May 30, 2001

I'm here in Bangkok, having just seen Mom off for her flight back home (aah, "home" - what a lovely word...) and am now busy making the plans for the next two countries. (Plans. Yeah, right. Ride-eat-sleep-repeat. That requires serious planning!) Mom and I had a wonderful time together and I was so sorry to see her leave. I think it brought both of us what we needed: I got a fun travel companion for a (way too short) week and an extra incentive to experience more as-yet unseen places in Bangkok, and Mom got a semi-experienced tour guide to show her around what is basically a different planet for her.

I keep forgetting that the length of time I've spent here, and in Asia in general, has me pretty much used to the overall weirdness of it. (Well, mostly.) I only have to think back to my first week in Bombay to realize what she must have been experiencing. For example, after a week here we found ourselves walking a busy little side alley, probably not 10 ft wide, that we'd already been down 5 days earlier, the second day after Mom arrived. She commented on being surprised that we hadn't run across this little alley before, with all its neat souvenier shops, even though it was so close to the hotel. When I told her we'd already been this way, she realized that the whole experience of being newly in Bangkok had been so overwhelming to her then, she hadn't even seen the shops! This would be somewhat akin to walking down main street-anywhere-usa, and not realizing that all the drivers of the cars were actually little green aliens, because you were so taken aback by the fact that they were all going backwards.

Neither of us consider ourselves to be typical tourists (ie, sticking to tight guided groups and seeing only the traditional tourist sites - the mere thought of doing something like that makes me want to start baa-ing). But we couldn't leave Baaaangkok without checking out the Palace and Wat Pho, two of the most famous places here. Both were quite impressive - I've included some pics of them here. The palace is only used as a ceremonial residence now, as the king only spends one symbolic night here after being coronated. (Bet he didn't sleep much that particular night!) And good thing he now stays elsewhere, 'cause his backyard was literally crawling with camera-totin' strangers! The decor!: either gold leaf is thin enough to be REALLY cheap, or there's currently a helluva surplus of gold-colored paint in Thailand, judging by the dazzle of the buildings. There's so much, it looks like Midas was here and went nuts, slapping random walls and roofs as he passed by. But it must be paint, 'cause the real deal would've been yanked off by us tourists ages ago. (Heck, if it WAS real, I'd have been leaving the grounds several pounds heavier than when I came in. "Just a little souvenier I found laying around on the ground, sir!")

The Wat Pho (a wat is a Buddhist temple that has to contain active monks, I found out - if no monks, then no wat. Man - there's just GOT to be a joke in there somewhere, I know it!) was smaller but equally impressive. Here, Midas REALLY got down to business, though he concentrated mostly on statues and the other different stuff he passed. The giant reclining Buddha was impressive - huge, all in gold, and bare feet inlaid with beautiful mother-of-pearl. How you get a good picture of that thing from inside the building is beyond me. Though I really enjoyed seeing these places, I've gotta admit that if I'd left Bangkok without seeing them, I'd have been happily oblivious. My idea of the best tourist sites are those site with an audience of one.

Mom and I also had a great time exploring the endless markets in the area, from streets lined with veg and meat sellers for multiple blocks, to a single market (Chatuchak) containing over 8000 separate stalls spread over several acres. If you want it, Bangkok's markets have it: from durian fruit (aack!) to fighting roosters to pirated cd's and fake Sony players, and EVERYTHING in between. You could completely furnish and decorate a house in one single stop at Chatuchak. Actually, you could probably buy everything you need to build one as well, and hire a butler/maid/cook for it to boot. The capper for the market day (actually one of three market days for us) was in the evening when we found ourselves in Chinatown right about the time we started getting really hungry, and stumbled across this great Chinese restaurant that happened to feature serious karaoke! Definitely not an experience I'd actively seek out, but a load of fun to see once - these folks really get into it. And no embarassment about it, either, no matter how unqualified the singer! Some of the ladies on stage that night obviously held day-jobs as fire alarms. (If fire alarms wore 6 inch platform-heels and pancake makeup, that is.) Man, what a day.

