11. Bangkok

Dear friends and family -

It’s the beginning of my third day in Bangkok. Most everything below this paragraph was written while I was exhausted from travel. I was going to delete much of it, but decided that its the story of what happened, so why not tell it. You will read about going to  the huge MKB mall. Yesterday I had to return there and I realized that my life isn’t so dramatic after needed rest. This time the #29 bus stopped minutes after I waited. The distance to the mall now didn’t seem that far. I got what I needed there and only waited minutes for the bus back to my new hotel. I’m not sure if Bangkok will ever grow on me, but I’m sure I would soon find my way around.

I guess when you really get down to it--I’m just a country boy. Some people thrive living in the bloody heart of humanity, but I guess I’m not one of them. Actually there are some big cities I could live in--Seattle, Portland and Chiang Mai for instance. Chattanooga, Tennessee is a great place, if you like the South. But to live in Bangkok!! Not a chance. To me it’s one crazy ass city. Eight million people live in the actual city, becoming fifteen million in the metro area. That’s 15,000,000 people!! And guess what? Nobody stays at home--they are all out in the street, or it seems. Twenty-four hour a day traffic jams and people cooking food where you’re suppose to park your car. Living amongst the million people of Chiang Mai is easy for me--it’s a big sprawl with no central downtown glass sky-scrapers. I can safely ride my bicycle . . . anywhere. (except the freeway, of course) 

My Train at the Chiang Mai Station

Allow me to start at the beginning.

In Chiang Mai I hired my own private red bus the day before I left--to pick me up at my hotel and take me to the train station. He arrived on time the next day and for the high price of 100 baht ($3.25) he rushed me through town to the station. He was very happy to get my three dollars and twenty five cents. I like that about Chiang Mai. Anyway, the train was old and run-down. It would have been an old train in 1925 . . . OK, maybe 1946. On both sides of the aisle are two large bench seats facing each other. They are assigned. Across from me sat a thirty six year old Japanese man by the name of Toyo, and it wasn’t long before we became friends. I realized almost immediately that he was the reason I took the train. Toyo owns three business’s and lives between Tokyo and Mt. Fuji--with an unobstructed mountain view. He is also a Bollywood actor, a massage therapist, was almost an attorney, is a musician and what else? . . . he has an extremely beautiful Spanish Bollywood actress girlfriend. When we talked about the tsunami he broke down in tears--one of his best friends died. It was a tender moment there on the train. We had a long spiritual conversation--he revealed that he is one of four Japanese who are going to bring peace to the world. He drew a picture where the world was super-imposed on Japan--where Mt. Fuji is Zero Point and the earth cleansing changes are beginning there; ie. that Japan took the hit for the world with the tsunami, instead of it happening on the US east coast. Whether it is true or not, I loved the man’s spirit and positive view of Japan. When he talked about the twelve Lost Tribes of Israel, it reminded me of the conversation I had with a long-haired Tennessee redneck in the Davy Crocket museum (I forgot the name of the town) The guy informed me that I was from the Lost Tribe of Israel and a genuine Cherokee Jew. So I guess my new Japanese friend is also one. Two Cherokee Jews from the Lost Tribe meet on a train in Thailand and talk story. The inspiration for Fictional Novels!

Toyo

As for the train ride: I enjoyed the conversation and site-seeing until 6:30 dinner time. My meal was pretty good: rice, a bowl of cooked vegetable, a bowl of cashew salad, a miso like soup and a small plate of pineapples, all for $5. At 7:30 they converted the sitting area into upper and lower sleeping berths. My bed was six feet by thirty inches wide and the porter made it up with a sheet, pillow and blanket. Toyo was up top. This was my place for the next nine hours. What a wild night ‘sleep’! I was cold and had to take off my clothes because I was sweating like crazy--hot-and-cold flashes without being sick. Toyo report the same the next morning. Strange. All night long it was like I was laying on a blender that was unsuccessfully working on blending a bunch of gravel. The toilet was a metal foot stand outhouse (don’t look down)--I’m glad I wasn’t a woman or needed to poop. I think it would be nearly impossible to not fall in--with that train trying its best to stay on the tracks. But we did arrive safely at the Bangkok station twelve hours later. All this for $20. The last train I took from San Jose to Seattle (Oct. 2010)--I think it was twenty hours and cost 25 times more. But, it was possible to poop on that train.

Bangkok is 100 degrees with ridiculous high humidity. Talk about sweating. I take three cold showers a day here.

