleasantly surprised.
Ed 00:08:58 There you go. There you.
Greg 00:08:59 Go. So in the park, there's also a library, which again, I've never been in. And again, I need to rectify that. The interesting thing about this, Ed, is that even the library itself said it was Thailand's first public library.
Ed 00:09:14 Wait, it says where does it? Oh, you mean it says that on their website?
Greg 00:09:18 It says it on the website. Yeah. And a few other places. I've seen it around as well. But we've done some, some research on this and it really depends. Depends how you define library, how you define public. Oh I see. And you know, well, I.
Ed 00:09:32 Feel that, I feel that that library, the one in Lapine, it said it opened in the 1960s. So Thailand must have had a public library before that, I think.
Greg 00:09:40 Right. But I think when this one opened in Lumpinee Park, it was like the first one that was opened specifically for the general public, like anyone could use it at any time, whereas places like the Nielson Haze Library and the National Library like they had limitations on who could use it kind of thing.
Ed 00:09:55 Oh, I see.
Greg 00:09:56 That could be a little.
Ed 00:09:57 So.
Greg 00:09:58 Maybe a little bit ill defined.
Ed 00:10:00 Maybe it's the first truly public library, but that's cool. It just shows it. Just so you know, we talked about a little bit this in the interview. Lumpinee has just played a lot of different roles, throughout its history.
Greg 00:10:13 Yeah, totally. And it's still there and operating as a library, which is fantastic. And I also found something that I had no idea about before I started looking into it. But Lumpinee Park used to have a gigantic floating restaurant on one of its lakes.
Ed 00:10:27 I didn't know that. I did not know that.
Greg 00:10:29 Yeah, it was, it was it was floating. It was like a building built that jutted out into the lake kind of thing. Oh, right. But it was in the it was in the shape of a boat. And the mast head, like the the carving at the front of the quote unquote boat was a was a woman. and it was called the ordinary Narva Floating Restaurant, but it completely burned down in 1971.
Ed 00:10:51 Oh, wow. I had I had no idea.
Greg 00:10:54 Yeah. If you go online, you can find some some old photos of it. Not not many, but there's a few.
Ed 00:10:58 Well, at least if it if at least if it burned down, it just fell into the pond. So it didn't it didn't catch anything else on fire.
Greg 00:11:06 I mean, I guess so I guess so that's a big benefit of having a floating restaurant burning down. So, yeah, the buildings on site are historic, and, a lot of them are probably a lot more useful than we give them credit for.
Greg 00:11:20 And I think we should make it a point to go down there and check them out again.
Ed 00:11:23 Yeah, it's obviously a great place just to take a walk, but, there are facilities there too.
Greg 00:11:28 Yeah. So let's let's, let's cut to the, chat that you and I had when we were walking around the park the other day and, get our impressions of what it was like down there. That's this past weekend.
Greg 00:11:40 So we're in, Lapine Park now, checking out after it is, quote unquote opened, doors seems a little bit rough around the edges. we're checking out the hawker centre.
Ed 00:11:51 The new hawker centre. I love that, I love that name.
Greg 00:11:54 What are your thoughts on a hawker centre in Thailand?
Ed 00:12:00 Well obviously Bangkok has a million markets and so on the one hand this is just another market, but it is actually quite cool and pretty professional. So this is like a structure. It's really a building with a roof that's open on the side. I understand why they're making somewhat of a big deal out of it. because previously this would just be stalls like a crowding the sidewalk.
Greg 00:12:24 Yeah, right. I'm a little bit biased against hawker centres because it's a very Singaporean concept. And we've said on the show many times, if if someone wants the Singapore experience, they'll just go to Singapore and the terms of attracting tourists. But for locals, I don't know if this offers any huge benefit over just the traditional sort of street markets that we kind of all.
Ed 00:12:46 I guess it's covered. So it's rain friendly. It's a little bit more organized. But you're right. I don't want to I don't want Bangkok to become as orderly as Singapore. That'd be a nightmare.
Greg 00:12:57 Yeah, that'd be Singapore. Yeah, we don't want that. The chaos is part of why we love it here. But it is. It is noticeably cooler in here than it was outside.
Greg 00:13:37 One thing I'll never understand is the ability of Thai people or the Hubris of Thai organizers when they place, like a food center or a drinks bar or something like that, right next to a busy road.
Ed 00:13:55 True that. Well, I mean, this is a truism throughout Bangkok where you just have street restaurants, like, right next to traffic. Yeah.
Greg 00:14:04 And this, of course, goes. I mean, this hawker center is right on, I guess, the northwest corner of Lumpinee. So it's right up against wretched Army Road and Saracen Road.
Ed 00:14:14 Yeah. I mean, as the listeners who will be able to tell, there is a lot of noise pollution. Yeah.
Greg 00:14:20 Well, I mean, bonus points for trying something new, I guess.
Ed 00:14:25 yeah. It's better that they're here than, I think, crowding the sidewalks.
Ed 00:14:29 So this was the old catch 22. You know, you and I grew up, meet me more than you like on Sukhumvit Road. And one of its charms was the million stalls down the road. Yeah. Which gives it its kind of chaotic charm. But one of the most annoying things about Sugerman is all those goddamn stalls that like, cause traffic jams where you can't, you know, you just want to walk a block and it takes 20 minutes.
Greg 00:14:58 Yeah, it got to be a bit too much in some spots. And then it became annoying and anger inducing, which is not. That's right. Well, I mean, points to them for trying something new. it still looks a bit rough around the edges and still.
Ed 00:15:12 But it's nothing. I wouldn't say it's nothing amazing.
Greg 00:15:15 No, nothing amazing. But I'll be back. So I really. I really love Lumpinee Park. I love its location. I love the fact that it exists, and I love the fact that so many people love it. Because in Bangkok, a lot of things like this, a lot of big infrastructure projects, they get built and then they get ignored or forgotten about. That's right. I'm so happy that that people still care enough about Lumpinee to keep it going?
Ed 00:15:44 Absolutely. This is one of my early loves in Bangkok. I mentioned before when we did our show kind of comparing Benja, Kitty and Lumpinee. I basically admitted to being biased because I'm just I'm just nostalgic for this park because I spent a lot of time here in 2001, 2002, 2003. And I love the fact that it you know, it's right in the middle of the city. It's conveniently located to Sukhumvit, which was my, my my hangout. so I, I love Benji Kitty, but Lumpinee will just always have a place in my heart and and it's so cool that they're they're working on it. They're improving it. I was doing some walks, maybe six months ago, and they were building, like, totally new bathrooms, which the bathrooms had gotten kind of skanky as public bathrooms do.
Ed 00:16:36 Like now they have like, I don't know how many, like, probably ten fresh, clean new bathrooms. Oh, really? and they've made improvements in other stuff as well.
Greg 00:16:47 Let me ask you this. Would you drink water from a water fountain in the park here?
Ed 00:16:51 Yes, I would.
Greg 00:16:52 You would.
Ed 00:16:53 I would, yeah. I mean, I don't think it's. I think I would do, like, regularly or in large quantity. But as we have done previously on the show, Bangkok water supply is meets international standards. As long as the kind of last mile of pipes is clean. And I'm guessing, like I said, limpid, especially now it's it's been undergoing this rejuvenation. Yeah, it's got a clean, like, modern vibe now.
Greg 00:17:22 Tell you what, though, I'm really getting annoyed by, constantly being passed by 70 year old dudes who are just jacked and running along shirtless. That's right. I mean, look bad, old man.
Ed 00:17:32 Yeah. How dare these people make us look bad.
Greg 00:17:34 I remember one of my first memories in Lumpinee was, my buddy Brendan came to visit me when I was about six months into my life in Bangkok and came down to Lumpinee here, and I didn't know where I was or what was going on. And I remember we had the Lonely Planet book, of course, from Mr. George Cummings. Yep. And, I was so lost I had to get, I think, to Rama for. And I didn't know where it was. I just knew it was the big road. So I kept stopping people and using my my absolutely caveman Thai. At the time, I was just asking for the unknown. Like the funny, the big street where, oh, funny guy and a couple of people. I couldn't understand what I was saying. I don't know how I was butchering it, but it was so bad and I was just. And then I pointed at a map. And we all know how how successful that is. In Thailand, people look at a map and I'm like, I have no idea what this means. And so we just wandered around for hours. Not a lot of hours, but we wandered around for a long time and we finally ended up finding a company that's great Park Rama for entrance.
Greg 00:18:34 I got so lost.