A few days of the hubub of the city was enough, and we fled to the island of Ko Tao for a different experience: sun, sand, palm jungles, and crystal-clear water. I'm telling you, you just can't get enough of this stuff. Tons of snorkeling, fish-watching (including both of us hovering 3 feet over a school of perhaps 100 parrotfish busily gnawing on the coral), sun-bathing, and generally being lazy. I found a little friend (see the pics) to keep me company - showed him to Mom but declined to offer her a chance to hold him. Partly 'cause although I'd told her that there weren't any poisonous snakes on the island, I wasn't sure whether or not this little guy might fit into the category of "snakes not supposed to be on the island". Never found out for sure, but he took off quickly when I let him go. According to local island folklore, this meant he was poisonous (???). But he was also 1/2 green - does this mean he was only 1/2 poisonous?

On our last weekend together, we decided to head to Kanchanburi and see the bridge over the river Kwai. Not having switched my brain on the night we made the decision to head there, I bought us two tickets for the next day on the "excursion" train to see it, not realizing that "excursion" actually means "all aboard, cattle!" in Thai. That day we enjoyed a 14 hour marathon starting at 6am that included an ass-numbing total of 8+ hours on the train and multiple short stops at many places not worth visiting. The only break for a large period of time was for lunch where the sole attractions nearby were an anemic waterfall and a deserted bat-cave. Deserted unless you counted the Buddhist statues as residents, that is. Maybe they come to life at night and fly about the neighborhood, terrorizing locals in the name of Buddha. ("Say 'om'! Say it again!") Oh, and I forgot the jackfruit-eating stray dog - any dog weird enough to eat not just fruit but jackfruit must be considered a tourist sight. The bridge itself was pretty cool, though obviously after almost 60 years the place wasn't exactly littered with shrapnel and bomb craters anymore. And the only exhibition we saw containing any pics or descriptions about the role it played in history was 10 km away from there!

But you've gotta like a tourist site where the crowd control consists of, well, nothing! (After all, what were we gonna do? Tear the bridge apart by hand in a fit of tourist frenzy?) I spent my time there making my way across the bridge, hopping from railroad tie to railroad tie, with nothing underneath me but air and water. Albeit water a long way down. Nobody said a word. And then a train started across the bridge while we were still on it (!). I guess we were supposed to know to head for the few little balcony-type things on the bridge to avoid getting shoved off. I believe in personal responsibility, but this was taking it a bit far!

But the highlight of the whole trip was the little tour 'director' who spent most of his time pacing up and down the car of the train, shouting at us through a megaphone. We, 2 Europeans, a couple of Japanese, and a bunch of Thais were stuffed in the second class compartment, and I guess we rated a guide, unlike the rabble in third class. (Significantly, there was no first class - they were probably all smart enough to shun the train and rent a car for the day.) Anyway, this director spent probably 6 of our 8 train-bound hours striding up and down the aisle and shouting instructions in Thai at us through this megaphone. And though OUR end of the car was completely non-Thai speaking (somehow all us foreigners ended up in one half and the Thais in the other), we got the same announcements. I guess he was of the if-it's-loud-enough-you'll-understand-it school of thought. All I could make out was that it included jokes mixed in with lots of prices. (???) You know how you can get so fatigued and fed-up with a situation that you have to either start laughing hysterically or go nuts? Mom and I were there - I haven't laughed so hard on this trip yet! By the end of the ride, we both had tears streaming down our faces. As we stepped out of the train in Bangkok at the end of our day from hell, I turned back and screamed "BYE!!" at our director as loudly as I could. He didn't get it.

Now I'm back in Bangkok, alone, having seen Mom off to the airport, and I'm planning my next moves. Since I've finally booked a ticket back to the US (June 28th - yeehah!), I'm more motivated to get going - I have an end in sight now! And typically, in anticipation of being back on the bike and having a good time, I'm now battling a nice cold. Bet Mom left me with a gift from home OTHER than the peanut butter and english muffins - thanks, Ma!

Mark

Pet monkey at the Happy Hut on the island of Ko Chang. He already learned how to bite.	Me and my new little friend. Wonder if he's poisonous or not?
Closeup of said friend.	Me and ma on the beach of Ko Tao, Thailand.
The bridge over the river Kwai.	Gold stupas on the palace grounds, Bangkok.
Detail of a Bangkok painting by Midas.	More gold statues. These guys are everywhere in the palace- the budget for polishing them must be huge.
Typical offerings at the temple in Bangkok.	Cool tree growing around a statue in Bangkok.