Bangkok Train Station

I had pre-rented a room in a guest house near the train station for 600 baht a night ($20)--sounded good at the time. (don’t ever trust Thai Guest House website pictures) Young travelers like these places--they are cheap and are a good place to meet other young travelers. I’ve come to realize that a well-made bed, a decent room and modern toiletry are important to me.  Anyway, I’m resilient and can adapt, so after I checked in--my body wanted to crash on the red sheeted bed, but my mind didn’t want to be there. So I called a man I had met in Chiang Mai - Satya - who has lived in downtown Bangkok for 40 years. He gave directions, and I was soon in a tuk-tuk going to our meeting place. Once there we walked many blocks and got on a bus and then got off and walked and went to the metro underground and got on a train, got off and then crammed into an overground train and ended up in a mall--looking for a new camera for me. What I wanted wasn’t there, so we walked to another mall for lunch. This mall was ultra-modern:five star. On the forth floor, the food court, spanning the atrium, was the frickin’ Golden Gate bridge!  We met a Dutch South Africaner Thai transplant who has a bronzing factory--which got my artist mind reeling. Satya and I parted and he told me to take bus 29 back to my guest house. After that and the 12 hour train I was wiped out.

A tuk-tuk

I got back safely and passed out for a few hours. I still wanted my new camera. For some reason fewer and fewer pictures turned out with my pocket Nikon, so I decided to get an inter-changeable lens Sony Nex5, at the price I was willing to pay. So I got up, went out, ran across heavy traffic (didn’t realize there was a tunnel) and waited for bus 29. No bus 29 ever showed up. I had no map and using my inner compass I decided to head through the hood--stepping into a vortex of possible danger. Suddenly I was in the Bangkok back ghetto where no white man dare walk on foot. (I was later warned not to do such a thing) After about fifteen minutes of going in deeper I stopped a tuk-tuk, but I couldn’t get myself to pay the ridiculous farang price, so I went right for a few block and finally turned around. I was in the greasy tire warehouse district--with engines and transmissions lying around and food booths out into the street and nasty looking men drinking beer at gutter tables. After dodging guys who were riding their motorbikes on the sidewalk I got to an intersection where this small car turned the corner and actually hit me. Fortunately my reflexes were good and I rolled myself away with a loud bang on the car--then squeal of brakes. I can’t believe it didn’t run over my toes. Anyway I finally got back to the main street and several bus 29’s went by but wouldn’t stop for me. One was stopped in traffic and the driver wouldn’t open the damn door, so a passenger got up and pushed the inner button for me. btw--I later found out that I was heading in the right direction through the urban jungle and would have arrived near my destination about a half mile farther--and that the tuk-tuk driver wanted to charge me four times the normal rate.

So I got to my third mall of the day. This mall had to be the biggest mall in the Universe. Maybe there are bigger malls in China, I don’t know. It was eight story high and I’d guess at least two hundred yards long, thirty wide. It had at least a thousand stores under one roof. One floor was all cell phones--hundreds, literally at least one hundred booths selling variations of the same damn thing. Cell phones, cell phone covers, iPads and to break the monotony--pirated DVD movie stores. And the thing about it--almost every single booth had buying customers.Thousands and thousands of shoppers (a great many of them farangs) crowding the aisles on all eight stories--worst than an American mall on Black Thursday. Good news was I found my camera at the price I wanted to pay. By then it was after nine pm. Bangkok was then only beginning to come alive. For sure all eight million were milling about. This is a night city. No bus 29 for eight baht (26 cents) showed up--but an old man told me I could take another more expensive bus (32 cents--I forgot the bus number). It got me home (crash pad) and I sweated another night away. 

Yesterday (for today) I bought a seat in a VIP Van to Siem Reap, Cambodia ($25)--from an agency at the same Bangkok train station I had arrived at yesterday morning. I am learning about convenience. My Chiang Mai travel agent told me to go to the Khoa San district of Bangkok, where all the travel agents are, to buy a ticket for one of those big double decker buses. Khoa San is also the infamous bar/red light district that opens up after 9 pm and goes all night.  I have no interest in seeing it or writing about it. Nobody, especially me, wants to read the story of the beautiful babe I picked up in a Bangkok bar--who wasn’t a girl after-all. I need a good night’s sleep. So to make my last day in Bangkok more relaxing I moved to a much nicer hotel. The truth is--I am who I am--a sixty-five year old gentleman with no reason for self-abuse. The difference between last night’s hovel and this hotel room is remarkable, and all it cost was five dollars more. Anyway, tomorrow morning I’ll have breakfast at this hotel, walk out the door to the underground and five minutes later, at 8:30, I begin my three hour bus ride to Siem Reap. And with a small van the border visa stamping won’t be so complicated. We’ll see. Hopefully--with my new camera--in the next blog I’ll have some wonderful pictures of the temples at Angkor Wat. 

With my love,

David Dakan Allison