Look at this! This is like cost 300 bath, which means like these guys work for like eight hours a day.
[Alex] Just for that? -- [Ohm] Just for that. I'm pretty sure like the guy who worked here they don't buy it.
Welcome to Bangkok, a melting pot of diverse people, food and culture. Today we're joined by Ohm,
a local living on the west side of Bangkok. Far away from the tourist markets,
we get a chance to visit and see what life is really like for locals in Bangkok.
From visiting the local temple where Ohm became a monk, to seeing locals working in the flower market
just so that they can earn USD 10 a day. Join us in this night tour of Bangkok, Thailand like you've never seen before.
Welcome!
The temple in Thailand, people don't come to this type of temple. The reason why
people don't really come in this type of temple because one thing is not really famous,
and most people like just want to go to like somewhere like very famous one. But I created this tour
because I would like to show the people what actually like the function of the temple in Thailand is.
So the function of the temple in Thailand must be this order. That's for like the cremation.
So when I first born, my parents took me inside the temple and then I met the senior monk.
And then the senior monk clipped my hair and then give me the best; wish me like their good fortune.
In local temple, there's a prayers, you can do like in their ordination hall
and also it must be there's a place for like the school to study for free.
[Alex] So it's like public school, one to six. [Ohm] Yeah temple is like a community center.
and then we expand from the temple. And after that, when I turned 21 years old, one time in your life, you know, be a monk!
You know why we have to be a monk? We actually did that to dedicate to our parents.
If you have a son one time in your life, your son become a monk, after you pass away you can go to the heavens.
Like follow me for a little bit, I'll show you this. There's like a secret door where people like to come and make a wish.
What you would do is to pray like this, and then slowly you put your forehead here.
And then you may have your wish come true.
For example like all my friends, my family's around here; I booked that one. That's for them , it's still like empty.
So it costs about like USD 70 - 80. When I pass away, that's my place forever. It's just like Booking.com and Airbnb.
But this is the last one, you know. And then the money will go to the temple;
of course the monk receive the money, right? And then that money will go back to the community.
for example like the kids school need like some like school equipment or something.
Or people who don't have food to eat and then we can spare that.
So today we are doing a guided tour with a local that actually lives in this area.
And our first stop is his local temple that we stopped off at,
And what I love about this is that, you know, you're not going to one of the famous grand palace temples.
You're actually seeing the local community here in this area of Bangkok,
and actually seeing what the temple was really being used for and it's amazing to actually walk with him
and him tell his stories. Before that, I loved visiting temples just for the reason that they're so beautiful here
So we're gonna head out now to dinner.
See like how we share this part for a ceremony, over there monastery where monks stay.
And from here, around here, this is like the local but the properties belong to their temple.
[Ohm] This is not private properties. [Alex] Okay but but they live here, it's like their home.
Beautiful little streets, it's so quiet, so peaceful.
Yeah, so what I usually say my backyard is temple and my front yard is canal.
Because like the canal and the boat back then it was like the main transportation.
When the people moved from the water to the land, life changed. Because car became more like a status.
One thing like we don't really have sense of direction. Because we used to live on the water before.
We just go by like what temple nearby.
I really really love this like local community. I mean, it's so peaceful. Everybody knows each other.
He's just walking through the streets and saying hello to everybody like he knows each other.
This place is belong to the temple so around here is like forgiveness place, so we don't fish here.
All right so this one is called Yādong. In Thailand we called it Yadong, right?
Yadong: Yā means like medicine, Dong means like something that you preserve for a long time.
So we like to say: "Oh we don't we don't drink alcohol, we don't drink whiskey; we taking some medicines, good for health.
Dip this in the chili because we love spicy and then cheers!
Then you get this after taste in your mouth.
-[Alex]: That is strong! -[Ohm]: It's good right? -[Alex]: All of a sudden my whole body is really warm.
