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BANGKOK TRANSIT SYSTEM
There’s no smoking allowed on the Bangkok Transit System. And there’s an absolute ban on durian, that mysterious spiky fruit my late Grandfather used to say, “Tastes like heaven, smells like an un-flushed toilet.” I never did test this theory, couldn’t bring myself to con- sume the pungent stuff. I did, however, ride the BTS. A lot.
Far more sophisticated than the New York City Subway, to ride the BTS you have to make a one- time purchase of a reusable fare card. The fare is any- where be- tween 15 and 55 baht, depending on the distance you travel. That’s 49 cents to $1.78 if you don’t know the ex- change rate. As a fifteen- year-old with a meager allowance, the price was optimal. I lived off the Asoke BTS station, around the corner from Soi Cowboy, a neon street with more sex traffic than vehicular and a great selection of fried bugs during the day. One of the trips I made most frequently on the BTS was to Central World, a magnanimous mall just north of Lumphini Park and south of Ratchethewi.
It was only three stops: Nana, Phloen Chit, and I’d hop off at Chit Lom. From there I would amble slowly through the heat along the Sky Walk, an elevated pathway. Hovering above the the teeming city and under the rumbling shadow of the BTS tracks, it led straight to the air-conditioned, motion- censored entrance of Central World.
"There’s an absolute ban on durian, that mysterious spiky fruit my late Grandfather used to say, 'Tastes like heaven, smells like an un-flushed toilet.'”
Along the way, sometimes I’d stop to watch people worship at the Erawan Shrine, an ode to the Hindu god Brahma. Standing above a cloud of incense, looking down on hands in prayer, I’d hope someone might drop a few baht in the money box, for which a group of
seated performers would stand and begin a traditional Thai dance, their hands extending backwards in curves from years of devoted stretching.
Central World had everything. And by “everything,” I mean it housed the first ever Forever 21 store in Thailand. Gone were the days of my falling in love with an item of clothing (or several) online and having to wait weeks or months! for an order to get lost in the international mail, maybe, eventually, hopefully turning up at the American Embassy addressed to my dad. Now, I could simply and efficiently teleport myself to an actual outlet via the BTS.
Until one morning I awoke to find that Central World was in flames, an enormous black cloud billowing from its roof. Asoke was smoking, too. The political unrest in Bangkok had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. The “Red Shirts”, protesting in opposition to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, had set alight 36 buildings with homemade bombs and molotov cocktails.
That day, we were told to stay indoors. Thailand was in a state of emergency. A curfew was instated and all residents were on lockdown. I sat in my room on the 24th floor of Hawaii Tower, on Soi 23, and watched as Forever 21 went up in flames. The stench of scorched commercial fashion wafted steadily across the city, dissipating into humidity with all the potential looks I’d never get to realize and the prom dress I had on hold behind the counter. That day, it wasn’t safe to ride the BTS.