We had made it to Asia, real Asia. Not some border of Asia, not the Middle-East, not the Near East, or whatever they're calling it...no, Asia. Asia Asia. This was to be the meat of our journey. Europe had just been the appetizer.
And so we alighted from our plane in Bangkok and stood in a long line of tourists to get our passports stamped. Finally we were fitting in. There in line were dirty hippy looking types with dreadlocks and sandals. I wanted to embrace them in all their smelliness. We were among real backpackers at last.
The first shock in Bangkok came with the taxi ride. No, the taxi was fine. It was air conditioned and everything. It was the price. A 45 minute ride only cost us only £2. To give you some perspective, back in the UK, a five-minute taxi ride between Stalybridge and Mossley (meant for those late nights in Manchester) cost £5. If the price of the taxi ride was any indication of our spending capacity, I was going to love Bangkok.
We were dropped on the edge of Khao San Road--Backpackers Paradise. It's a neon strip of cheap hotels, restaurants, bars, tourist shops, 7-elevens, massage palours--anything a backpacker could want. It was lit up and humming with electricity. The hawkers were out and the street was packed with all kinds of dirty hippy backpacking people. For the first time on this journey I didn't want to head to bed. I was ready to jump into KSR.
First we got rid of our bags, our top priority at any destination. Chris had been here before, he knew where to stay. That said, I trusted him. He got us checked into the Chart Guesthouse for a mere £7 a night. We trudged up four flights of stairs (no elevators on Khao San Road) and came to a corridor that looked like something out of a Thai prison. Our room fit the whole prison-theme. We had a double bed and an overhead fan, and that was it. Literally. There may have been some windows, but they were boarded up, and all they were letting in was obnoxious blaring music from the street below. It was dire. The bathroom stalls out in the hallway were on par with the prison-cell rooms. None of the toilets had seats, there was no toilet paper to be found, there was no flush mechanism on any of the toilets, rather there was a bucket of water and a scoop. Thankfully English-speaking backpackers had been come this way before, and they were the ones who left instructions on the door. 'Use water in bucket to flush toilet.' This was scrawled in magic marker on the back of the door, and I was very grateful for this advice. Of course this was among other graffiti that was there. In the shower stall next door, the graffiti was written in the form of a conversation between an American and a British person. It was quite a heated debate about George W. Bush and American Imperialism (this must have been from half a decade back), and it made my showering quite enjoyable as I read through it all. Either these guys showered a lot or they made repeat trips to the shower room with their magic markers. The coversation went on and on and on, but my shower felt so good I didn't mind reading it all.
As we walked KSR we were drawn in left and right by hawkers. Chris was the target for tailors ('Look, Sir, nice suit for you') and those promoting the Ping Pong Show. (If you don't know what the Ping Pong Show is, well, it's probably best to leave it that way). I was the target for the massage girls (legitimate massage, that is). 'You want massage?' There, right on the street, were rows of deck chairs, and tourists were laying there getting their feet massaged. It did look tempting. Everyone had such a content look on their face.
Our first meal was at Lucky Beer. Everything was so cheap, and the variety immense, I wondered what kind of paradise I had stumbled into. Thai food rates near the top of my list. The flavours are simple and subtle, but blend so well together. I ordered some noodles, and a Mai Thai to wash it down. For the first time in a long time, probably since my days of hanging out at college bars, I recieved an unnecessarily strong cocktail. The Thais pride themselves in their strong alcoholic drinks (offered to tourists anyway. I'm not sure if the Thais themselves are a drinking people). Cocktails were only £2 each, so for that reason alone, I ordered another one. I had a hard time walking out of Lucky Beer. The neon lights were blurring.
After a walk up and down the ungoing hub of KSR, Chris and I retired to our prison cell where we laid on our bed in the dark and sweated the booze out of our system. The fan wasn't enough in the tropical humidity. There was no fresh air coming into our room and the fan blades merely swirled the heavy air around. Chris and I sweated in a fashion I don't think we've ever sweated before. I could actually feel the sweat coming out of my pores, and it kept me awake. I had to think the position I was laying in, just to assess maximum air flow; for instance I had to sleep with my head propped up by my pillow i such a way to allow air to move between the back of my neck and the bed. Chris and I were drenched, our sheets were drenched, our pillows were drenched. We both slept naked, and there was nothing sexy about it.