Ed 00:18:35 That reminds me of my early days and I was talking to some, I think some of my students and I was trying to ask them, like, how do I get to the child Pryor River? Because I wanted to go check out the main river and they didn't. Obviously I was mispronouncing child prior and it took them a while to decipher. Like I remember like it was the three of them, like talking to each other. And I'm going to call Priya and they're working on it. They're repeating it. And eventually one of them is like, oh, and then like they pronounced it correctly, it took them about. It took three people about 3 or 4 minutes to figure out I was saying child Priya.
Greg 00:19:10 I had the same experience, but with talking about the Skytrain, and I wanted to get to the victory monument and I was trying.
Greg 00:19:16 I didn't know the word for train. I didn't know the word for Skytrain or Victory Monument, and I kept doing like a snake motion in the arm, in the air with my arm. Like the train, the train. These two guys were like this guy, this guy. Mental classic. It took many, many conversations between them to figure out what I was seeing.
Ed 00:19:34 The sad thing is, if I said chow prior today, probably 50% of Thais would not understand me, so I'm up to 50% comprehension now.
Greg 00:19:43 What's your take on the most famous residents of Lumpinee Park which are here? Well, you don't monitor lizards.
Ed 00:19:49 Well, you know myself, I'm a huge, huge fan, as I think listeners know from me mentioning before, I'm a huge fan of the monitors, which we were now just walking through the park. We're we're heading towards the Green Mile entrance. We've kind of looped around a bit and it's an overcast day, still hot and humid. And actually, considering we've been walking for ten, 15 minutes, I haven't seen a water monitor yet.
Greg 00:20:13 No, you're right, I haven't seen a single one. And I do notice that. I mean, it's in preparation for the 100th anniversary. The grass does look particularly short and well-kept. They've obviously been doing a lot of landscaping over the past months to get into looking nice for the celebrations, but maybe that drove all the lizards underground, literally.
Ed 00:20:34 Now isn't this is it? I think the celebration is going on right now, isn't it? I think we're I think we're right in the middle of it. It's like, I think it's a week or five days of festivities. I don't really see any festivities going on, but it does look nice.
Greg 00:20:48 It sure does. And it's just, man, I just love this view of downtown, the buildings along Ramaphosa and Salem. Yep. From the park. It's just a so iconic. And it's I don't know it just makes me feel really happy to be in Lapine in Bangkok and able to see views like that. Sitting. Standing next to a palm tree.
Ed 00:21:08 Agreed.
Greg 00:21:09 You know, for a farm boy from Alberta, Canada, this is a pretty exotic place to be. In fact, I'm going to take a photo and I'm going to send it. Let's take a selfie. Sure. We'll put it in our show notes.
Greg 00:21:20 Should we? So we'll be able to capture.
Ed 00:21:23 This exact moment?
Greg 00:21:24 Yeah. One. Two. Three.
Ed 00:21:28 Well, it's funny, you and I did a little bit of research on the history of the park, which we're going to talk about more, but I thought an interesting tidbit was that, the king who we can't really talk about all that much, was getting some criticism for kind of being too westernized. And this park, Lumpinee Park, was modeled after Western style parks. I don't know specifically if it was European or American, right. so part of the reason.
Greg 00:22:04 That was King Rama VI.
Ed 00:22:06 That's right. part of the reason that the park was given a Buddhist name. So Lumpinee is the city or region where the Buddhists supposed to have been born?
Greg 00:22:17 Right.
Greg 00:22:17 Lumbini and.
Ed 00:22:18 Bini. Right. And so the name was meant to be very Thai and very Asian to kind of offset the possible Western nation. But I don't see why a park is something Western.
Greg 00:22:31 No, I mean.
Ed 00:22:33 You're but maybe this is considered Palin's first public park. So maybe at the time they were.
Greg 00:22:39 Like good, like paved roads and recreation. Maybe.
Ed 00:22:43 Maybe they thought of it as European or not Thai. I don't know. this is just what the research says.
Greg 00:22:50 Well, they did a great job making it, where it was. It's funny to think when they. When they planned it. This was a very.
Ed 00:22:56 I've seen. Sorry to interrupt. I've seen the first water monitor. Okay. Let's go.
Greg 00:23:01 I just took a photo of the sign, but, yeah, when it was open, this was the very outskirts of the city. This was the boonies. I know. This way. On the edge of nothing.
Ed 00:23:08 It's crazy to think about.
Greg 00:23:10 Where is it?
Ed 00:23:11 Swimming in the water over there.
Ed 00:23:13 Yeah, according to our research, you know, we're now experts. this was obviously royal land. and it was first partitioned out because the king wanted to do kind of a World's Fair kind of expo thing. Right? That was meant to maybe showcase Thailand on the world stage, but it turns out that particular expo never really happened. But they had the space already delineated, and essentially they got converted to something more like a park.
Greg 00:23:47 Right. Right. And interesting trivia. The statue on the corner of the park in the southwest corner on the corner of Rambo four and, Richard Emory Road. A lot of people think that is a statue of Rama four because it's Rama four road, but it's not. It's actually Rama six. Correct. Donated the land to make the park.
Ed 00:24:06 Yeah. So this park is really, a King Rama, the sixth, project, and, a super smart move. I like these. Yeah. Like, just having green space right in the middle of cities is just genius, and it makes a huge difference.
Greg 00:24:23 I wonder if the city developed sort of around the park in this direction towards Sukhumvit. if it would have done that without the park.
Ed 00:24:31 It's a good question. I mean, as everyone knows, the U.S. embassy is close by. Just on Whittier Road is the U.S. ambassador's residence, which is quite, big and special. Presumably, like this park did play a role in the the direction of development of the city. Yeah.
Greg 00:24:50 Here's a theory. We're just standing on the river now, on that side of the lake, looking at the water monitor. Swimming. It's pretty big. One big boy over there, and we've got probably ten or so tourists taking photos who have all sort of come over to the. Oh, there's another one. Oh he's running. Oh, yeah. He's standing right in front of them. Jesus, I, I think that is a missed opportunity for more Thai soft power.
Ed 00:25:13 Well, I think I think they do promote the lizards that soft power do they. They do.
Greg 00:25:17 They promote.
Ed 00:25:18 Them. Yeah. You know, even though the lizard itself, in Thai culture, the word for the lizard is an insult. Yeah. You know, we already you already took a picture of the sign. If you if you read anything about Lumpinee, even from the Thai government. It does mention the water monitors, I think. I think they've they've embraced it now.
Greg 00:25:37 Okay. Yeah, it mentions it, but I think they should be playing it up. They should have a mascot. I've seen some great shirts. I saw one at at Chatuchak and it was the Jurassic Park logo, but it said Lumbini Park and it was a skeleton of a water monitor. It was genius.
Ed 00:25:50 Oh, I love it. That's great.
Greg 00:25:51 That shit should be all over the place. Like they should really be playing it up. There's apparently not a lot of cities in the world where you can find, quote unquote, dinosaurs right in the middle of the city. I think it's a great opportunity.
Greg 00:26:02 They should lean into it.
Ed 00:26:03 I'm with you. another little tidbit from my so-called research was had to do. I don't know if you caught this in your your research, but there was a kind of a tidbit about the effort to call the number of water monitors. Yes, because apparently it was 2018 right before Covid when they decided that things had gotten just out of control. And what they ended up doing Was removing a lot of the largest lizards, which turned out to be totally ineffective because the lizards had already made it and laid their eggs and and apparently it did. It did nothing to actually call them, not even to increase the population.
Greg 00:26:46 So that'd be like going on a sterilization drives for people over 65. That's right. Yeah. Not really working.
Ed 00:26:51 Yeah, yeah. There was some reason why they said it might even have increased the numbers. Maybe the maybe older monitors eat eggs or something, but so they removed the, the mature monitors and left the hatchlings and, and hence there's still hey man.
Greg 00:27:07 Young, young young millennials don't want to have families because they got to take care of their old folks. It's the same situation.
Ed 00:27:12 That's right, that's right.
Greg 00:27:13 Get rid of the old folks. You get a lot more freedom.
Ed 00:27:15 Yeah. So they're pretty hard to miss. I wouldn't say they're everywhere, but if you walk around, I would say for ten minutes with your eyes peeled and you're near the water, you're going to see one.
Greg 00:27:25 I think they're fantastic. Yeah. these there's a very old story. Not an old story, but I guess it's from early 2000. And it prompted sort of an earlier round of culling of lizards when a farang woman was jogging in the park here, and a young monitor lizard fell out of a tree onto her shoulders. Oh, really? While she was jogging and she of course, she was like, what the fuck? You know, the thing was freaking out and she's freaking out, and and she got scratched up a little bit. And of course, it was in all the newspapers.
