Bangkok and Beyond: June 24, 2008

Bangkok and beyond, kind of.

Under the dripping eaves of a sidewalk cafe, we wait out the brief afternoon showers of Hanoi with 15 cent beers and talk of snake's hearts being eaten while still beating. Next morning, we're flying to Bangkok. The city we land in is quiet. Not the perpetual cacophony of honking and swerving and beeping that characterizes Vietnam. Here in Thailand there are modern, docile expressways, dull architecture, the occasional cluster of palm trees. Without a plan, or even a Thailand guide book, we glut our eyes and ears on the world toursit din of Kao San Road which frankly is a rather appalling spectacle of skewered meat and obscene T-shirts and people trying to sell you wooden frogs. The day is steaming and we find a 4 dollar a night hostel down some back alley where four hotels and guesthoses clamber for space. When night comes, certain touts, as we have been forewarned by a couple Americans we met in Hanoi, are trying to sell us on the idea of watching a "ping pong show." When asked to explain the man only can point to a menu where there are various suggestively shaped implements listed, like bannas and cucumbers. Politely we decline until the next guy asks us ping pong show? and then the next.

Roosters are crowing as we stagger home, nearly lost. A child works the reception. Had some sinus-cleansing curry, and then in the afternoon we are camped out, nearly sleeping with hundreds of people in the Bangkok train station. At one point we stand and sing the anthem of Thailand, salute the king. The television set keeps showing ads promoting something called M-150 that is either an energy drink, a form of kick boxing, or the name of some faction of the military. Or all three. We can't decide.

At 3 a.m. the train lets us off and we haven't slept because in the 2nd class trains its sweltering, no AC and when the train stops it smells of urine. No big deal though. Soon as rain comes down we are shoved on a boat and three hours later, having lived out the dawn without sleep, we are on the island of Ko Tao.

Now it feels like two of the previous days were spent in some dream of a Bangkok train station, curry stands, a hotel room that looked like it belonged in a Bronx tenemant, and heaps of very clay-like sand coiled to look like worm poop.

Thank you.