It was hard to tell what time of day or night it was. The music kept pumping into our room. I think in the hour before daybreak (again, hard to tell with boarded up windows) the music changed and karaoke kicked in. Thai karaoke is not something you particularly want to listen to at 4:00 in the morning (or at all). However, it didn't bother me as much as the heat. I felt the air was squashing me like a sponge and every drop of liquid inside of me was oozing out. This was bad. I knew we'd be roughing it in Asia, in fact the more the better, as this was meant to be a character-building experience--but this was pure punishment. I felt we had signed into the Bangkok Hilton, and I don't mean the five-star establishment on the Chao Praya. Chris had properly broken me into Bangkok.
Everyday's a Holiday
Chris said there were some temples nearby. Wanting to see Bangkok outside of Khao San Road, I let Chris lead me down a noisy congested street. Almost right away we were approached. 'Where you go?' Each man that asked this wore a bright smile, so eager to help. We wouldn't tell them, just wave them off with a 'Thanks we're fine.' But they'd call after us, 'Today holiday. Closed until one o'clock.'
Chris told me not to believe these men, they did this all the time in an effort to draw tourists away, and for the tourist to ask, 'Well what do we do now?' The men were mainly tuk-tuk drivers. Chris, having been to Bangkok before, knew their game well. Wherever we went, regardless of the destination, we got men calling after us, 'No, today closed. Today special holiday!' What made it especially confusing is that sometimes it was a special holiday. We encountered this a few times in our stay, but we were to find out that in Bangkok, no tourist place really closes. A lot of times the schedules are altered, but very rarely do places close.
That first day out, after a long hot slog under the tropic sun, coincidence of coincidences, we couldn't gain entry to the Royal Palace. Not because it was closed (the sign outside read 'Open Every Day'), but because we weren't dressed appropriately. What we had actually wanted to see was the Reclining Buddha, but we had showed up at the wrong location. Too hot to sort the whole situation out, we went in search of drinks. We found some cafe by the Chao Praya, the main waterway through Bangkok. We were offered a boat cruise, but Chris and I weren't very interested. We found ourselves haggling anyway. Usually my way out of something to offer an unreasonably low price. For this I asked for a two for one deal, or something equally outrageous. As we walked away, the lady chased us down and said 'Ok, ok, I take.' Before we knew it, Chris and I found ourselves on a private long-tail boat, chugging up the brown rolling waters of the Chao Praya.
It was quite thrilling to find ourselves on the river. The Chao Praya is a massive river. Its waves are choppy and rolling with all kind of debris. I saw a few trees churning in the muddy water. The boat's engine roared behind us as we went speeding along. The wind felt good, drying out our sweat-drenched clothes. The boat slowed as it turned off into a canal, and then we began our meanderings through a poor area of the city. Houses in various stages of decay sagged on stills at the canalsides. Children bathed in the dirty river and old men watched us from rotting porches. This was perhaps the first real poverty I had seen so far on this trip. It wasn't shocking poverty, in fact I got the sense that these people were at ease in their environment. Some of them were fishing from their porches, some of them were feeding the fish, and most of them were just going about their lives, not paying any attention to the likes of us.
We had been promised a ride through the Floating Market. I was all excited, remembering pictures I had seen of boats sliding past each other in tiny canals, crammed with all sorts of colourful goods. Our Floating Market consisted of five women in boats sitting under a bridge. Our guide nodded up ahead, and a woman came out from some overhang in her little boat and sided up to us. She had trinkets for sale. When we informed her that we had no need for trinkets, she brought out a fan that turned into a hat. It was cute, but we didnt want that either. Like any good salesperson, she gave us even further choice, opening up a cooler stocked with drinks. Feeling pressured to buy something, Chris haggled with her over the price of a beer. She laughed openly, displaying gaps where her teeth should be. Then she rowed back from the crevice she came from and waited for the next tourist boat. Not quite the floating market I had in mind.
The last part of our ride was a stop at a large temple on the Praya. It was my first time in a Buddhist place of worship. We took our shoes off and went to sit cross-legged in front of a large gold Buddha. No one else was there so we got to sit in silence for awhile. It was impressive, all the decoration, the various gold buddhas that lined the alter, all with gently smiling faces, but it didn't help me to understand what I was supposed to do. How is one even supposed to view the Buddha?