Greg 00:27:53 So that's what prompted people to be like, well, maybe we should work to control the population.
Ed 00:27:58 Well, considering how big some of them gets, they're surprisingly not dangerous. Like, they're just not aggressive. They do occasionally move fast. Like you, you have to hang out here for a while to see them sprint, but it actually is a thing, so I have I have seen them just take off and then stop. But normally they're they're not the right word is they're they're slovenly. Sloth. Sloth.
Greg 00:28:24 Like I feel I feel seen I'm pretty fast when I'm frightened to know.
Ed 00:28:30 They tend to move quite slowly. and that's why they're great. they're very photogenic. They're great opportunities to take pictures. I've taken a bunch. I've shot video, like you. Soft power. Yeah, but I don't know. It's funny. I just don't know if the Thai government wants to embrace, you know, it's like, imagine, like a huge poster of, like an elephant. An orchid, like a beautiful Thai woman, like lying.
Ed 00:28:55 And then like a lizard head. A big lizard head for representing like a mango, mango sticky rice and a giant lizard head.
Greg 00:29:04 so maybe that's a good point. That's fine. I'm. I'm shocked at how many people are terrified of them. And the same with geckos. Like the little geckos. Like, some people freak out when they see them. You're right, you're right.
Ed 00:29:14 I don't get I don't get either of them. Especially because they're not dangerous. Right? Like it's another thing. Like, I would probably freak out if I saw a cobra like, like crawling across our path. I would probably freak out, but.
Greg 00:29:26 That is a good point. Come see our our our beautiful culture, our beautiful women, our majestic jungle mammals.
Ed 00:29:32 And our dinosaurs.
Greg 00:29:34 And our scaly tongue wagon. Yeah. Ground dwelling scavengers. Yeah.
Ed 00:29:40 Well, at least, whether they've embraced them or not, I'm not sure, but at least they're not, suppressing it. They've kind of faced the reality.
Greg 00:29:48 Well, I'm glad they're here. So many years ago, I, And this is before GPS and everything. So in the early days when I used to have to plan the bike routes that we were riding right way ahead of time and memorize them, I was zooming in on Google Maps, and I was like, what's this green line between Luchini? Oh yeah, and Benja Kitty and I zoomed in. I'm like, that looks like a road above the road. Yeah. And I mean, it's it's it's much more common knowledge now. But back then not a lot of people knew about it.
Ed 00:30:25 And it was kind of a right. It was kind of a seen as this secret shortcut. Almost. Yeah.
Greg 00:30:32 But it's, it's an elevated walkway that goes from Lumpinee to Benja Kitty. Now, Benja Kitty itself has gone a massive renovation over the past few years. Correct into the The Bench Kitty Forest Park. But they've just done a lot of work on the Green Mile, and we're just walking up to it right now because previously it was it was really neat, but it was a pain in the ass to navigate because it had steep ramps, steep stairs.
Ed 00:31:01 Yeah. So it was it was rideable. You could ride your bike, but at various places you had to pick up your bike.
Greg 00:31:07 Yeah, yeah. And at the northeast corner of Lumpinee, there used to be some very large and very, really nice that I used to go to badminton courts. that's where this Thai national team practiced, actually. And they knocked those down. And now we have this pretty decent looking winding ramp that comes from the Green Mile all the way down into the northeast corner of Lapine.
Ed 00:31:34 It's quite cool. It might actually even be too windy. You know, it's it's this is not a good example of the shortest distance between two points as a straight line. This is the opposite of that.
Greg 00:31:45 I think it's a feature, not a bug. I think it's designed so bike riders don't fly off the yeah thing down into the park.
Ed 00:31:52 True that it is starting to rain. So we're gonna we're gonna tough it out a bit here.
Greg 00:31:59 A little summer sprinkle. But this is really nice.
Greg 00:32:02 And this is, this reinforces my maxim that any major structural or infrastructure project in Thailand takes about five years to get to the point where it should have been when it opened. That's right. Right. So, like you think about Suhana boom. When it opened, it was just terrible. It was hugely controversial. It had like six urinals for the whole airport. You know, but after a few years, they built a lot more. A lot more stuff and made it a much better. So. That's right. This has been here years and years and years. But this is what it should have been all along. Those stairs at a mile were just too much of a barrier to make it useful or appealing to any.
Ed 00:32:41 Well, good for us. And more so for our friends of ours. Bangkok is just getting more bicycle friendly, so it's taken a long time, but I feel like there's there's the bike community has a voice. Politicians listen, it takes decades.
Greg 00:32:56 They work in dog years.
Greg 00:32:57 So for one, one year of development in a regular city is seven years in Bangkok.
Ed 00:33:01 Well, the problem, as everyone knows, is that the streets are so dangerous for bikers that you really need. You need special lanes and walkways and bike trails. Otherwise it's it's prohibitively dangerous.
Greg 00:33:15 Well, I'm amazed at. I mean, that's about a.
Ed 00:33:20 That's a long.
Greg 00:33:21 75 meter straight shot from the end of the Green Mile, maybe 100m, 120m down to the park. But if you walk along the.
Ed 00:33:29 It's so winding, it's about a kilometre under metres, it's about a kilometre of walking.
Greg 00:33:34 And below us here they're going to put in a dog park. Oh nice. And bring their dogs to run around and pee and poop. So I'm a big fan.
Ed 00:33:46 I gotta go thumbs up for sure. And, I think as we mentioned before, and I think, some of the other YouTubers who've gone along the Green Mile is it will be when it's done possible to just ride in bench kitty, go up a ramp, go all the way down the Green Mile, and then keep riding and end up in Lapine without having to get off your bike.
Greg 00:34:11 That's a hell of a loop. That would be so nice.
Ed 00:34:13 So it's going to be. It might be true now, but if not, it's supposed to be true anyway.
Greg 00:34:18 The the big drawback, of course, is the the rules. I think you can only I'm not sure if they're going to change them, but the rules say you can only ride your bike in Lumpinee from 10 to 3, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m..
Ed 00:34:29 That's right. It's very restricted hours.
Greg 00:34:31 Yeah, and the guards at Forest Park are notoriously dickheads. They won't let you do anything now.
Ed 00:34:39 When? When? No, no, no, that's when you can ride in Lumpinee.
Greg 00:34:42 As far as I know, that used to be the rules.
Ed 00:34:44 And what about riding in Benji, Kitty?
Greg 00:34:46 I think it's a bit a bit more relaxed, but you have to ride on the bike paths. You can't go off them at all. You can't ride your bike on the elevated parkways. A friend of mine once was doing parkour there with his parkour group, where the guards are like, you can't jump on this little this foot high cement wall.
Greg 00:35:01 Oh shit. They're like, what? So I don't know. They're given a list of things and they're told you cannot do these things and they will not budge.
Ed 00:35:10 Well, we are now standing above Whitty Road and looking towards Ben Giachetti. It looks wide open, dude. I mean, we're not going to walk the whole thing now. We don't have time. It's starting to rain, but it looks wide open, man.
Greg 00:35:23 I'm glad they're putting. They appear to be putting trees on it. One of the complaints about this new Green Mile. Was it like a good half of its width in a lot of places, is taken up by what looked like swimming pools.
Ed 00:35:37 That's right.
Greg 00:35:37 Yeah. So I guess they're going to plant pillows with dirt and put plants there, which I am a huge fan of. So that's good.
Ed 00:35:43 Well, we got to come back with our bikes. Greg, we just dropped off here your tires to get fixed. So when you're, when your bike is functional, let's let's do a Bangkok podcast ride.
Ed 00:35:53 Like, screw the rest of those guys we ride with. Let's do a tandem Bangkok podcast. Benji Kitty, green mile, Lumpinee ride.
Greg 00:36:02 You mean my regular crew?
Ed 00:36:04 Yeah. Screw those.
Greg 00:36:04 Guys. What if I anger them? What if they won't accept me anymore?
Ed 00:36:07 Well, this will be a special podcast ride.
Greg 00:36:10 I'll tell them they can't join. Good stuff.
Ed 00:36:18 Well, I'm glad we went out there. Even though both you and I love it, I just don't go there enough.
Greg 00:36:24 Yeah, I used to go there. I was like, back when I was doing some jogging. I used to get in the car and a taxi and just drive there and do a couple of laps and, but it's just, it's it's just a bit too far away for me right now. but it's almost a destination for me. Like, let's go to Lumpinee Park and see what's new. Sure. Totally. yeah, I just really I really am so happy that it's it's still there and it's it still gets love.
