images.:
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1Thailand(not yet rated) | |||
| ephidryn | Mar 19, 2008 06:25 | Read 2002 times, Dig? | |
| Thailand is truly spectacular. Everything in this country demands my attention. It seems like so much has happened in the last three days. I arrived in Bangkok after about twenty one hours travel time. I only slept about 3 hours the night before so that I could show up to the airport way way too early. As I was getting off the plane I heard someone speaking Spanish and I looked behind me to see who it was. Some old guy with a notably bad British accent speaking some broken Spanish to a girl. I asked her where she was from and she said Argentina. She had been living in Australia with her boyfriend for a year but was heading out to go traveling for some time. She had an accordion and I had a violin so we decided to share a taxi to Khaosan Rd which is where Keith and Erica were staying. As we walked out of the airport we were accosted by an Israeli girl who was also going to Khaosan Rd. We all hopped in a taxi and the Israeli girl did the talking and bargaining which took 3 seconds on the curb and 5 minutes in the car. Prices seem to change here once you commit. I was very tired and struggling to add anything useful to the conversation going on in the back seat. As I stared out the window I couldn't help but notice the similarities of the trip between the airport and the city with that of Buenos Aires. They seemed to be the same cinder block buildings and bare bulb shanties which took up the valuable real estate next to the airport freeway. The twisted mess of wires shooting in all directions might have even had the same structural pattern. We arrived in "the backpacker's ghetto" Khaosan Rd. Closed in by tall buildings on either side, it was littered with everything. Nothing was delicately placed anywhere. Every tuk-tuk driver yelled "where you go?" as we passed by. The streets seemed cobbled but there was too much trash and dirt to really make it out. A few stray dogs seemed to not notice the seething crowds walking by speaking in every language imaginable. We blended right in with our bags with airline check-tags and huge backpacks. I still had no clue where I was staying for the night or what I was doing. The heat and the lights and the people were all dizzying. I followed my two new friends like a zombie. They couldn't find rooms anywhere while I didn't even try. I hadn't eaten properly since New Zealand. I had to ditch my raisins and peanuts when I tried to get a tourist visa for five hours in Melbourne. I was hungry and I wanted a beer. I didn't care if I had any place to sleep that night. Finally the Israeli girl decided to go to the Israeli backpackers which, apparently, is open to people of all nationalities but is exclusively populated by Israelis. I got in touch with Keith and was going to meet up with him. My daily budget was five hundred baht. The Argentine found a room for five hundred baht but it was the last one and it was a single. A culmination of all of the scam-job-ripoff-moneymaking-swindle stories played in my brain like some hollywood blockbuster montage and against all better judgement I decided to share a room with her. The room was small and the window was even smaller but it had AC and free internet. Who cares if a couple of lady boys run the cafe in the lobby? They were really polite. Keith showed up and we drank a beer and got some Phad Thai from a street vendor. We met up with Erica and ordered a bottle of Sang Som at the bar. The rum worked quickly on Keith and even me. So we decided to go to sleep. Well I decided to go to sleep but the Argentine wanted to play accordion. She was just learning but displayed a musical aptitude that I seem to lack with the violin. She made me get out my violin and we made a terrible racket trying to tune the thing. It was three o'clock in the morning and her accordion was not quiet. I didn't have a mute for my violin and after ten minutes the neighbors noticed. There was a knock on the door and she ran to hide in the toilet. I'm not sure why she ran away but I opened the door and our neighbor asked "Do you have a musical instrument in there?". I blurted out "Yes! You've caught us. Now we'll stop. Good night" and closed the door. I woke up in the morning on the 26th and all my clothes were still on. My stuff was still there and it was cold in the room. I got up to get coffee and use the internet. I had to figure out how the hell to get to Stefano's. I was afraid to get ripped off by a taxi. I didn't know the busses and the heat was too intense to walk anywhere with all my gear. After some arguing and looking I eventually hopped in a taxi and sat in traffic for a while. I was a bit nervous when the cabbie put on his seat belt and there wasn't one for me in the back seat. We made it unscathed and I met Stefano at his office. "Ano" is the italian word for anus so you're meant to pronounce his name StEfano. He is a tall italian man with honest eyes and a small belly which is indicative of his line of work. He just started a web hosting company in