A Word on Religion
There are temples all over Bangkok. Their roofs mainly shine gold in the sun, but they're lined in red and green. Most are complexes with different buildings, and most are very active places with women making flower garlands, old female monks with shaved heads setting up food for their male counterparts, and worshippers purchasing joss sticks and performing various types of worship. Sometimes you can see the saffron-monked robes chanting over people and spraying holy water from a wick. It's an interesting world. They're open to visitors, as long as the tourists are dressed respectively (no shorts or sleeveless shirts) and take their shoes off before entering.
Chris and I finally found our Reclining Buddha at Wat Po. Wat Po is a massive temple complex in the middle of Bangkok. The gardens are dotted with stupas, bell-shape mounds that point up to the heavens. There were several temples there that Chris and I entered. We sat before a few Buddhas, mindful not to point the soles of the feet toward anything holy (the soles are the lowest part of the body and are regarded as dirty). The big Buddha, the one lying on his side, entering Nirvana, was ok, rather touristy to be honest. His feet were cute though, in a Buddhist statue sort of way, each toe about the length of an arm. He was just lying there, propped up by his elbow, smiling away in that secretive little way of his. Some may say that he was smiling because he had reached Nirvana. It's my personal belief that his little secret was the one that I share, that this is all bullshit.
Chris offered to take me to a non-touristy temple, one that he used to frequent back in his earlier backpacker days on Khao San Road (Chris identifies with the religion). And so he did, and I was surprised that the temple was literally just around the corner from where we were staying. There were no Westerners milling about. We were the only observers as we watched the people come in a pray.
It was a peaceful place, it really was. The monks were about so we stayed out of the main area. We sat on benches to the side and just looked over the multitude of gold-plated Buddhas and contemplated nothing. I just took it all in. People came in, sometimes wandering over to a favourite Buddha statue off to the side where we sat. They prostrated themselves, leaving little gifts by the statue. I appreciated all this, it was very interesting to sit and watch how others worship, but I came to a definite conclusion. It was like lightning had hit me--a very gentle lightning stroke, but one that went right through me. My revelation--religion is all the same.
It's all the frickin same. The locations may differ, the practices and doctrines and prophets may differ, but the basics are there, that fundamental need in humans to curry favour from someone greater than them. As long as humans feel some situations are out of their hands (their fate, their fertility, the actions of others, the afterlife, etc...) they will beseech something, by whatever name they call it, to influence the course of things. They may truly love that something greater, I have no doubt, but take the possibility of blessings away and say that God is something impersonal and uninterested in human affairs--would religion as we know it exist, or would people just get on with their lives? I'm of the personal belief that there is no one listening to my prayers, rather that prayer is a sort of meditation. Meditation I subscribe to, because it centers you, puts you in a definite moment. That was more or less what I was experiencing in the temple, other than the lighting bolt. I felt a sort of peace come over me, because I strongly felt my own presence, and the power of being alive in that very moment. It had nothing to do with the gold-plated Buddhas. Those are just things. I have nothing to offer or ask or accept from them, as in any other place of worship around the world.
Buddhism, you didn't win my heart. Not like the way it did Chris'. Still I liked the chanting of the monks. The human voice can be an amazing thing.
'You Want Massage?'
We had to switch hotels. Chris and I came across a series of backpacker alleys not far from KSR. The prices of restaurants and guesthouses were cheaper, and the setting was much more peaceful. We checked into a guesthouse there that was the same rate as Chart, but the room was vastly better. We actually could sit in our room and do stuff. We were feriously reading, Chris some romance novel, and me, a book I had purchased on my Kindle called 'The Crimson Petal and the White.' It's set in Victorian London and is basically a story told through the eyes of a prostitute. It was brilliant, I was so wrapped up in it, it was weird leaving the hotel room to find myself on the streets of Bangkok; a culture shock of sorts.
Chris and I spent a lot of time in that quiet backpacking area, either wandering the alleys, or checking out bookshops, or buying T-shirts, or slurping noodles and sipping Chang beer, taking advantage of the ubiquitiously free wi-fi. It was a time of relaxation, where no fulfiling of obligations were underway.