Greg 00:36:48 That's that's my big takeaway, no doubt.
Ed 00:36:50 I, I'm happy with my new place, but if for some reason I end up not working at my university or if I switch jobs, that area, you know, you know, like near Benedictine, near Lumpinee, that that's my prime place to live. If you know, if if I end up switching jobs, I just think that's the coolest. I mean, really, it's the it's the best place for me as far as I'm concerned. It's the best place in all of Thailand because I would love to visit other places in Thailand, but I don't I don't think I could ever do the the farm life thing. And even even though I love the beach, I don't think I could do it full time. I'd love to have a beach house or vacation house, but I could. I couldn't do it full time. And so in Bangkok, where's where it would be better to live than in between Lumpinee and Benji Kitty.
Greg 00:37:39 Two gigantic parks with all the first world conveniences just down the street.
Ed 00:37:43 Yep yep yep. You got it.
Greg 00:37:45 Nice. Cool. All right, let's get into some love, loathe or live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discussed to decide if it's something we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept us. Something that we just have to learn to live with no matter how we feel about it. And this weekend, you're on deck. What's up?
Ed 00:38:05 All right. this is a classic one. Although I'm not sure we've ever. It's ever been a love letter live with before. But on the bonus show, I talked about the story that I told at the recent PKK story event, which I've partial. I've partially told the story on the podcast before. It had to do with my ex-wife's motorbike accident. But in that story, a monk's blessing ceremony plays a part in that story. And so I just wanted to get your take on, you know, in new, new condos, when businesses start, obviously, life events, monks blessing ceremonies are just a common thing in Thailand.
Ed 00:38:49 Yeah. And, of course, you and I are respectful dudes. We're we're cool expats. so I'm not asking for any disrespectful opinion, but, what's your what's your take on these things? Are you, you know, are you, are you kind of an eager participant in these things or are you, Hey, you do the ceremony. I'm busy. I'm going to be down here in my office. Like what? What's your attitude? Do you think they're cool? Like, hey, this is Buddhist culture, this is Thai culture. I'm going to go check out the monks. Or are you, I'm busy. I'll be. You know, I've got a I've got to run an errand. But you take care of this.
Greg 00:39:27 Oh. That's interesting. That's really interesting question. I would be way more on board if they were shorter, like.
Ed 00:39:35 Right.
Greg 00:39:35 Right, right. If the if the monks would come in for ten minutes, throw some holy water around, guy. Bye bye.
Greg 00:39:41 yeah. You know, I'm, I'm there, but sitting on the floor for 45 minutes while they chant is a bit much. That being said, I'm happy to do it just as a sign of respect for whatever it happens to be.
Ed 00:39:53 Yeah, well, perhaps you're perhaps you're a better man than I am, I. Okay, so when I first got here, I thought they were cool. And I really did want to check them out. maybe in a way, it's for me. It's a little bit like Thai temples. What? Once I did the main ones, you know, which I think you should do, and, you know, you should check them out now. Now I'm now I'm very underwhelmed by temples. You know, if I'm traveling or if I go to a new a new city in Bangkok and someone says like, oh, there's a famous temple over here, I'm usually not into it. I'm not that excited. And I'm kind of I'm kind of that way. I'm kind of that way about these blessing ceremonies.
Ed 00:40:29 you know, I'll do what I have to do. So if I, if if because of my position or status or because it's my girlfriend or my wife, you know, I'll do my duty. But, I gotta say, I'm, I'm I'm not a I don't know, am I allowed to say I just I'm not a fan. I'm just not. I'm not into it. So if I can, if I can get out of it, I will.
Greg 00:40:49 I won't try to get out of it, but I'm not going to clear my calendar to make it either. So. Yeah. Yeah. You know.
Ed 00:40:54 That's a, that's a good that's a good way to be polite Mr..
Greg 00:40:57 Greg I think so.
Ed 00:40:58 Yeah.
Greg 00:40:58 Yeah. Interesting question. Interesting.
Ed 00:41:00 So I guess we're we're both we're both live with, out of, out of the need to be polite.
Greg 00:41:06 I think so, yeah. Yeah. I don't mind it, but. Yeah.
Ed 00:41:09 All right. A final thanks to our patrons who support the show.
Ed 00:41:11 Patrons get a ton of cool perks. and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping in our never ending quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. We're Bangkok podcast on social media, Bangkok Podcast on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast app. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages. Unless, of course, you're an agent who sends endless pitch emails on behalf of a client.
Greg 00:41:38 That's right. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website. We'll put that on the show. Give me up on blue Sky where I'm Luke Cage. Thank you for listening, everyone, and I'll see you back here next week.
Ed 00:41:48 No doubt.
Ed 00:00:10 So if you're like us and love the history, greenery and wizardry of Bangkok's first public park, you'll dig this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.
Greg 00:00:32 So what the crap? This is the Bangkok podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Bangkok in 2001 and was immediately overwhelmed by the complexity of the BTS and Lumpinee Park. What can I say? I'm just a small town farm boy from the Canadian prairies.
Ed 00:00:49 And the funny thing is this back then the BTS had had maybe one line and two.
Greg 00:00:54 It had Sukhumvit and and Silom and I was like so confusing. How do I navigate.
Ed 00:01:00 And I am Ed Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 25 years ago, fell in love with the realization that any Thai sign or menu can be years out of date. So I never left.
Greg 00:01:14 Nice. Oh, yeah. I'll have the Anderton special, please. At the restaurant.
Greg 00:01:17 The Prime Minister from 1996 or whatever that was.
Ed 00:01:22 Well, like that intro was sparked by. I was in my food line right next to where I live, and there was a a sign for coffee, like they have a coffee shop. But when I moved, when I moved into this neighborhood seven years ago, I tried to order coffee and they said, oh no, no, like the coffee shop closed and the sign is still up.
Greg 00:01:42 It happens a lot. Like I'll have this one. Oh, we don't have that one. So why is it on display and why is it on the list?
Ed 00:01:48 No, it's not just that they don't have everything. It's that the menu will stay wrong for years and they won't update the menu for years.
Greg 00:01:56 We don't make that anymore. Do you think maybe you should update things? No. Okay.
Ed 00:02:02 All right. We want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world.
Ed 00:02:18 But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics on this week's bonus show. We chatted about Greg's drug addled week laying on his sofa after a back injury he got from a fight with his swimming pool, and an update on the recent PKK stories event, which I was a speaker at, and what the future for this cool little event holds, and discussions on the Thai Landbridge project across the Isthmus of Kra, which has seen renewed interest in the wake of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and what it might mean for southern Thailand to learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff. Plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.
Greg 00:03:10 I'm telling you, man, Thailand's got to jump on this soft power thing. The the Isthmus of Kra. Sounds like I'm. I love that name so much. It sounds like a superhero in the New Avengers movie.
Greg 00:03:19 They've got to, like, have, like a Thai superhero that's fighting.
Ed 00:03:23 With.
Greg 00:03:24 Captain America or something.
Ed 00:03:26 I'm with you.
Greg 00:03:27 As always. If you have a comment, a show idea, or just want to say hi. Head to Bangkok podcast.com and click on the little microphone button at the bottom right to leave us a voicemail, and we'll play that on the show. Well, in this episode we come to the celebration a little bit late, but that's okay because we think it's a cause worth celebrating. Now, as you may have read, Lumpinee Park, the first public park in Bangkok, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Now, to mark the occasion, the park has had some serious TLC with a bunch of landscaping, renovation of existing buildings, and the addition of a few new structures that aim to keep it on pace with a modern tastes of modern Bangkok. Or Bangkok, as Ed prefers to say. Correct. Never wants to pass up an opportunity to head to the park and walk around.
Greg 00:04:08 And. And I stopped by this past weekend and took a walk to check things out. So in this episode, we're going to start with some in-studio recording. And then cut to the conversation we had while we were walking around the park, being shown up by sweaty old men with their shirts off, trying to find some monitor lizards, and of course, admiring the view of Salem's skyscrapers, which never gets old. So yeah, I hear you and I headed out the other day. We had a nice, short, sweaty walk around the park and I just always really, really love it. Like I said in the interview, you'll hear, I'd love that it exists, and I love that it's still so important, for sure.
Ed: It was quite hot and humid, and it was funny. It was actually a little bit overcast. It wasn't a great day, and it even started to rain. But, this is just the time of the year, man.
