After an exhausting day on which I went around town to look at the king’s palace (which is both astonishing and an insane waste of public money) I fell into the most comfortable bed that I have slept in weeks. My Thai friend Victor was so nice as to host me in his condo in one of the ‘better places in town’ aka ‘a gated community’. I was assigned a guest room in the east-wing of the condo – joke but the room is nice!
But let me start in the beginning! Victor is working like crazy: he came back from work around 3:30am on the day I got to Bangkok. On the same day (yesterday) I dropped of my luggage, worked on this blog until I realized that I forgot my laptop charger. So I spend several hours going to an electronics mall and buying a new charger. And I mean literally hours: Bangkok is so huge and crowded that it took me an hour to go to a place which is just one neighborhood away. The mall that I arrived at was probably the place with the most electronic equipment that I have ever seen! Over five floors there is a sheer amount of plastic and silicon from the latest laptops to cheap Chinese plugs or knock-off iPhones. Next, I went into the mall next door hopeful to find a small bite. The fashion mall that I with its consumerist people inside made me quite sick. I left the mall as quickly as I had entered it.
I went back to Kaoh San Road and spend some money on some clothes including a skirt which I ended up wearing all afternoon and which really irritated the people in the grand palace where skirts are part of the dress code – but only for women. So I had to change in some fashionable long pants and dress shirt – which is what most Thais wear and as Victor told me what Thais were obliged to wear around the turn of the 18th/19th century in Thailand as a sign of modernization. In today’s western world it represents an implicit agreement with the rules of business and the social etiquette that goes along with it… Not something I find worth striving for uncritically.
The grand palace was really spectacular but see for yourself!
After that I went to Victor’s place quite soon where I met his sister Vanessa who was nice and very tired. Victor came home late and I had a long Skype session with Sarah. I realized how homesick I am for the first time in a long time.
Meanwhile I figured out that taxies don’t have buckles because it is unfashionable. In every freakin’ cab I looked for them but I never found one. The buckles are always well-hidden under the seats. I also realized that it pays the taxi drivers much more to get you to your destination quickly because time that they have to wait in traffic pays really shitty. Anyway – taxi drivers usually will go as fast as the streets allow them to which was 110kph on a street within Bangkok.
Thursday started relatively early given that I’m on vacation. When I finally went to the old-town district I went straight to the National Museum, which was a relaxing as well as an educational experience. The museum is in a pretty good state but the load of old stuff is simply overwhelming. A much more unique and enriching experience was the walk that I took afterwards to park – no, a green oasis in the sea of cars exterior to it. I witnessed Thai basketball, in which one person holds up a paper bin and moves it towards the ball when it comes. Next to these people there was a group doing hula hoop, including several men which I smirkingly took notice of. On a large plateau there was an aerobic class who was dancing to trashy Thai Techno (aerobic music is universal huh?). And while all of these people were breathing heavily in the sun, I read my book next to them.
While the sun was slowly painting the smoggy blue over Bangkok in orange and pink colors, everyone suddenly got up: at six o’clock every day the national anthem is played and as loyal Thai citizens they stand straight for a minute. And even the tourists paused for a moment and then the park was quiet, except for the distant noise of big-city traffic and some crickets.
At night I was tired of roaming BKK by myself and to make it a little easier for me I posted several posts on Couchsurfing (www.couchsurfing.org). A guy named Boom ended up calling me and we met shortly thereafter to have a beer. However, it seemed like we were looking for different things that night since after not too long he wanted to take me to his place where I would sleep very comfortably he promised me. I kindly refused and figured that I maybe should not have posted anything on the Bangkok Gay site, which apparently serves as a dating/one-night-stand platform. However, we did have quite some interesting conversational topics about being gay in Thailand. His one sibling is a ladyboy and he thinks that many Thai people are gay (although I am firmly convinced that this has less to do with genes than culture).
Right now I am doing my hangover breakfast at Kaoh San Road among millions of other hung-over tourists. Breakfast is shitty but the passing people are interesting to watch plus there is free wifi (which has become the number one criterion for selecting a restaurant).
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