One night after dinner, I found myself readily succumbing to a massage, one of those lounge chair ones out on the street. A toothless old woman by the name of Coco gave my weary backpacker feet a rubdown. Her hands were so expert and powerful I had to pay her for another half hour to do my back and shoulders. I was in absoulute heaven. A full hour of massage only cost £4.
The next night I was back for more. This time at a different massage parlour, and Chris came with. They led us inside to an upper room. I got the traditional Thai massage and Chris got a Swedish one. I got another old lady to administer my massage. I had been sweating so bad, I had to apologize to her. She merely placed a towel over me so as to not have to touch my sweat-soaked clothes. About half-way through the massage she started giggling, and I looked over to see Chris getting his rubdown. His shirt was off and he had some guy working him over. My lady whispered to me 'King Kong' and laughed, putting a finger to her mouth. I guess in essence she was calling my husband a hairy gorilla. I guess there aren't many hairy Thais, so Chris may be something of a novelty. In any case, it was time for the lady to crack my back. She had me clasp my hands behind my neck, and then she drove her knees into my midback and lifted me. Holy crap, my back snapped like a Christmas cracker. She then folded me over and put her full body weight on me-Snap, then the other side-Snap snap. I was grunting like a mule. As severe as that was, I walked out of there looser than I have ever been before (approximately two days later my back was killing me, worse than ever).
Like a Local
I no longer felt green in Bangkok. I was strict with the taxi men. I was even stricter with the tuk tuk drivers. If we had to go somewhere, I would say, 'No stops. Straight there.' A lot of them didn't want to take us if we explitely demanded that we wouldn't stop to look at gems (this is another practice of tuk tuk drivers to look out for. They offer a cheap price, but instead of taking you straight to your destination, they take you to their brother's gem shop, or somewhere else where you're pressured to buy something). Chris and I looked like seasoned backpackers, and I'm proud to say that we didn't get ripped off once in Bangkok.
We also mastered use of the express boat along the Chao Praya. It cost mere pennies to travel up and down the river. Getting on the boat was always fun, the waves were always knocking the boat about. But the men working the rope always pulled it close for us to hop aboard. On the express boat we traveled with the locals. The ticket woman shook her change box as she walked the length of the boat, collecting tickets and money. We watched as we pulled up to each dock. The rope guy gave directions by use of a whistle, and the boat would steer closer, bumping up against the tires that padded the dock. Most of the locals were dressed well, as if they were coming from or going to work. Monks also used this form of transporation, and hung out mostly near the back. It was a great ride, and more convienent than any taxi to get around.
One of our day trips was to Lumphini Park, the Central Park of Bangkok. We sat on a bench and watchded giant monitor lizards crawl in and out of a lake. I've never seen such huge reptiles in my life. They looked similar to pictures I've seen of Komodo dragons. They moved slowly and awkwardly on fat legs. They kept clear of us though, disappearing into the water if we came too close.
We decided to read in the shade for a bit. Before we knew it the sprinkler system kicked on and we found ourselved dodging jets of water. We failed a few times and ended up wet, but it was quite refreshing in the humid heat.
We made our way to Chinatown where we got lost in the maze of stalls that took up several blocks. It was interesting, but there was nothing for us to buy, and the alleys were so clogged with people it was hard to concentrate on anything. We broke free and headed back to the relative peace of our backpacker district.
The last few days for us in Bangkok it rained. Hard. Like monsoon rain, coming down in solid sheets and flooding the streets. Chris and I would find refuge in cafes, or one time, in our local temple. The very sound of the rain was astounding. It would last for hours. Unfortunately all the rain brought out the rats. We would see them in the street either dead or alive. I'm not a big fan of rats myself. I was glad they kept their distance.
Bangkok had treated us well. I really loved the city with all it's chaotic noise and energy. But it was time to move on. Chris and I headed to the train station to catch on overnight train to Surat Thani for the next segment of our trip. We sat at the station, right behind the section reserved for monks, and watched music videos on a big screen. Our favourite song, one that haunts us to this day, goes something like 'Snooky Snooka' and has become something of an anthem for this trip. In the video the girl gets her heart broken by her boyfriend who's shagging a girl in a bathroom stall, and she's in the next stall listening. It was like a whole soap opera, the video went on for ages. I wondered if the monks were enjoying it as much as Chris and I. I've thought of giving us the pet names of Snooky and Snooka. (I'd be Snooka, naturally.)
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