Three Days in Bangkok
Wondering where I’ve been since my last post? Yeah, me too. The short version is that I’ve made it safely from San Diego to Bangkok, that I’ve been enjoying myself immensely, and that there’s way too much to write about and way to little time to write. Not to mention that the terminals in the internet cafes here eat Baht like candy. As for my narrative, I’m going to take a sudden hairpin turn from past to present and save the rest of the tsunami story for later (sorry!).
In any case, I’ve been in Bangkok for three days now. To say that I’ve been too crazy busy to get on the computer and write anything would be a bit of an understatement.
As I write this, I’m sitting in the patio lounge area of my guest house, the Wild Orchid Villa, on Soi Sana Chongkram. It’s just a short walk from Khao San Road, the legendary backpacker Mecca and “gateway to Southeast Asia” (known to foreigners primarily from the scene in The Beach where Leonardo DiCaprio drinks snake blood). But the Wild Orchid is down a quiet side street, a little closer to the Chao Phraya river that serves as the main artery of Bangkok’s ancient and labyrinthine system of canals. I haven’t done the full boat tour yet, but I did get an inkling of why Bangkok is called “the Venice of the East” the other day when I took a river boat taxi with my new friend Khae.
Ah, perhaps that’s where I should begin… at the beginning. On Tuesday I took the Surfliner train and the FlyAway bus from San Diego to LAX. As soon as I stepped into the terminal, I felt like I had entered another world. I was flying China Airlines, out of Taiwan, and my terminal at LAX was dominated by Asian airlines and filled with Asian people. From the PA system came announcements in Mandarin, Japanese, Tagalog, and Thai. It was like I had already arrived on another continent.
On my flight from LA to Taipei, Taiwan (my stopover before heading to Bangkok), I was seated next to a lovely Thai woman named Khae, who was on her way to visit her family in Thailand. Since that flight, she has become my insider guide to Bangkok and Thai culture. It’s been really fantastic for me, especially as a writer, because in the three days I’ve been here I’ve already experienced more of an insider’s view of Thailand than most tourists would ever get. Even though I’m staying at a popular guesthouse near Khao San Road, I already have more Thai friends than farang (foreigner) friends, and spend more time talking to Thai people than to other travelers.
So far, I’ve hung out on Khao San Road, bought a cell phone (and a lot of other stuff) at MBK (Bangkok’s most awesome super-mall), ridden in tuk-tuks piloted by seemingly clinically insane drivers, gotten my hair cut by one of Khae’s friends (I now have long, sharply pointed sideburns, which I find somewhat questionable but which are apparently hot stuff in Bangkok at the moment), gone out to dinner with Khae’s sister and brother, and gone dancing until 5 in the morning with Khae and three of her gorgeous friends. I’ve also eaten a lot of great Thai food, enjoyed an amazing quantity of Thai beer, walked around the beautiful Lumpini park, and tried a fish massage (yes, a fish massage–I’ll explain later) at the famous night market. I’ll give you all the details later, I promise–but for now, I’m running out of change for the computer and need to go take my laundry next door to the wash service. For now, sawatdee krap, and I’ll try to get some more writing done tomorrow.
