Chinese New Year, Yaowarat, 14 Feb 2010

Last Sunday, just after midnight. Wending home from the Rain Dogs goodbye party, down soi Suan Plu, where families set up glowing pavement shrines on red tables, with statues, heady incense, oranges, peacock feathers, sweets, recorded chiming music. Gunpowder smoke overpowering the petrol-smell of the roads, firecrackers set off in abundance in the middle of the night.

Last Sunday, late afternoon. I took the express boat from Saphan Taksin to Rachawongse pier, and walked in the direction of Yaowarat Road to watch the spectacular performances celebrating Chinese New Year festivities - and they were spectacular, when I eventually reached them, but the festival beckoned from every side-street on the way, so I digressed and dawdled the last of the daylit hours away. A shrine tucked down one soi, bright and crowded. A covered market of dried fruits, gold nugget-shaped chocolates, sweets inside golden fish, with people heading further into the gloom of stalls, towards a temple. A little street with food carts, a woman stirring peanuts in a great roasting-pan, coffee stands.

The main road, heaving with crowds, hung over with red lanterns and yellow banners, lined with food stalls (20-30 baht a portion for everything I sampled). Men and women went about with huge bunches of novelty balloons, toy drums, dragon puppets. I reached the south end of Yaowarat as it got dark, walked under a glowing canopy of lanterns, saw a troupe of flashing snapping lion-dancers perform in a small crowd-clearing, came at last to the stage by China Gate. The acts included opera, acrobats, dancers from all over China, puppets, drumming - and, incongruously, some Thai pop stars that the audience screamed and waved flashing signs for. The performance that sticks in my mind most was a group of dancers in elaborate Chinese Opera gear, whose masks changed multiple times throughout, going from red to green or a feline-featured full-face mask to a black and white half-mask. The changes seemed instantaneous - perhaps a mechanism in their costume that pulled each face away too fast for us to notice? I don't know, but it was amazing.

Yaowarat Road is always worth a visit, especially at night with its neon and street food, but at festival-times it's nothing short of magical.

Singha Golbal Carnival

On Ploenchit, Feb 10 - Mar 14

Aesthetically this is nice, especially at night: glittering reeling rides surrounded by high-rises and malls and the rushing road. But it's very overpriced. 50 baht gets you in, and then you buy non-refundable tokens like oversized bronze coins at 25 baht each; most of the rides that adults can go on are four tokens, so 100 baht, per ride (my friends and I very much wanted to go on the teacups and creepy-faced caterpillar train, but alas, only kids were allowed). The ferris wheel (again, beautiful, carriages like tiny hot-air balloons, peppermint-striped) was fun and gave a good view of the whole carnival and the rides - which could have been a wonderful fairy tale of a place, with its old-school rides, if only there were some crowds and stalls selling hot food. I also went on the flying swings, which were worth the three tokens for the wheeling cityscape view. We spent the last of our tokens on the win-a-giant-Disney-animal games, seemingly designed to be impossible to win - the least difficult involved using a light leather ball to knock heavy metal cans off a stand with a rim.

The verdict: quite fun, though if it was cheaper there would be more people and hence more atmosphere. The Loy Krathong fair at Wat Saket is far better value, with ten-baht attractions and a tiny ferris wheel that takes you round and round forever, and you can hardly move for food and atmosphere - but you'll have to wait till November for that.

Getting there: walk down Ploenchit road from Central Chidlom or Chidlom station, find the lights and music...

Next up: Chinese New Year festivities on Yaowarat Road

Things to do in February

This is a month of red things, with long shining dragons below skytrain stations, Chinese lanterns, love-hearts and strawberries. When I was waiting for a bus to work the other day, the air around the street-market smelled of the usual early-morning grilling chicken and charcoal smoke mingled with velvety perfume from the stalls selling rose bouquets. It's a fun month, with lots going on, but as ever the things that get the big publicity are sales in the giant malls or hotel promotions or big nightclub parties. How to find the cheaper and more interesting diversions? Word of mouth, scouring the internet and boring small-print bits in the Outlook section of the Bangkok Post, or just happening to catch sight of something in the street. I've done a bit of research on likely-looking February happenings, and here present them, in case anyone needs ideas...

