Bangkok: 99.9% germ-free
Touchdown
Arrived to the dawning sun over Bangkok and an assault of already thick oppressive heat. Met some fellow kids at the baggage claim and we shared a cab to khao san rd while we debriefed India and shared mutual awe at how EMPTY and CLEAN Bangkok is. Where are the people? the animals? the traffic? the rubbish? the life? Bangkok feels oddly sterile and dull in comparison to the frenetic pace of India.
Songkarn Water Festival
Unknowingly I had arrived in the prelude to the Thai New Year Festival. This Festival is like India’s Holi but involves plain water, not colour, sometimes splatters of flour and water paste, and lasts an excurciating 4 days! The mecca seems to be this backpacker area, but it is all over bangkok, no escape. The highlight of the festival was my step-dad and I having to plunge ourselves into a wet, sweaty, throbbing mosh pit of hundreds of young Thais that had formed between the street and the entrance to our hotel.
Despite my Indian training to keep calm in the face of infuriation, I lost the plot when a group of teenage Thais repeatedly sprayed me close range in the face with their water pistols, leading to a bit of a heated fisty cuffs between me and the main guy where I tried, unsuccessfully, to confiscate his weapon.
Walking down a back street I came across a punk tourist collapsed in the middle of the street. No one seemed to be concerned, just stepping around him. A shop keeper said he had been lying there for a few hours. The stench was incredible as he was lying in a pool of his own vomit and diarrhoea. I felt compelled to at least check he was conscious, so checked his pulse and breathing and woke him up. When I asked “what do you need?” He roused enough to barely coherently slur “I need you, your an angel” which coincided with a pathetic attempt to muster enough movement in his arm to grope me. At this I promptly stood up and walked on, confident that if he’s well enough to grope, then he’s well enough (and deserving enough) to be left in a pool of his own excrement.
Just a few more days – no running away
Staying put for the next few days. Recovering from flu, giardia, and a skin infection – thanks for the memories India. Everything is now back to normal in the streets so just ambling around the markets, reading in the park by the river, enjoying long coffees of a morning, and trashy movies of an evening. Tonight I’m meeting up with one of the women I travelled with in Rajasthan.
Have bought a few clothes in preparation for job interviews, flat interviews, immigration interviews, but its surprisingly difficult to buy anything close to western sized here. Think Pretty Woman shop bitches that openly laugh when I try to find something in my size. One tip I’ve learned – if its tight to get trousers over your knees, then they are too small – just desist.
Can’t wait for London, leave on Wednesday night.
Tags: Thailand
Jyai