Bangkok. While he has a strong command of the english language he seemed to use a lot of the same constructs as Sacha Cohen's character "Borrat" which caused me no end of silent, internal, amusement. After he finished the day of work we dropped my stuff at his apartment and went out for the night. My father's friend owns a bar in Bangkok and we decided to go visit him. The bar is called The Sport Corner and there are large screen televisions playing every sport imaginable. I even caught the Moto GP highlights through the crowd of bar flowers awaiting some John to come along and bar fine them. We ate some food and drank too much before we finally decided to go to Soi Cowboy which is named so after the American that opened a go-go bar back during the war. Since it's humble beginnings Soi Cowboy has grown. It seems like 3km of Las Vegas compacted into 300 meters of alleyway but with way less clothes and more elephants. There were packs of short Thai girls dressed in shorter clothes. As we walked the length of the alley captivated by the lights and sounds and hookers we started playing a game called "The shortest hooker". I hate to brag and there was no official judging with measuring tapes but I do think that I won by spotting a sub-four-footer. She wasn't even a midget or a dwarf. Just a little person. We reached the end of the alley and decided to go into one of the go go bars but we weren't sure which one. How do you decide which, of a myriad of bars full of dancing hookers, to go into? You can judge it by it's name, the price of beer, or the beauty of the girls standing outside trying to get your attention and shuffle you inside. How does one decide? Eventually we just went into one that had a sign for cheap beer. Stefano and Keith took a seat and I walked passed what can only be described as an island platform with dancing poles which had about 10 scantily clad girls dancing on it. By the time I got back from the toilet we were leaving. I didn't ask why. I just followed. We walked out and through the mass of people to the bar next door which had a very similar interior with one notable exception. The dancing girls were naked. Exclamation point. A few girls tried to come up and talk to us. The same drunk girl kept asking me if she could go home with me and I kept saying no. Keith finally decided to cut out before his second head started thinking louder than his first head. Stefano and I stayed and finished our beers then we spilled out onto the street to find a taxi. There was a lot of things in Soi Cowboy that night. There was even an elephant standing there in Soi Cowboy. I was dumbstruck. The man leading it around was selling cane to overweight balding sex tourists to feed to this majestic animal. The giant was ignoring all the drunk people yelling and patting (borderline hitting) it's head too hard. I stared at it while Stefano ordered some grilled dried squid from a street vendor. I tried some of the grilled dried squid and it was pretty rank. Live and learn. Getting a taxi was another matter. I think most taxi drivers had learned to stay away from Soi Cowboy because most of the people there are drunk and up to no good. The Taxi drivers that are there are there for a reason. We walked past the beckoning tuk-tuk drivers and cabbies down the street a ways past a few independent hookers, maybe they have a coop I don't know, before we got in a cab to go home. I woke up the next day before my alarm went off. I it was 7am and Stefano wouldn't be awake for an hour so I messed around on the internet for a while and I called my Mom to let her know where I was. Chris Bone from Pacific Yacht deliveries sent me an email. Turns out he had a gig for me aboard at 66' sailing catamaran. Langkawi to Tel Aviv. I could give a fuck where it was going to I was stoked on the fact that it was 42 days at sea with two frenchmen. Some people don't like the french mentality or the snide post-aristocratic social idiosyncrasies but I find them manageable and worth the effort when you take into account all the wicked shit they do so well: food, wine, and love. I sent a reply email which may as well have been composed of giant letters spelling YES! After way too long with no food I was finally forced out into the heat of Bangkok at around 11:30am. I was hungry. So hungry in fact that I couldn't find anything to eat. Bangkok, all of Thailand really, is filled with food. There is a food vendor on every corner. There are 24 hour 7-11s and mini-marts all over Bangkok and Chiang Mai. If you have money then eating is a problem solved in less than a minute in most places. I was in some hung over ketotic state where my brain was just full enough of what ever hot dog are made of that I could not make executive decisions. I wandered the streets perspiring profusely looking at all the options available to me. The very first forgone opportunity was a street vendor that sold grilled chicken. I have to admit that I was put off somehow by the number of live chickens running around the stall looking for scraps of anything to eat. I was afraid that if I sat down there to eat their kin they would