Sketching a Twisty Path on the Globe

Ah, Bangkok. Again. The greatest sensory pleasures here are cool mid-day showers, mango with sticky rice, and the visual stim of buzzing Khao San Road. It is sentimental in a way though. Bangkok has served as the confluence of all legs of my trip. I have favorite eateries, recognize shop owners, and pass tables that are linked to people and memories.

My sole goal for today: find “Monk’s Bowl Village,” perfect finale for a monk-peeper. But not so perfectly easy to get to. No tuk-tuk driver had heard of it and wanted to charge $7 to go looking. Finally one agreed to 10 baht (30 cents) if I do “a stop.” That means entering a shop and playing interested so that the driver can collect a gas coupon. I failed the first one. Didn’t look long enough at silk ties and boxers. Second try, a travel agency, meant spending 20 minutes of amusement asking questions and looking at pictures of places I’d already been. But, tuk-tuk man was happy. Until his engine stopped one block away. Then he kicked me out into a taxi, who also didn’t know the way and kicked me out onto the sidewalk. But, finally I found myself surrounded by shops selling all things orange and monk-like including “care kits” of yellow umbrella and towel, matches, condensed milk, and even chocolate. I made a few purchases to shopkeepers’ confusion: “This….it’s for monk??”

Even my ride back had humor. My motorcycle taxi driver had worrisome conversational habits: talking with his hands and trying to make eye contact. I watched the road for both of us while he pointed into the air: “Amelika? GOOOOD country” and proceeded to count….um, favorite presidents?….on his fingers. “Number ONE, Lincoln. Number TWO, John F. Kennedy.” Damn if he didn’t even include George Bush in the interest of exhausting all English words he knew.

Since then, money spent, I’ve wandered the streets begging baht for a street dinner. I went from one WE BUY EVERYTHING shop to another greeted with head shakes and even snickers when they peeked inside my little baggy of “treasures.” Finally, my Hindi phrasebook earned me a banana pancake. I was hoping to also gain a fruit shake, but no one seems to want my India map, skytrain ticket, and gold glitter nail polish (don’t ask). 🙂

Tomorrow, 27 hour journey home. Guess that means that it’s time for taxes, billing, roadtrips, paperwork, phoning….yeah, reality calls. “Reality” includes many people that I’ve missed talking to though, so I won’t resist too strongly.

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” T.S. Eliot quotes

With that bit of clarity: FAREWELL SOUTHEAST ASIA!!

Bad maps, erroneous information, tourist rip-offs all have managed to lead to some of my favorite experiences lately.

—-Last night, a friend and I were heading to a cabaret show, sure that we could get a cheaper price at the door than the “package deal” the tour offices were selling. Well, turns out they charged dollars (yes, that’s significant now) more at the door than with the package that included transportation and free drinks. Feeling frugal, we scoff and move on in backpacker-style snobbery. Feeling famished–or “peckish” in the Brit’s terms–I remember that the foodcourt in the nearby shopping complex was mentioned in my Lonely Planet. All other descriptions long forgotten. Imagining the Asian equivalent of food courts at home, we wander past shops and up escalators toward “Food Alley,” expecting to find greasy stalls, drying buffets, and over-stuffed garbage cans. Instead, we walk through a gate and are each handed a credit card. Huh? And where’s that music coming from? In front of us, white and sparkly are a dozen openair “kitchens” serving various international food. You order, they prepare, and hand it to you. In white porcelain dishes. Which you then carry to your table with placemats and attentive servers. Who’ll cork your bottle of wine if you like. While a live band with a stand-up bass plays Sade and Beatles cover tunes (“La da deeee, la da daaaa”). What?!? Once the shock subsided, I was more aware of really how great the food was. And my dessert! A bright pink dome with gold flakes and chocolate curls, raspberry chocolate decadence washed down with cappuccino. Turned out to be infinitely more satisfying than high-kicking transvestites.

—With full intentions of hitting a flower/plant market and a park up the road, I got unbelievably lost (I heard that unsurprised snicker!). My colorful pictorial map only has 1-2 street names, worthless anyway since most names in reality are just written in lovely squiggles (หนทำรืเ สรา รห๗). A nice Thai stops to help when I’m flying my map kite. Manages to inform me that because of special “Promotion Week” today’s the last day that tuk-tuk drivers will drive you all around town for only 20 bat to several top tourist destinations–temples and such. (“You read paper? You watch news? What, you been sleeping?”) So, I spent the next 2-3 hours with a private “guide” around town (who, by the way, knows exactly where everything is), for exactly 54 cents.

I love it when things don’t “go your way.” : D

New room, air pleases, but stepping out's a greater whack. Amazing efficiency of bathroom plumbing--"dump and scrub" stalls with the shower nozzle mounted right on the side. Too much stuff, fills my cubby, what might those "We Buy ... [Continue reading this entry]

After 30 hours, airport to airport and only a few odd hours of sleep (from 4 to 8 am) I figured I'd give myself freedom to move very very slowly through my first day in Bangkok. I think it ... [Continue reading this entry]