Last day in Bangkok :-(
After a long and of course, arduous journey of 14 hours by bus I arrived in Bangkok from Phuket. The whole trip was spent trying to sleep upright next to a very charming and beautiful Thai women who, I decided, is the only person in Thailand that doesn't speak a word of English. My Thai is no better I will work on that for my next trip.) Driving over raised highways that remind me more of California than Thailand we arrived at the "new" bus terminal which oddly enough looks like a shopping center. Lo and behold, you walk in and up an escalator and it is a shopping center that just happens to sell bus tickets. This way you can buy all that crap you really don't need and then send it off to your family in Phuket or Chiang Mai. It seems that the Thai have become just as addicted to shopping as we Americans. Now, I am not complaining too much, they need to make a living too but everywhere you look there is someone trying to sell you something. From Eggs roasted over coals to a piece of wood carved like a frog that makes a croaking sound when stroked. I had first decided that I would take public transit from the bus station to my hotel in Bangkok to help save money. I sat down and unfolded my gargantuan bus map that screams tourist to every taxi driver in sight. They all proceed to drive by me while honking their horns to get my attention. "No, I'll take the bus," I say. "Hahaha," the taxi drivers reply. After realizing that the bus map does not even show up on the map I gave up my need to take public tranist and took a taxi, for what may be the longest taxi ride of my life, though not the most expensive (that would definetly have to be in NYC.) The ride lasted at least an hour and cost me a total of under $10. The taxi driver, unlike most in the world it seems, was quite pleasant. We had bits and pieces of a discussion from his broken English he learned carting tourists around Thailand and I learned that he had a wife and a child on the way. He offered to take me to the airport tomorrow and I agreed that it would be good to know that someone is there for me, especially at 5:30 in the morning.
After checking in to my hotel, Suk 11. A quiant, artistic little place in an otherwise sea of hotels in this neighborhood that is known for hotels that are large, expensive and without feeling. I settle in and take a short nap to make up for the short cat naps I got on the bus before the next police check on the bus would wake me up. See, Thailand, like the U.S. has a problem with illeagal immigration. The Burmese being neighbors to Thailand would much rather come over to the land of smiles and work the lowest of the lowest positions that to stay in their dictator hell. The result (not fact, only my speculation) is that the Thai police has set up check points where they check vehicles and the passengers ID's. On the night bus, we made many of these stops preventing me from my precious beauty sleep. The nap over, I had two main objectives for the day: visit my Thai cooking instructor and pick up some things that I had left at the train station. Though easily accomplished in one maybe two hours, I managed to spend the whole day wandering the city, trying to absorb every last little bit of Thai I could before tomorrows flight to India. I made many stops, oogling the food stalls that line the street. Wishing that laws in the states allowed for such a beautiful mess of food on the street. I sat down for a lunch of stir fried noodles with pork and then had a thick and sweet Thai coffee to wash it down. I stopped for some time at one of the busiest intersections in the city which also happens to house one of the busiest shrines in the city, the Erawan Shrine. I sat on a park bench, watching the buddhist devotees light their pungent incence and give offerings of flowers to the shrine. Smoke filled the air while traditional dancers, danced to traditional music in the background. I think to myself about religious devotion and how this scence is very much absent from the American landscape. Only beind the doors of a church do people in the states make this kind of attempt of prayer or worship to a higher being. yet here, with the above ground train speedily sliding by and the traffic of hundreds of motorbikes and cars rumble by in the intersection, worshipers come in droves. Many pull out cell phones and snap a small picture of the shrine to take with them.
I will miss this city. Already I am having the same feelings I did when I knew that I was taking the metro in New York for the last time as a resident, trying to grasp onto the fleeting moment and insert it into the little long term memory that my brain can afford. I text a couple girls that I happend to meet a few weeks ago to see, on the off chance, that they would be available for dinner. I make plans for myself to visit a popular area for the local youth to waste their night, an area known as RCA (Royal City Avenue.) The westernization in this city is taking hold so strongly that most entertainment venues have adopted western names such as Slim, Flex and Route 66. The last is a hip hop club feature different rooms that play music from the West, East and South of the states. After the errands are finsished, I hop onto a city bus and head back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner and to change out of my soaking wet clothes. The raining season is just beginning and daily storms have become the norm. The lighting and thunder was as impressive as a good storm during a Minnesota summer where each strike and rumble makes the hair on the back of your next stand.
I allowed my new Thai friends to decide on the wheres and whens of dinner. Luckily they chose a place only a few blocks from my hotel although in true Thai style they were late by almost an hour (due to the horendous Bangkok traffic.) The place, Guliver's Traveler Tavern was just terrible. It could have been any bar or pub in the states with cheezy and nostalgic decoration with walls lined with televisions playing sports. I was unsure whether they had chosen this destination for my sake or becuase they acutually enjoy the feeling of pop western culture. I resigned to the thought that it would be the first authentically western meal that I would have in over two months. The meal was terrible and probably the most expensive meal I had had in weeks, maybe months. After dinner we shot some pool, in a modern looking pool hall. I had read about an area in Bangkok that was far from the tourist trap of Khao San road, this fabled land was full of clubs and bars and music. Few tourists. I convinced my guests for the night to bring me there. Royal Central Avenue (RCA) was indeed a land of few westerners and many young Thais. Our first stop was a club called Route 66. An American themed club with three wings labled West, East and South. Coincidently, each rooms plays music from the corresponding part of the states. I think that we chose the East. The girls had to work in the morning and were getting sleepy so I bid them fairwell and decided on a bar that was known for live, local music. Named Slim, it was a disappointment. The Thai band did play loud and original music however it was crap! I waited out their few last songs and hailed a taxi and headed back to the hotel to pack and get a few hours of sleep.
Busing it in the rain.
A massive Shrine and Burberry on the same corner.
No comments:
Post a Comment