Playing Tourist in My Own City: The Bangkok I Never Knew
There's a rule I follow whenever I'm somewhere unfamiliar: watch the locals, do what they do. It's served me well, especially now that I'm still adjusting to life in the Philippines after moving for university barely a year ago. So it feels a little ridiculous that here I am, back home for a short break, having just spent an entire week (my last week there to be exact) doing the exact opposite. One of my friends from the Philippines found out I was in the area and begged me to come with them on their first trip there. They needed a translator, they said. A guide, yet when they sent me their itinerary, I realized they weren't asking for my Bangkok. They wanted the Bangkok from Instagram. The glossy videos, the neon signs, the spots that keep popping up on their feed. And I, a Bangkok kid of 18 years, had to suddenly think like a tourist in my own city. Song Wat Road was first on the list. My friend kept calling it "aesthetic mak mak" (since I taught them mak is the rough equivalent of the filipino word ‘sobra’ or very) as we walked through the narrow streets covered in murals, stopping at every hipster café that looked like it belonged in a magazine. I had never been here. Not once in my 18 years. Don't get me wrong, I grew up in Sukhumvit. International school kid, the whole thing. I'm not pretending I grew up in some rural village. But my Bangkok is Ban That Thong. That's where you go when you actually want to eat, where you roll up in shorts and flip-flops, sit on a plastic stool, and order kway tiao until you are full. Song Wat was… quiet. Beautiful, sure. But quiet. I kept looking around thinking, where's the noise? Where are the aunties yelling at each other over the grill? My friend called it art. I called it very very unfamiliar. Then came Wat Paknam. The massive Buddha in the riverside that everyone has seen a thousand times on TikTok and Instagram reels. Growing up, my family went to temples often, especially growing up religious. But the one we always went to, wasn't some hidden secret. It was a popular temple too, because this is Bangkok, and there's no such thing as a truly hidden temple. But among locals, it was the one. No English signs anywhere. No tour buses. Just families bringing food for the monks, elderly ladies selling jasmine garlands at the entrance, and the familiar scent of incense smoke following you through the courtyard. When we got to Wat Paknam, my friend stood there looking a little lost. So I did what my grandmother always did for me, I showed them how to light incense, how to hold the offerings, how to pray the Buddhist way. "Three sticks," I said. "One for the Buddha, one for the Dharma, one for the Sangha." It was the first moment on the trip where I didn't feel like a tourist. I felt like a kid again, watching my grandmother's hands and copying her movements. Now the trip to Ratchaburi was interesting. My friend wanted floating markets. "Like in the movies," they said. So we went to the one everyone posts about, expensive boats piled with noodles and coconut pancakes, tourists taking photos from every angle. In my 18 years, I had never, not once, considered doing this. When my friends and I went to Ratchaburi, it was spontaneous. We'd wake up early and hit Talad Sanam Ya, the chaotic market where you buy vegetables by the kilo and haggle over fish that you can ask aunties to cook for you on the spot. Or we'd skip the town entirely and drive up to Huai Khok Mu, set up a tent, grill mu kratha, and pretend we were in the middle of nowhere. I looked at the floating market and thought, this is what people fly across the world for? And then I looked at my friend's face, full of wonder, and there I understood. But the thing that really shifted my world view was Siam Square. My friend wanted to see it because it's famous. And I laughed because…well, Siam Square was my everything growing up. After school at NIST, my friends and I would use the train to go there. Not to shop, really. We'd grab sweet drinks from a cart, find a spot, and just hang out. But the best part? On certain days, they'd close down parts of the square and let students busk. Guitars out, singing whatever they felt like. My friends were always in those circles, I'd sit on the steps, listen, and occasionally join in if it was a dance performance. That was my Siam Square. Loud, messy, full of teenagers who thought they were going to be the next big thing. Walking through it now with my friend on a weekend, I saw the version tourists see, the glowing billboards, the packed sidewalks, the energy that makes it a destination. And yeah, that version is cool. But I missed the steps, I missed the guitars. Then there were the nights. My friend wanted rooftop bars. The kind with dress codes and glass barriers and cocktails that cost more than two days of my allowance when I lived there. We went up to some hotel's 48th floor, I think—and suddenly Bangkok looked completely different. Standing on that rooftop, looking down at the city, I didn't see any of the city I grew up on. The streets I knew by heart looked different from up there. The traffic looked like a river of lights. The buildings stretched out further than I'd ever noticed. This Bangkok, the one tourists see, is electric, vibrant, larger than life. For my entire life, I never thought much about the tourist side except when I met a new student at my school. I dismissed it as "not real Bangkok." Too polished. Too curated. Not the city I knew. But watching my friend experience it, seeing their face light up at the floating market, watching them take a hundred photos on Song Wat, hearing them say "I can't believe I'm actually here" on that rooftop, I realized something. That version of Bangkok? The one I rolled my eyes at? That's someone else's dream. Someone worked hard for this. Someone spent hours watching videos of this place, imagining what it would feel like to stand where they were standing. And these touristy spots, the ones I thought were fake or overhyped, they're designed with intention. They're made to make sure every moment feels worth it. Every corner is a photo. Every view is a memory. Every experience is packaged carefully so that someone who flew across the world doesn't leave disappointed. That's the Bangkok we want people to see. Sooo I guess it really took leaving home, moving to another country, becoming the foreigner myself, to come back and finally see what everyone else sees. Bangkok has two hearts. One is mine with the street food stalls, the Siam Square nights, the incense smoke at a temple with my family, the chaos I grew up loving. The other is the one on postcards. The rooftop bars, the floating markets, the murals on Song Wat. The Bangkok that makes people fall in love with Thailand. For 18 years, I only knew the first one. Now, thanks to a friend who made me play tour guide in my own city, I finally know both. And honestly? I'm glad I do.
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