So guys the sun is finally setting. We're finishing dinner here at a restaurant right across from the temple
where we were just at. And Ohm is doing an amazing job explaining all these foods.
He's picking out all the local Thai dishes that we as foreigners don't really experience
because we always know about, you know, pad thai of course. But these are the local dishes that
we would have never thought of ordering, which is amazing! And we have this beautiful view
of the river right behind me guys with the boats going by, every couple minutes.
And just nothing but locals here in this area and he pretty much knows like all the people here.
Because he's been living here for years, he's been interacting with the community, he's been a monk in this community itself.
So this store is just the start of the tour.
And it's just off to a great start and we've had a few of those whiskey shots.
Oh my God!
So the reason there's so many fish in the water as you guys can see is because they're not allowed to fish near the temple.
So the fish has gotten really smart not to swim down river where all the fishermen are going to fish them.
So they just stay around this area where they know they're going to get fed, get fat and live the rest of their life.
Here we go guys, our third stop of the night.
Over there there's a big stupas, the white one.
You know what like the stupas or pagodas functions is like a tomb.
To keep like a Buddha's relics inside or someone's important relics inside.
So with the last temple, we were at what was very local within his community but we arrived at a more prominent area
of where tourists usually come to see and this is more famous, I think.
But if you don't know, these are actually housing the relics of I guess past monks,
and important people. And it is just absolutely gorgeous even at night.
You know one thing I've learned traveling the world is that if there's a lot of locals that means it's good.
[Ohm] Yeah that's right, which is like this place. [Alex] Exactly
In Thailand we like to put this egg to the pork making the pork softer.
And after that we put it in the pot back.
So we've arrived at a local vendor stand right along the street.
Literally bringing me back to Vietnam days and Indonesia where you just pull up a chair
one of these blue little small chairs with the table here and they bring out some local food here.
It looks so good. We're cooking up some shabu-shabu right now. Got some pork in there,
got some egg and lots of vegetables. I'm gonna try it out with some beer and ice inside.
Literally Vietnam all over again.
You know what, a lot of people ask me "Why Thai people like to eat hot soup?" because Thailand is hot, right.
But I think, when we eat like hot and spicy, break us to sweat, and then I feel like we get cooler.
So we got some pork in here, some broth. It's really good, I love it! It's really light,
A little bit of salt, sodium, MSG, you can taste it.
Oh wow! And then if you want, you can add some hot sauce into it.
So really quick guys, when we were in Chiang Mai and really any city here in Thailand, when you're walking around
you'll notice that there'll be some locals here especially like the older ladies,
they'll be walking around with what looks like a suitcase around their neck and they'll have it strapped around.
And they'll have what looks like lottery tickets or pieces of paper hanging.
And they're trying to sell it to locals, really anybody and they have the same thing in Vietnam, I noticed too.
But how does it actually work? So I'm gonna ask him here. So how does it work?
There are two times a month, every like first and the 16th of every month. There are six numbers.
The biggest reward was like 6 million (bath) the things that is very interesting is
a day before; for example like 31st or 30th or 15th, the people go to scratch the tree.
The big tree, like a banyan tree, to find a lucky number. Trying to scratch the tree try to get the lucky number,
and then they try to bet on it. If we get lucky, we're gonna be millionaire!
[Alex] How much are the tickets? [Ohm] 100 bath. [Alex] 100 bath for one ticket? [Ohm ] For one ticket and then..
but also I feel like to be honest, I feel like when the country like we have to rely on the lottery
which means the economy is so bad. A lot of people like they came from North East of Thailand
to Bangkok to sell this, two times a month. So they get the money and then they go back home,
because like living costs in Bangkok is like too expensive.
So each time they would earn maybe like I'm not sure, sometimes they would earn like a couple hundred USD,
6000 bath. So basically two times they came to Bangkok for a few days,
They get about like 12,000 bath to survive for another 20-25 days. You can do that too!
You know what you can do, right? You can buy and then you can leave it with me.