Ed 00:04:54 It was It was brutal. But as always. Lumpinee crushes. It wins.
Greg 00:05:00 Lumpinee crushes. There we go. That's another poster. That'd be a great slogan for the park. You should sell that to the team in charge. 20 baht every time someone uses it. yeah, it's a fantastic place. And, like. Like I said, again, you'll hear this in an interview, but, you know, so much stuff in Thailand gets built and then people are like, ta da! And then it just gets forgotten about and it falls into disrepair. But you have to wait ten years for it to happen.
Greg 00:05:28 Right? Right. And, it's not a perfect park and it's not the, you know, it's got some, some issues that I think I wish would get sorted out, but I just I just love it. I think it's, it's it's beautiful. And it played a very important role in my early days in Bangkok.
Greg 00:05:42 I think a lot of people can say the same thing. so before we jump into the interview that we did while we were walking around, I just want to touch on some of the buildings in the park, actually, which I looked into. And, there's some interesting history here that I actually didn't know about. So along the southern side of the park, along Rama four, there's Lumpinee Hall. Have you ever stopped to look at this building or notice it?
Ed 00:06:08 I've walked past it, but that's about it.
Greg 00:06:10 Yeah. And if you look online, you'll see some really nice pictures inside. It actually used to be, like a really popular place for ballroom dancing. Like in the 1970s.
Ed 00:06:20 Oh, I didn't know that.
Greg 00:06:21 Yeah, it was like the hip place to go. this is sort of sort of like a modern import from the West. Ballroom dancing was not a big thing in Thailand. So all of the people who used to do it went to Lumpinee Hall to do it there.
Ed 00:06:35 Oh I.
Greg 00:06:35 See. Yeah. And it closed down in 2014 and it's kind of been abandoned since then, but I think it's been renovated for the new 100th years. and right across from there, sort of right along the edge of Beaufort Road, there's the Lumpinee Recreation Center. And again, I've walked by it a million times, but I've never gone in.
Ed 00:06:55 Have you? I've never gone in, but I. I've gone past many times. It's pretty good.
Greg 00:07:00 Yeah. Everyone says it's a really nice workout place. It's got basketball courts, it's got badminton courts, it's got tennis courts. It's got like a gym, weightlifting gym with a ton of machines. It's got a really nice covered swimming pool. And check this out, membership 300 bot a year.
Ed 00:07:15 Okay, that's a little ping.
Greg 00:07:18 Too much a.
Ed 00:07:20 Well, the funny thing is I, I, I looked into it years ago and I was always afraid because it's so central in Bangkok and everyone knows about Lapine Park. I just assumed it would be super crowded all the time, but when I walk past it, it often does not look that crowded as you think it might be.
Greg 00:07:45 Yeah, I've never seen it full of people. I've never seen people outside or anything. Like if you had told me that this was close. Most of the time I would totally have believed you. Maybe it is, I don't know, but. But yeah, it looks really nice. And I think it's easy also to sort of think a fitness facility at Lumpinee Park is probably pretty skanky and rundown, because I think what a lot of people do see is the open air weightlifting area. Right. Which is, you know, buckets of cement and tractor tires on iron bars and stuff like that. Just super old school. Now, the guys who use that gym are absolutely jacked, right? Right. So they they, they know what they're doing. But the actual gym, the actual fitness center is apparently really, really nice. I should make it a make it a point to go in and check it out sometime.
Ed 00:08:32 Yeah. No, it looks nice. And I think people often assume that public facilities by the government are going to be in disrepair.
Ed 00:08:41 But that's not always true. I mean, maybe it's maybe it's a safe guess, but it's not it's not always true because, you know, because I've looked in in there and it looks pretty well kept.
Greg 00:08:52 Right? What do they say about being a pessimist? The good thing is that you're either being constantly proven right or are pleasantly surprised.
Ed 00:08:58 There you go. There you.
Greg 00:08:59 Go. So in the park, there's also a library, which again, I've never been in. And again, I need to rectify that. The interesting thing about this, Ed, is that even the library itself said it was Thailand's first public library.
Ed 00:09:14 Wait, it says where does it? Oh, you mean it says that on their website?
Greg 00:09:18 It says it on the website. Yeah. And a few other places. I've seen it around as well. But we've done some, some research on this and it really depends. Depends how you define library, how you define public. Oh I see. And you know, well, I.
Ed 00:09:32 Feel that, I feel that that library, the one in Lapine, it said it opened in the 1960s. So Thailand must have had a public library before that, I think.
Greg 00:09:40 Right. But I think when this one opened in Lumpinee Park, it was like the first one that was opened specifically for the general public, like anyone could use it at any time, whereas places like the Nielson Haze Library and the National Library like they had limitations on who could use it kind of thing.
Ed 00:09:55 Oh, I see.
Greg 00:09:56 That could be a little.
Ed 00:09:57 So.
Greg 00:09:58 Maybe a little bit ill defined.
Ed 00:10:00 Maybe it's the first truly public library, but that's cool. It just shows it. Just so you know, we talked about a little bit this in the interview. Lumpinee has just played a lot of different roles, throughout its history.
Greg 00:10:13 Yeah, totally. And it's still there and operating as a library, which is fantastic. And I also found something that I had no idea about before I started looking into it. But Lumpinee Park used to have a gigantic floating restaurant on one of its lakes.
Ed 00:10:27 I didn't know that. I did not know that.
Greg 00:10:29 Yeah, it was, it was it was floating. It was like a building built that jutted out into the lake kind of thing. Oh, right. But it was in the it was in the shape of a boat. And the mast head, like the the carving at the front of the quote unquote boat was a was a woman. and it was called the ordinary Narva Floating Restaurant, but it completely burned down in 1971.
Ed 00:10:51 Oh, wow. I had I had no idea.
Greg 00:10:54 Yeah. If you go online, you can find some some old photos of it. Not not many, but there's a few.
Ed 00:10:58 Well, at least if it if at least if it burned down, it just fell into the pond. So it didn't it didn't catch anything else on fire.
Greg 00:11:06 I mean, I guess so I guess so that's a big benefit of having a floating restaurant burning down. So, yeah, the buildings on site are historic, and, a lot of them are probably a lot more useful than we give them credit for.
Greg 00:11:20 And I think we should make it a point to go down there and check them out again.
Ed 00:11:23 Yeah, it's obviously a great place just to take a walk, but, there are facilities there too.
Greg 00:11:28 Yeah. So let's let's, let's cut to the, chat that you and I had when we were walking around the park the other day and, get our impressions of what it was like down there. That's this past weekend.
Greg 00:11:40 So we're in, Lapine Park now, checking out after it is, quote unquote opened, doors seems a little bit rough around the edges. we're checking out the hawker centre.
Ed 00:11:51 The new hawker centre. I love that, I love that name.
Greg 00:11:54 What are your thoughts on a hawker centre in Thailand?
Ed 00:12:00 Well obviously Bangkok has a million markets and so on the one hand this is just another market, but it is actually quite cool and pretty professional. So this is like a structure. It's really a building with a roof that's open on the side. I understand why they're making somewhat of a big deal out of it. because previously this would just be stalls like a crowding the sidewalk.
Greg 00:12:24 Yeah, right. I'm a little bit biased against hawker centres because it's a very Singaporean concept. And we've said on the show many times, if if someone wants the Singapore experience, they'll just go to Singapore and the terms of attracting tourists. But for locals, I don't know if this offers any huge benefit over just the traditional sort of street markets that we kind of all.
Ed 00:12:46 I guess it's covered. So it's rain friendly. It's a little bit more organized. But you're right. I don't want to I don't want Bangkok to become as orderly as Singapore. That'd be a nightmare.
Greg 00:12:57 Yeah, that'd be Singapore. Yeah, we don't want that. The chaos is part of why we love it here. But it is. It is noticeably cooler in here than it was outside.
Greg 00:13:37 One thing I'll never understand is the ability of Thai people or the Hubris of Thai organizers when they place, like a food center or a drinks bar or something like that, right next to a busy road.
Ed 00:13:55 True that. Well, I mean, this is a truism throughout Bangkok where you just have street restaurants, like, right next to traffic. Yeah.
Greg 00:14:04 And this, of course, goes. I mean, this hawker center is right on, I guess, the northwest corner of Lumpinee. So it's right up against wretched Army Road and Saracen Road.
Ed 00:14:14 Yeah. I mean, as the listeners who will be able to tell, there is a lot of noise pollution. Yeah.
Greg 00:14:20 Well, I mean, bonus points for trying something new, I guess.