Celebrate Chinese New Year

This falls on the 14th of February (a Sunday) this year, and there's bound to be something happening at China Gate in Chinatown on the night. There have been puppet shows and lion dances in past years, and the area is lovely to wander through at dusk, with the lanterns glowing and stalls selling festival treats all along Yaowarat road. Look out for packets of mixed seed and nut brittle and pink and white sugared roasted peanuts.
Getting there: take the metro to Hua Lampong; China Gate is a short walk across the canal and down Thanon Mitaphap Thai-China. This is the symbolic beginning of Chinatown, and the bottom of Yaowarat road.

There are also Chinese cultural shows at Central World on the 6th and 7th (this weekend), from 6 to 8 p.m., showcasing various Chinese performing arts. Nearby is Central Chidlom, which I think has already had its New Year celebrations, but there was a giant lion head sitting in the car park when I went by last night, with red curtains drawn across its maw, which is quite intriguing.
Getting there: both Centrals World and Childom can be reached easily from the Chidlom skytrain station.

Also, Valentine's Day

This year, Chinese New Year is also Valentine's Day. There are all sorts of dinner and hotel promotions all over town, if that's your kind of thing. A lot of nightclubs are also doing Valentine's parties. An alternative is the final night of this year's Concert in the Park series at Lumpini park. These are free open-air concerts by the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, usually featuring a mix of classical pieces and showtunes, which run from December to February. It's a nice atmosphere with good music, and you can take a mat to sit on and a picnic (no alcohol in the park, though, unless you're very sneaky). Starts at 5:30.
Getting there: take the skytrain to Sala Daeng or the metro to Lumpini or Silom. I live nearby and so often take the 62 or 67 bus or the 1240 songtaew.

There's also a fun-fair being set up near Central Chidlom. I glimpsed a romantic-looking ferris wheel from the skytrain and tried to find out about it online, but to no avail, so I wandered down there last night and found a sign saying OPEN TO THE PUBLIC 10 FEBRUARY! I'm guessing it's linked to Chinese New Year or Valentine's or both. Looks like fun.

Eat strawberries!

The strawberry season has started. They're grown in Chiang Mai and brought down to Bangkok and we all go mad for them. Expect strawberry-themed specials in restaurants and cafes, and strawberry-sellers in street markets, especially in Old Bangkok and Chinatown.

An assortment of other things worth checking out...

An art exhibition that caught my eye - a photographic interpretation of Thai folktale Khun Chang Khun Phaen by New York artist Bruce Gundersen at the wonderful Patravadi Theatre's gallery. Open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Follow the link; Patravadi always has lots of interesting stuff going on.
Getting there: From their website: From Taksin BTS Station, exit at Exit 1 gate
Take Chao Praya Express boat from Taksin pier to Wanglang (Siriraj) Pier
From Wanglang Pier, turn left on Soi Wanglang (the Family Mart is at the corner of Soi Wanglang)
Walk about 600 metres, you will arrive at Patravadi Theatre.

And another - Urban Lines by Mark Schultz, also photography, at Face restaurant. This features retrospective pictures of Bangkok's development. Open 11 a.m. to 1 a.m., through March 10.
Getting there: 29 Sukhumvit soi 38, near Thonglor skytrain station.

A book fair at the Siam Society with 'books and journals and postcards and t-shirts and more', TODAY (February 6) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. I'm not sure if this is mostly books to do with Thai culture and history or a general book sale, but in any case I will probably be there later, feeding my insatiable book habit.
Getting there: 313 Asoke Montri road (Sukhumvit 21), close to Sukhumvit metro station and Asoke skytrain station.