Guys, we've come to a local street food market right underneath the bridge.
As you can see right above me here. We're gonna find some dessert.
In Thailand we put some coconut, some shrimp, the dry shrimp, and egg yolk.
The red one over there is egg yolk and some onion. It looks weird right?
Why would you want to eat egg yolk with the shrimp and coconut and then some sugar?
And it's sweet somehow which makes no sense. But it's a mix of sweet and salty at the same time.
It's incredible and it's a taco.
We're walking right now over across the street to another egg yolk vendor.
[Ohm] And we're going to put it on ice cream. [Alex] On ice cream?! -- [Ohm] Yep, you see?
[Alex] They work so quickly. -- [Ohm] I know right? [Alex] It's magic!
[Alex] How much does one of these cost? -- [Ohm] It's 40 bath [Alex] USD 1.20 -- [Ohm] Yeah USD 1.20
That's very different!
We're on the way to our last stop here. Ice cream with egg on it and corn.
Literally ice cream with egg and corn. I never would have thought I would enjoy that.
Man, Thailand you think of the most insane ingredients and you mix them together.
All right guys, we've just arrived at the flower market here in Bangkok.
Fun fact, this place never closes. It is almost 9 o'clock here at night, it's still open.
And it'll stay open until tomorrow morning and we're about to see how the flowers are made,
and go through the entire market where they're selling flowers all night long.
This looks like an alley we're not supposed to be in almost, right?
It's like mostly the people would go through the main entrance, right? But i would like to take you here to see like..
you see that girl's over there? So she's doing like.. do you know like bitter nut?
Somethings that you chew and then it gets you dizzy, get you high? I'm pretty sure it's not that good high.
Back then, like you know, the older people in Thailand and our ancestors, they do this.
But right now in Thailand the locals don't do it anymore.
This one became offering stuff to their ancestors. You know, before covid it was like...
it was quite busy but not anymore. The flower market in here
yeah like you said before like open 24 hours and the most like famous flowers like five things:
jasmine flowers, marigold, roses and some love flowers the love flowers.
They look like a bell shape, yeah they look like.. no it looked like a popcorn actually!
Yeah you'll see that, it looks like a popcorn and then the orchid flowers.
[Alex] It's so quiet here -- [Ohm] Yeah, super quiet. [Alex] What's the busiest time?
[Ohm] The busiest time is like between early in the morning, because i would say like the flowers around here..
more than 80% of the flowers here for offerings
and then for some ceremony. It's just like only like well maybe next 10 days we will be busy because of valentine's.
[Alex] So typically like how much are the offerings costing?
[Ohm] This one is quite expensive because like they have to decorate.
I would say like this one costs about like 200 - 300 bath, USD 10.
And mostly the workers around here they came from like Cambodia and Burma.
They work for like the minimum wage. It's about like 300 baht a day, eight hours. USD 10 a day.
I would honestly never imagine locals here working for 300 baht a day, that is pretty crazy.
I mean that's like an hour wage in the US, just imagine that.
Can you believe this guy said, all this back here, this isn't even how busy it typically is.
This is during covid. And this is like a half capacity this used to be a lot busier here before covid.
But now of course everything's a little bit cheaper, there's less people, there's less people doing offerings.
All the marigolds you see back there are for offerings in the temples.
But not that many people are buying them right now because not a lot of them are going out.
Coming out here at night, middle of the night at nine o'clock at night, to see all these people working
literally day and night for this, just for minimum wage of 300 baths.
All right guys, we're finishing off at the flower market here with Ohm. He has been an awesome guy
to show me around all around Bangkok, the local stuff that I would have never been able to find without him.
So if you guys ever want to come out here to Bangkok to see the local side, not the touristy stuff
the temples that you all see on your own on instagram, come check this guy out!
I'll put his whatsapp info down below and if you guys enjoyed this video please give it a like.
Comment down below any questions and check him out and I'll see you next time! Bye! -- [Ohm] Thank you!