Ed 00:14:25 yeah. It's better that they're here than, I think, crowding the sidewalks.
Ed 00:14:29 So this was the old catch 22. You know, you and I grew up, meet me more than you like on Sukhumvit Road. And one of its charms was the million stalls down the road. Yeah. Which gives it its kind of chaotic charm. But one of the most annoying things about Sugerman is all those goddamn stalls that like, cause traffic jams where you can't, you know, you just want to walk a block and it takes 20 minutes.
Greg 00:14:58 Yeah, it got to be a bit too much in some spots. And then it became annoying and anger inducing, which is not. That's right. Well, I mean, points to them for trying something new. it still looks a bit rough around the edges and still.
Ed 00:15:12 But it's nothing. I wouldn't say it's nothing amazing.
Greg 00:15:15 No, nothing amazing. But I'll be back. So I really. I really love Lumpinee Park. I love its location. I love the fact that it exists, and I love the fact that so many people love it. Because in Bangkok, a lot of things like this, a lot of big infrastructure projects, they get built and then they get ignored or forgotten about. That's right. I'm so happy that that people still care enough about Lumpinee to keep it going?
Ed 00:15:44 Absolutely. This is one of my early loves in Bangkok. I mentioned before when we did our show kind of comparing Benja, Kitty and Lumpinee. I basically admitted to being biased because I'm just I'm just nostalgic for this park because I spent a lot of time here in 2001, 2002, 2003. And I love the fact that it you know, it's right in the middle of the city. It's conveniently located to Sukhumvit, which was my, my my hangout. so I, I love Benji Kitty, but Lumpinee will just always have a place in my heart and and it's so cool that they're they're working on it. They're improving it. I was doing some walks, maybe six months ago, and they were building, like, totally new bathrooms, which the bathrooms had gotten kind of skanky as public bathrooms do.
Ed 00:16:36 Like now they have like, I don't know how many, like, probably ten fresh, clean new bathrooms. Oh, really? and they've made improvements in other stuff as well.
Greg 00:16:47 Let me ask you this. Would you drink water from a water fountain in the park here?
Ed 00:16:51 Yes, I would.
Greg 00:16:52 You would.
Ed 00:16:53 I would, yeah. I mean, I don't think it's. I think I would do, like, regularly or in large quantity. But as we have done previously on the show, Bangkok water supply is meets international standards. As long as the kind of last mile of pipes is clean. And I'm guessing, like I said, limpid, especially now it's it's been undergoing this rejuvenation. Yeah, it's got a clean, like, modern vibe now.
Greg 00:17:22 Tell you what, though, I'm really getting annoyed by, constantly being passed by 70 year old dudes who are just jacked and running along shirtless. That's right. I mean, look bad, old man.
Ed 00:17:32 Yeah. How dare these people make us look bad.
Greg 00:17:34 I remember one of my first memories in Lumpinee was, my buddy Brendan came to visit me when I was about six months into my life in Bangkok and came down to Lumpinee here, and I didn't know where I was or what was going on. And I remember we had the Lonely Planet book, of course, from Mr. George Cummings. Yep. And, I was so lost I had to get, I think, to Rama for. And I didn't know where it was. I just knew it was the big road. So I kept stopping people and using my my absolutely caveman Thai. At the time, I was just asking for the unknown. Like the funny, the big street where, oh, funny guy and a couple of people. I couldn't understand what I was saying. I don't know how I was butchering it, but it was so bad and I was just. And then I pointed at a map. And we all know how how successful that is. In Thailand, people look at a map and I'm like, I have no idea what this means. And so we just wandered around for hours. Not a lot of hours, but we wandered around for a long time and we finally ended up finding a company that's great Park Rama for entrance.
Greg 00:18:34 I got so lost.
Ed 00:18:35 That reminds me of my early days and I was talking to some, I think some of my students and I was trying to ask them, like, how do I get to the child Pryor River? Because I wanted to go check out the main river and they didn't. Obviously I was mispronouncing child prior and it took them a while to decipher. Like I remember like it was the three of them, like talking to each other. And I'm going to call Priya and they're working on it. They're repeating it. And eventually one of them is like, oh, and then like they pronounced it correctly, it took them about. It took three people about 3 or 4 minutes to figure out I was saying child Priya.
Greg 00:19:10 I had the same experience, but with talking about the Skytrain, and I wanted to get to the victory monument and I was trying.
Greg 00:19:16 I didn't know the word for train. I didn't know the word for Skytrain or Victory Monument, and I kept doing like a snake motion in the arm, in the air with my arm. Like the train, the train. These two guys were like this guy, this guy. Mental classic. It took many, many conversations between them to figure out what I was seeing.
Ed 00:19:34 The sad thing is, if I said chow prior today, probably 50% of Thais would not understand me, so I'm up to 50% comprehension now.
Greg 00:19:43 What's your take on the most famous residents of Lumpinee Park which are here? Well, you don't monitor lizards.
Ed 00:19:49 Well, you know myself, I'm a huge, huge fan, as I think listeners know from me mentioning before, I'm a huge fan of the monitors, which we were now just walking through the park. We're we're heading towards the Green Mile entrance. We've kind of looped around a bit and it's an overcast day, still hot and humid. And actually, considering we've been walking for ten, 15 minutes, I haven't seen a water monitor yet.
Greg 00:20:13 No, you're right, I haven't seen a single one. And I do notice that. I mean, it's in preparation for the 100th anniversary. The grass does look particularly short and well-kept. They've obviously been doing a lot of landscaping over the past months to get into looking nice for the celebrations, but maybe that drove all the lizards underground, literally.
Ed 00:20:34 Now isn't this is it? I think the celebration is going on right now, isn't it? I think we're I think we're right in the middle of it. It's like, I think it's a week or five days of festivities. I don't really see any festivities going on, but it does look nice.
Greg 00:20:48 It sure does. And it's just, man, I just love this view of downtown, the buildings along Ramaphosa and Salem. Yep. From the park. It's just a so iconic. And it's I don't know it just makes me feel really happy to be in Lapine in Bangkok and able to see views like that. Sitting. Standing next to a palm tree.
Ed 00:21:08 Agreed.
Greg 00:21:09 You know, for a farm boy from Alberta, Canada, this is a pretty exotic place to be. In fact, I'm going to take a photo and I'm going to send it. Let's take a selfie. Sure. We'll put it in our show notes.
Greg 00:21:20 Should we? So we'll be able to capture.
Ed 00:21:23 This exact moment?
Greg 00:21:24 Yeah. One. Two. Three.
Ed 00:21:28 Well, it's funny, you and I did a little bit of research on the history of the park, which we're going to talk about more, but I thought an interesting tidbit was that, the king who we can't really talk about all that much, was getting some criticism for kind of being too westernized. And this park, Lumpinee Park, was modeled after Western style parks. I don't know specifically if it was European or American, right. so part of the reason.
Greg 00:22:04 That was King Rama VI.
Ed 00:22:06 That's right. part of the reason that the park was given a Buddhist name. So Lumpinee is the city or region where the Buddhists supposed to have been born?
Greg 00:22:17 Right.
Greg 00:22:17 Lumbini and.
Ed 00:22:18 Bini. Right. And so the name was meant to be very Thai and very Asian to kind of offset the possible Western nation. But I don't see why a park is something Western.
Greg 00:22:31 No, I mean.
Ed 00:22:33 You're but maybe this is considered Palin's first public park. So maybe at the time they were.
Greg 00:22:39 Like good, like paved roads and recreation. Maybe.
Ed 00:22:43 Maybe they thought of it as European or not Thai. I don't know. this is just what the research says.
Greg 00:22:50 Well, they did a great job making it, where it was. It's funny to think when they. When they planned it. This was a very.
Ed 00:22:56 I've seen. Sorry to interrupt. I've seen the first water monitor. Okay. Let's go.
Greg 00:23:01 I just took a photo of the sign, but, yeah, when it was open, this was the very outskirts of the city. This was the boonies. I know. This way. On the edge of nothing.
Ed 00:23:08 It's crazy to think about.
Greg 00:23:10 Where is it?
Ed 00:23:11 Swimming in the water over there.
Ed 00:23:13 Yeah, according to our research, you know, we're now experts. this was obviously royal land. and it was first partitioned out because the king wanted to do kind of a World's Fair kind of expo thing. Right? That was meant to maybe showcase Thailand on the world stage, but it turns out that particular expo never really happened. But they had the space already delineated, and essentially they got converted to something more like a park.
