Bangkok is not only water and spitituality, there are places which are dictated by another element.

During our exploration of the city, we found districts where we can clearly see that money rules. This is also visible in the urban organisation, like the airway metro in the middle of the business districit, with its architecture reminisent from brutalism:

Not far we can see some peculiar sky scrappers, like these two towers conntected by a bridge with some trees, only a rich megalomaniac would build such thing, putting himself so high over the rest of society:

In that same district we also found a very interesting place:

Erawan shrine - magical capitalism

This religious shrine was suggested in all websites, even on atlasobscura, which usually references unknown/underground places. We were expecting the shrine sitting in a religious site, we were wrong! Indeed the shrine has been erected by… the Erawan Hotel:

This place is near the airway metro and in front of a city highway, there is nothing better than a good dose of car exhaust gaz for worshipping. Of course the pricing of offerings likely match the price of the hotel, we have a sad thoughts on the poor elephants lying on the street nearby:

This cult of wealth is not only specific to that place, as an entire pantheon of Hindu gods at nearby hotels and shopping malls eventually joined this shrine. Considering this in association to the existing industry of amulets, Thailand seems to be a country where people tends to cope the complexity of capitalism with a good dose of supernatural.

The animal market

We visited another place, this one much darker, in the Chatuchak market the biggest of Bangkok. A whole section of it is dedicated to the sale of animals. The most visible part of this section is the sale of dogs and cats, something that is becoming increasingly prohibited in Europe (in France it will be in 2024), to consequently reduce the compulsive purchases of these animals which lead to thousands of abandonments each year. But going further in the depths of that section, we start to see more exotic and wild animals, such as hedgehogs, squirrels, snakes, lizards, …

… birds ….

… wild foxes ….

… and even lynx

We can’t even imagine how most of these poor beasts are treated in such conditions,… Such place should not exist in our opinion. We have heard that Buddhism obliges the faithful to come to the aid of creatures in need. What are they waiting for to close this place?

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