just stare at me with their wee beady eyes until I had some heat induced delusional fit and decided to become a vegetarian for the rest of my life. I couldn't afford that in this country. There's meat in everything that's cheap and cheap is the word for this trip. An hour and a half later I finally ordered some noodle soup down some back alley which was reminiscent of where they must have doled out semi-legal abortions in Tijuana back in the day. This dish comprised of white noodles cooked in a cup like sieve attached to a stick mixed into a broth os some kind with pork balls, soya sprouts, coriander, and some other greens has remained my favorite Thai dish. I add a teaspoon of the dried hot chillies, some fish sauce, and some chopsticks and I'm full 20 baht later. Lacking any real motivation to see the traditional tourist attractions of Bangkok I took the SkyTrain towards the river to take a river boat up to the grand palace. On my way there I passed by a man selling pants. Now see the funny thing about leaving New Zealand for me was that I had so much useless stuff. Things like clothes and books and junk that I could never realistically keep or ship or leave somewhere in NZ. This problem was solved by my good friend Tim. I left some things at his house while I was sorting out my departure of New Zealand which had been my home for 15 months. You accumulate things. Tim un-accumulated them. I made an off-hand comment about how all my stuff was junk and I should just throw it away. Fortunately my martini shacker wasn't in there otherwise I would have been upset. My socks and carharts will be missed but they are replaceable. What an more opportune time to replace pants than in Thailand where clothes are cheap and everywhere. The old man was selling pants for 250 baht or $10 New Zealand dollars. I tried to bargain him down to 200 even walking away but he just said "Sorry the price is 250". I eventually went back and gave him the 250. I was surprised to learn my new measurements when he measured me and I still suspect faulty metrics on his tape or maybe it was too many Scotch Eggs while living with Jaycob. I headed from the outdoor market to the SkyTrain and got off at the river stop. I took the wrong exit and walked an hour out of my way in the sweltering heat. It was only about 30C but the humidity in Bangkok hangs around 80%. Couple that with the sunshine and pollution you can taste and you've got yourself a real uncomfortable walk. After getting misdirection from some Thai kids by a freezer works I eventually decided to go back to the SkyTrain station and work from there. Turns out the river was a 4 minute walk from the station under the shade of raised highways. There was a myriad of tourist boats and people selling tickets for things I didn't want. I saw a monk waiting for the boat and I decided that I would do whatever he did. Who would try to rip off a monk? I went to the toilet and changed into my new just-below-the-knee pants and instantly felt better. The boat was was amazing. It was about 12 meters long with seats and a driver way at the front. He had two stuffed animals, some flowers, and a normal wall clock hanging up there with him. There were lillys and other greens trying to grow in the polluted river which was fairly wide and didn't have as much traffic as I'd expected. The long boats zoomed by powered by, huge V8s with extremely long drive shafts that went directly to a propeller. The drive shafts of the long boats had no differential and the entire motor would would pivot up, down, left, or right depending on where the boat was being steered. Every time our boat would stop the man at the back would jump to shore and rope off the boat to the floating dock and blow hard on a whistle. Our driver would reverse until the boat slammed true against the dock shaking everything and making a lot of noise that traveled kinetically all the way up the gangplank to where the dock met the stone walls that kept the water out of the city. We docked up and I recognized the letters written in English as my stop. I jumped up a little soon and made my way pasted the monks dressed in yellow robes to the back of the boat. Waiting to plug my ear for the whistle. I waited until the Thai women had disembarked and then followed nearly being plowed over by the pack of nervous tourists that were worried somehow that they would miss the boat which they were standing in front of. There were a lot of stray dogs at this stop and a good number of street vendors as well. I figured that I must have chosen a busy stop. For some reason I was attracted to Santa Cruz Church. I'm not catholic but I am from Santa Cruz. I walked over a long bridge that had a footpath attached to it. Passed some men pushing what looked like food carts over towards China Town. On the other side I walked west along the river on a boardwalk suspended mostly over the river. It turned back towards the buildings which made up the city and opened up into a vast courtyard in which was a building which looked familiar. It was a huge Spanish missionary style church with arches and a dome on top. The entire