Greg 00:23:47 Right. Right. And interesting trivia. The statue on the corner of the park in the southwest corner on the corner of Rambo four and, Richard Emory Road. A lot of people think that is a statue of Rama four because it's Rama four road, but it's not. It's actually Rama six. Correct. Donated the land to make the park.
Ed 00:24:06 Yeah. So this park is really, a King Rama, the sixth, project, and, a super smart move. I like these. Yeah. Like, just having green space right in the middle of cities is just genius, and it makes a huge difference.
Greg 00:24:23 I wonder if the city developed sort of around the park in this direction towards Sukhumvit. if it would have done that without the park.
Ed 00:24:31 It's a good question. I mean, as everyone knows, the U.S. embassy is close by. Just on Whittier Road is the U.S. ambassador's residence, which is quite, big and special. Presumably, like this park did play a role in the the direction of development of the city. Yeah.
Greg 00:24:50 Here's a theory. We're just standing on the river now, on that side of the lake, looking at the water monitor. Swimming. It's pretty big. One big boy over there, and we've got probably ten or so tourists taking photos who have all sort of come over to the. Oh, there's another one. Oh he's running. Oh, yeah. He's standing right in front of them. Jesus, I, I think that is a missed opportunity for more Thai soft power.
Ed 00:25:13 Well, I think I think they do promote the lizards that soft power do they. They do.
Greg 00:25:17 They promote.
Ed 00:25:18 Them. Yeah. You know, even though the lizard itself, in Thai culture, the word for the lizard is an insult. Yeah. You know, we already you already took a picture of the sign. If you if you read anything about Lumpinee, even from the Thai government. It does mention the water monitors, I think. I think they've they've embraced it now.
Greg 00:25:37 Okay. Yeah, it mentions it, but I think they should be playing it up. They should have a mascot. I've seen some great shirts. I saw one at at Chatuchak and it was the Jurassic Park logo, but it said Lumbini Park and it was a skeleton of a water monitor. It was genius.
Ed 00:25:50 Oh, I love it. That's great.
Greg 00:25:51 That shit should be all over the place. Like they should really be playing it up. There's apparently not a lot of cities in the world where you can find, quote unquote, dinosaurs right in the middle of the city. I think it's a great opportunity.
Greg 00:26:02 They should lean into it.
Ed 00:26:03 I'm with you. another little tidbit from my so-called research was had to do. I don't know if you caught this in your your research, but there was a kind of a tidbit about the effort to call the number of water monitors. Yes, because apparently it was 2018 right before Covid when they decided that things had gotten just out of control. And what they ended up doing Was removing a lot of the largest lizards, which turned out to be totally ineffective because the lizards had already made it and laid their eggs and and apparently it did. It did nothing to actually call them, not even to increase the population.
Greg 00:26:46 So that'd be like going on a sterilization drives for people over 65. That's right. Yeah. Not really working.
Ed 00:26:51 Yeah, yeah. There was some reason why they said it might even have increased the numbers. Maybe the maybe older monitors eat eggs or something, but so they removed the, the mature monitors and left the hatchlings and, and hence there's still hey man.
Greg 00:27:07 Young, young young millennials don't want to have families because they got to take care of their old folks. It's the same situation.
Ed 00:27:12 That's right, that's right.
Greg 00:27:13 Get rid of the old folks. You get a lot more freedom.
Ed 00:27:15 Yeah. So they're pretty hard to miss. I wouldn't say they're everywhere, but if you walk around, I would say for ten minutes with your eyes peeled and you're near the water, you're going to see one.
Greg 00:27:25 I think they're fantastic. Yeah. these there's a very old story. Not an old story, but I guess it's from early 2000. And it prompted sort of an earlier round of culling of lizards when a farang woman was jogging in the park here, and a young monitor lizard fell out of a tree onto her shoulders. Oh, really? While she was jogging and she of course, she was like, what the fuck? You know, the thing was freaking out and she's freaking out, and and she got scratched up a little bit. And of course, it was in all the newspapers.
Greg 00:27:53 So that's what prompted people to be like, well, maybe we should work to control the population.
Ed 00:27:58 Well, considering how big some of them gets, they're surprisingly not dangerous. Like, they're just not aggressive. They do occasionally move fast. Like you, you have to hang out here for a while to see them sprint, but it actually is a thing, so I have I have seen them just take off and then stop. But normally they're they're not the right word is they're they're slovenly. Sloth. Sloth.
Greg 00:28:24 Like I feel I feel seen I'm pretty fast when I'm frightened to know.
Ed 00:28:30 They tend to move quite slowly. and that's why they're great. they're very photogenic. They're great opportunities to take pictures. I've taken a bunch. I've shot video, like you. Soft power. Yeah, but I don't know. It's funny. I just don't know if the Thai government wants to embrace, you know, it's like, imagine, like a huge poster of, like an elephant. An orchid, like a beautiful Thai woman, like lying.
Ed 00:28:55 And then like a lizard head. A big lizard head for representing like a mango, mango sticky rice and a giant lizard head.
Greg 00:29:04 so maybe that's a good point. That's fine. I'm. I'm shocked at how many people are terrified of them. And the same with geckos. Like the little geckos. Like, some people freak out when they see them. You're right, you're right.
Ed 00:29:14 I don't get I don't get either of them. Especially because they're not dangerous. Right? Like it's another thing. Like, I would probably freak out if I saw a cobra like, like crawling across our path. I would probably freak out, but.
Greg 00:29:26 That is a good point. Come see our our our beautiful culture, our beautiful women, our majestic jungle mammals.
Ed 00:29:32 And our dinosaurs.
Greg 00:29:34 And our scaly tongue wagon. Yeah. Ground dwelling scavengers. Yeah.
Ed 00:29:40 Well, at least, whether they've embraced them or not, I'm not sure, but at least they're not, suppressing it. They've kind of faced the reality.
Greg 00:29:48 Well, I'm glad they're here. So many years ago, I, And this is before GPS and everything. So in the early days when I used to have to plan the bike routes that we were riding right way ahead of time and memorize them, I was zooming in on Google Maps, and I was like, what's this green line between Luchini? Oh yeah, and Benja Kitty and I zoomed in. I'm like, that looks like a road above the road. Yeah. And I mean, it's it's it's much more common knowledge now. But back then not a lot of people knew about it.
Ed 00:30:25 And it was kind of a right. It was kind of a seen as this secret shortcut. Almost. Yeah.
Greg 00:30:32 But it's, it's an elevated walkway that goes from Lumpinee to Benja Kitty. Now, Benja Kitty itself has gone a massive renovation over the past few years. Correct into the The Bench Kitty Forest Park. But they've just done a lot of work on the Green Mile, and we're just walking up to it right now because previously it was it was really neat, but it was a pain in the ass to navigate because it had steep ramps, steep stairs.
Ed 00:31:01 Yeah. So it was it was rideable. You could ride your bike, but at various places you had to pick up your bike.
Greg 00:31:07 Yeah, yeah. And at the northeast corner of Lumpinee, there used to be some very large and very, really nice that I used to go to badminton courts. that's where this Thai national team practiced, actually. And they knocked those down. And now we have this pretty decent looking winding ramp that comes from the Green Mile all the way down into the northeast corner of Lapine.
Ed 00:31:34 It's quite cool. It might actually even be too windy. You know, it's it's this is not a good example of the shortest distance between two points as a straight line. This is the opposite of that.
Greg 00:31:45 I think it's a feature, not a bug. I think it's designed so bike riders don't fly off the yeah thing down into the park.
Ed 00:31:52 True that it is starting to rain. So we're gonna we're gonna tough it out a bit here.
Greg 00:31:59 A little summer sprinkle. But this is really nice.
Greg 00:32:02 And this is, this reinforces my maxim that any major structural or infrastructure project in Thailand takes about five years to get to the point where it should have been when it opened. That's right. Right. So, like you think about Suhana boom. When it opened, it was just terrible. It was hugely controversial. It had like six urinals for the whole airport. You know, but after a few years, they built a lot more. A lot more stuff and made it a much better. So. That's right. This has been here years and years and years. But this is what it should have been all along. Those stairs at a mile were just too much of a barrier to make it useful or appealing to any.
Ed 00:32:41 Well, good for us. And more so for our friends of ours. Bangkok is just getting more bicycle friendly, so it's taken a long time, but I feel like there's there's the bike community has a voice. Politicians listen, it takes decades.
Greg 00:32:56 They work in dog years.
Greg 00:32:57 So for one, one year of development in a regular city is seven years in Bangkok.
