Massaaaaaage….!!!
The guesthouse I’m staying at is down a little alley that smells of sewer, sings of cats making love, and houses a little massage parlour. Every day a lady sits on a fold out chair outside between the cats and the sewer and says “Massssaaaaaaaaaaaage?!”. After the 7th time saying “No thanks you very much.” the very first day, I decided to just walk on by. Nice lady.
In short, Bangkok rocks my ankle socks off. Yeah it stinks and it’s polluted and infested with prostitutes and mangy cats and scam artists, but it’s the just so much fun. Interesting fact: Thai ladies do not seem to shave their legs. Not the ones I’ve seen anyway. Anyone care to correct me??… And the scam artists are so good natured in their attempted scamming that you both end up laughing your heads off by the end of the conversation.
Another interesting fact: Buddhist monks wear underwear.
Thai people love 2 things more than they love scamming.
First, Buddha. They bleedin’ love him. Every social demographic mill around the temples giving praise and praying for help. It’s amazing. They don’t have the suspicion we (I mean lapsed Irish Catholics by “we”) do when it comes to faith. Buddha is there ready and waiting and he’s going to take care of them. Their monks are holy men, and nobody would dare look sideways at one. Monks are quite nice too. In their little orange sheets and baldy heads. Praying. And stuff.
Second, their King. They LOVE their King. Adore him. Want to have his babies. I asked a Thai girl what exactly the King does. She said, “um, ceremonies and stuff. ” I asked “But the government or law-making or war or that kind of thing?” She replied “Um, noooo……..but……….maybe……….if it’s really bad situation……?….” Don’t think she knew to be honest. So in conclusion, they love their King, have pictures of him in their houses, talk about him all the time, but are not 100% sure what EXACTLY he does.
In other news, I found a supermarket today that sells CheeseStrings. Great success!
We went to a floating market this morning. I’m sure back in the day, when canals were used extensively by Thai people to do business, these markets were the real deal. Nowadays, however, they’re just a fancy tourist trap. A pretty tourist trap, but a trap nonetheless. All that’s sold is elephant trinkets, pictures of the King, oh yeah! and while you’re on the boat, some smart-ass takes a photo of you and quickly superimposes it onto a plate, so when you land at the quay a wee girl comes up and tries to sell it to you. I thought she was just selling me a regular plate at the start, and thought, “What an idiot, a plate like. Pfft.” and waved her off. It was only when Caroline called me back “Ava! Ava! Come look!” (She hasn’t gotten the hang of my name yet.) that I saw my ugly mug on the plate. Ugh I screamed. I never want to see my face on a plate again.
There was thunder and lightening for hours and hours last night. I know this because it seems I still have jetlag and am surviving on 3 hours sleep a night. And am still bright as a button. That combined with the alley cats making sweet sweet love for 13 hours (“nyeow, nyeow, nyeow, nyeow, nyeow, nyeow………13 hours later………nyeow, nyeow, nyeow” you get the picture), sleep ain’t much of an option.
In Bangkok, when the leaves fall from the trees, they land with a “thump”. One landed on my head yesterday, and I thought a transvestite punched me in the ear. So I screamed. At the leaf.
We’re heading off to Kachanaburi tomorrow morning to visit the Bridge over the River Kwai and Hellfire pass and all sorts of other things. Temples in caves. Monks living with tigers. You know. The usual. So I’ll update next week some time and try and get some of my photos up too.
Miss ye all loads and hope things are happy happy same same.
Tags: Thailand, Travel
aoifka
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