courtyard was empty and quiet. If you could hear the heat and the sunshine it would sound like a cacophony of sustained din like hail falling on a tin roof. The church was enclosed in a black wrought iron fence and the gate was closed. A plump foreign looking woman wearing a sun hat was wandering around inside the fence looking lost. Maybe like she didn't know how to get out after the gates had closed for siesta. I was a hurting unit. I began to realize that my mental functions were slipping and that I was near heat stoke or some sort of ephemeral dementia brought on by a severe fit of physical discontent. I walked to the nearest shade and sat down to remove my shirt. I drank all of the water in my bag and tried to breathe. It seemed that the courtyard blocked out any breeze and as the sun hit the stone streets it just turned to heat. I was in a catholic oven. I put on my shirt and made a break for it. Cross walks in Bangkok are mayhem. You just wait for what looks like a lull in traffic and move quickly across hoping that no one will hit you. I walked back up and over the bridge towards China Town. I read it was a sight to see and there's a thieves market there too. I like anything named after thieves, rogues, hoods, or daggers. I was still struggling with the heat and I just wanted to sit down and have a beer. I headed into an air conditioned mall type place and wandered around. This is the post-modern Thailand. I made my way through the designer shops to the fourth and top floor where the food court was. My beer-dar went off and I went searching for a cool, frothy, delicious, condensation-perspiring beer. All I found was some juice in those big fountain type dispensers that keep it circulating. It looked like real juice. It even had pictures of real fruit on it. I bought some and sat down among the Thais and next to the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the streets of Bangkok. I was getting the eye. There was an old woman with too much bad make-up on a small stage and an even older man playing some casio with the pre-programmed beats cranking out over some PA system which was inferior to that of even a public school in the United States. I didn't even try to recognize the song. I was too busy inspecting all the junk hanging off of the woman's clothing. At first I was afraid that this was "the act" and if I wanted to finish my colored and flavored sugar water then I was going to have to learn to enjoy it. Pins, jewelry and all. After that song ended a thin man in in tight clothes took the stage and patted his hair to make sure he was looking aces. A woman followed him up on stage and he said some stuff to her and she took a step back as if not to encroach on his limelight real-estate. There were no limelights. Just fluorescent lights. Fake linoleum floors. Plastic tables. Sugar water. Air conditioning. Casio tones. After the duet started my phone rang and I answered it "Please give me a moment to get away from the music." speaking below the music but directly into the handset. I stood up and walked out of the food court. It was one of my couch surfing hosts calling to retract their previous offer. I had already read the email so it was no surprise. We ended the call politely and I took this opportunity to get away from whatever it was I was just doing. I circled around the square building through the hallway that led downstairs. My mind made my body feel the heat even before either of them got through the door. Back out on the street the tuk-tuks, scooters, and cars drowned out all the school kids on their way home. I moseyed back towards where I had boarded the boat. I had passing thoughts about how I should see the palace and all the other things that the guide books talked about. For me somehow reading about them was good enough. I wandered through the streets with a vague idea that I was going to Siam Square to see a movie. I was lost n an endless grid of streets. Each block seemed to specialize in one specific product and I had found my way into the motor district. There was V8s stacked up on every corner about 2 meters high all over the place. Various parts and pieces were everywhere. For blocks. The same was true about the flowers and the guns, pistols and rifles. I finally made it to Siam Square on foot through the sea of signaling tuk-tuk drivers. I hate arguing with them over price and the best method I've devised is to just walk everywhere. I ascended the mechanical escalators to the top floor where the theater was and walked down a dramatically lit shiny hallway towards the theater. There were halogens set up for some sort of filming. It looked like an awards ceremony had just taken place outside of the theater. I went to go find a movie that was starting soonish and I found one that relieved my guilty feeling of seeing a movie while surrounded by Bangkok. It was called The Ghost and Master Boh. A Thai movie with English subtitles about a charlatan of a medicine-man who eventually encountered a real ghost. I had to leave halfway through partly because I was cold abd partly because I had to go meet up with Stefano. We met at