Ed 00:33:01 Well, the problem, as everyone knows, is that the streets are so dangerous for bikers that you really need. You need special lanes and walkways and bike trails. Otherwise it's it's prohibitively dangerous.
Greg 00:33:15 Well, I'm amazed at. I mean, that's about a.
Ed 00:33:20 That's a long.
Greg 00:33:21 75 meter straight shot from the end of the Green Mile, maybe 100m, 120m down to the park. But if you walk along the.
Ed 00:33:29 It's so winding, it's about a kilometre under metres, it's about a kilometre of walking.
Greg 00:33:34 And below us here they're going to put in a dog park. Oh nice. And bring their dogs to run around and pee and poop. So I'm a big fan.
Ed 00:33:46 I gotta go thumbs up for sure. And, I think as we mentioned before, and I think, some of the other YouTubers who've gone along the Green Mile is it will be when it's done possible to just ride in bench kitty, go up a ramp, go all the way down the Green Mile, and then keep riding and end up in Lapine without having to get off your bike.
Greg 00:34:11 That's a hell of a loop. That would be so nice.
Ed 00:34:13 So it's going to be. It might be true now, but if not, it's supposed to be true anyway.
Greg 00:34:18 The the big drawback, of course, is the the rules. I think you can only I'm not sure if they're going to change them, but the rules say you can only ride your bike in Lumpinee from 10 to 3, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m..
Ed 00:34:29 That's right. It's very restricted hours.
Greg 00:34:31 Yeah, and the guards at Forest Park are notoriously dickheads. They won't let you do anything now.
Ed 00:34:39 When? When? No, no, no, that's when you can ride in Lumpinee.
Greg 00:34:42 As far as I know, that used to be the rules.
Ed 00:34:44 And what about riding in Benji, Kitty?
Greg 00:34:46 I think it's a bit a bit more relaxed, but you have to ride on the bike paths. You can't go off them at all. You can't ride your bike on the elevated parkways. A friend of mine once was doing parkour there with his parkour group, where the guards are like, you can't jump on this little this foot high cement wall.
Greg 00:35:01 Oh shit. They're like, what? So I don't know. They're given a list of things and they're told you cannot do these things and they will not budge.
Ed 00:35:10 Well, we are now standing above Whitty Road and looking towards Ben Giachetti. It looks wide open, dude. I mean, we're not going to walk the whole thing now. We don't have time. It's starting to rain, but it looks wide open, man.
Greg 00:35:23 I'm glad they're putting. They appear to be putting trees on it. One of the complaints about this new Green Mile. Was it like a good half of its width in a lot of places, is taken up by what looked like swimming pools.
Ed 00:35:37 That's right.
Greg 00:35:37 Yeah. So I guess they're going to plant pillows with dirt and put plants there, which I am a huge fan of. So that's good.
Ed 00:35:43 Well, we got to come back with our bikes. Greg, we just dropped off here your tires to get fixed. So when you're, when your bike is functional, let's let's do a Bangkok podcast ride.
Ed 00:35:53 Like, screw the rest of those guys we ride with. Let's do a tandem Bangkok podcast. Benji Kitty, green mile, Lumpinee ride.
Greg 00:36:02 You mean my regular crew?
Ed 00:36:04 Yeah. Screw those.
Greg 00:36:04 Guys. What if I anger them? What if they won't accept me anymore?
Ed 00:36:07 Well, this will be a special podcast ride.
Greg 00:36:10 I'll tell them they can't join. Good stuff.
Ed 00:36:18 Well, I'm glad we went out there. Even though both you and I love it, I just don't go there enough.
Greg 00:36:24 Yeah, I used to go there. I was like, back when I was doing some jogging. I used to get in the car and a taxi and just drive there and do a couple of laps and, but it's just, it's it's just a bit too far away for me right now. but it's almost a destination for me. Like, let's go to Lumpinee Park and see what's new. Sure. Totally. yeah, I just really I really am so happy that it's it's still there and it's it still gets love.
Greg 00:36:48 That's that's my big takeaway, no doubt.
Ed 00:36:50 I, I'm happy with my new place, but if for some reason I end up not working at my university or if I switch jobs, that area, you know, you know, like near Benedictine, near Lumpinee, that that's my prime place to live. If you know, if if I end up switching jobs, I just think that's the coolest. I mean, really, it's the it's the best place for me as far as I'm concerned. It's the best place in all of Thailand because I would love to visit other places in Thailand, but I don't I don't think I could ever do the the farm life thing. And even even though I love the beach, I don't think I could do it full time. I'd love to have a beach house or vacation house, but I could. I couldn't do it full time. And so in Bangkok, where's where it would be better to live than in between Lumpinee and Benji Kitty.
Greg 00:37:39 Two gigantic parks with all the first world conveniences just down the street.
Ed 00:37:43 Yep yep yep. You got it.
Greg 00:37:45 Nice. Cool. All right, let's get into some love, loathe or live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discussed to decide if it's something we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept us. Something that we just have to learn to live with no matter how we feel about it. And this weekend, you're on deck. What's up?
Ed 00:38:05 All right. this is a classic one. Although I'm not sure we've ever. It's ever been a love letter live with before. But on the bonus show, I talked about the story that I told at the recent PKK story event, which I've partial. I've partially told the story on the podcast before. It had to do with my ex-wife's motorbike accident. But in that story, a monk's blessing ceremony plays a part in that story. And so I just wanted to get your take on, you know, in new, new condos, when businesses start, obviously, life events, monks blessing ceremonies are just a common thing in Thailand.
Ed 00:38:49 Yeah. And, of course, you and I are respectful dudes. We're we're cool expats. so I'm not asking for any disrespectful opinion, but, what's your what's your take on these things? Are you, you know, are you, are you kind of an eager participant in these things or are you, Hey, you do the ceremony. I'm busy. I'm going to be down here in my office. Like what? What's your attitude? Do you think they're cool? Like, hey, this is Buddhist culture, this is Thai culture. I'm going to go check out the monks. Or are you, I'm busy. I'll be. You know, I've got a I've got to run an errand. But you take care of this.
Greg 00:39:27 Oh. That's interesting. That's really interesting question. I would be way more on board if they were shorter, like.
Ed 00:39:35 Right.
Greg 00:39:35 Right, right. If the if the monks would come in for ten minutes, throw some holy water around, guy. Bye bye.
Greg 00:39:41 yeah. You know, I'm, I'm there, but sitting on the floor for 45 minutes while they chant is a bit much. That being said, I'm happy to do it just as a sign of respect for whatever it happens to be.
Ed 00:39:53 Yeah, well, perhaps you're perhaps you're a better man than I am, I. Okay, so when I first got here, I thought they were cool. And I really did want to check them out. maybe in a way, it's for me. It's a little bit like Thai temples. What? Once I did the main ones, you know, which I think you should do, and, you know, you should check them out now. Now I'm now I'm very underwhelmed by temples. You know, if I'm traveling or if I go to a new a new city in Bangkok and someone says like, oh, there's a famous temple over here, I'm usually not into it. I'm not that excited. And I'm kind of I'm kind of that way. I'm kind of that way about these blessing ceremonies.
Ed 00:40:29 you know, I'll do what I have to do. So if I, if if because of my position or status or because it's my girlfriend or my wife, you know, I'll do my duty. But, I gotta say, I'm, I'm I'm not a I don't know, am I allowed to say I just I'm not a fan. I'm just not. I'm not into it. So if I can, if I can get out of it, I will.
Greg 00:40:49 I won't try to get out of it, but I'm not going to clear my calendar to make it either. So. Yeah. Yeah. You know.
Ed 00:40:54 That's a, that's a good that's a good way to be polite Mr..
Greg 00:40:57 Greg I think so.
Ed 00:40:58 Yeah.
Greg 00:40:58 Yeah. Interesting question. Interesting.
Ed 00:41:00 So I guess we're we're both we're both live with, out of, out of the need to be polite.
Greg 00:41:06 I think so, yeah. Yeah. I don't mind it, but. Yeah.
Ed 00:41:09 All right. A final thanks to our patrons who support the show.
Ed 00:41:11 Patrons get a ton of cool perks. and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping in our never ending quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. We're Bangkok podcast on social media, Bangkok Podcast on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast app. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages. Unless, of course, you're an agent who sends endless pitch emails on behalf of a client.
Greg 00:41:38 That's right. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through our website. We'll put that on the show. Give me up on blue Sky where I'm Luke Cage. Thank you for listening, everyone, and I'll see you back here next week.
Ed 00:41:48 No doubt.