this far off SkyTrain stop. It wasn't on my central map and it was a number 6 fare from Siam Square. He had to take care of some business stuff before we went out for dinner. We were right near his office which is on Phat Pong which is a notorious sex show street in Bangkok. They had shows "ping pong" shows and all sorts of extreme variants the most extreme being darts. I wasn't fortunate enough to experience one of these shows but I am still young. Phat Pong of course attracts a certain type of person which, in turn, attracts more businesses which cater to punters of that nature. The streets and Sois were spotted with "Traditional Thai Massage" parlors with varying degrees of repute. You have to wonder about any massage parlor that is right next to a place like Phat Pong and is open until 2am. Along with the massage parlors there were also a high concentration of bars with girls sitting around waiting for someone to take them somewhere. We walked down one Soi and past a big hotel turning down another Soi. A Soi off a Soi. This Soi catered to customers of a different alignment. There were many bars with ladies sitting in front of them. Just like any other place around Phat Pong but there was something different. Adam's apples. This girls were all guys and the bars all had names like "Hard Driver" and "Big Banana". We walked dead into the center of the Soi and Stefano gestured towards a restaurant. We walked into a Japanese looking restaurant and sat down. Stefano explained that it didn't matter what you ordered here because everything was good. I tried to order the same thing he did but he encouraged me to try something different. I pointed at something and asked for a Singha beer. We talked about massage parlors and happy endings and Stefano assured me that not all parlors were rub and tug joints and that Thai massage is a venerable ancient art which involves stretching and deep work that some describe as panful. We finished our delicious noodle-soup-thingies and we were both full full. It was going on 10pm and I had been awake for some time walking through the heat of Bangkok. The beer was working and I was ready for bed. Stefano had to work in the morning so we headed home to catch some Zs but we just ended up smoking cigarettes and talking on the balcony for an hour. I woke up as Stefano was walking out the door to work and decided that I should sit up so I didn't develop a skewed schedule from that of my host's clare drunken dialing stefanos for lunch train station stefanos jamie train station shower swedish kids Today I woke up refreshed on the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. You know when a wiggling, rocking, single mattress in a moving room full of strangers is your idea of a good nights rest then you have attained travel-nirvana. While Bangkok is wondrous it is also a bit overwhelming. I'm looking forward to a smaller big city. dreams on train - vince brain surgery while conscious food views from the train chiang mai train station austrians altercation tuk-tuk driver walking to chiang mai noodle place down the soi market outside chiang mai moat and city walls julie guest house rose guest house wandering around writing fit corey calling scooter to chiang mai idea meeting the Couch Surfer - american politics, reap what you sew, efficient wood burning stoves, Buddhist techniques, visas and passports, dodgy eyes, quiet voice, hawaiin shirt, boil on bald head, hat to cover it, ssi, ss, pension, retired, fucked by the stock market, fear of becomming TEFL teacher, love of holland, civilized money from little sister altercation at bar drinks at the bar with the old tall fat white guy 5000 baht! buying beer off half closed bar trying not to look at cigarette pack ride to pai arriving charlie's english girls couch surfers news in the bagel store going to the collective stomach bug sang som early morning met up with couch surfers ride out to elephant camps night out with CSers stand offishness late early morning last meal at restaurant ride back to chiang mai - poor visibility finding a hotel meeting with keith and erika for drinks on rooftop bar essex kids broken dj drink walking past all the bars spanking it laundry movie with keith and erika thai-american tuk tuk driver not responding train full took the bus 2am stop for noodles and fuel 6am bus station bangkok lunch with stefano train to hat yai girls next to me spicy thai salad cigarette with a monk peter arrive in hat yai concerns about stuff exploding muslims mosque peter hotel vegetables money from boat boutique hotel dinner with peter |
|||
Comments from other users: | |||
| This story was written by ephidryn and has been brought you you by the letters H and E. | |||
writings.:-
more...
- email from papua new guinea
by ephidryn - Casablanca
by ephidryn - August \'07 - NZ
by ephidryn - Chicken Soup
by ephidryn - I didn\'t write this...
by Miss Understood - mission
by ephidryn - sessions
by infectus - Untitled
by infectus - My login still works
by infectus - Not Paranoid
by ephidryn - The Bicycle Trip
by ephidryn - im too cool for titles
by ephidryn - Headache
by ephidryn
more...