TRAVEL: SOUTHEAST ASIA 2 - STILL IN BANGKOK

18/11/02: Wally’s for breakfast (mediocre). The Royal Palace and the Reclining Buddha for some sight-seeing. Gulliver’s for tea, Dong Dea Moon and The Hendrix for drinks, early night.

Never get in the tuk-tuk. I didn't get in the tuk-tuk, which is just as well. What often happens is that the tuk-tuk driver will insist on taking you on a tour of all the local sights, before subtly dropping in that he needs to pick up his gorilla suit from the dry cleaners on the way (or something like that). What he really wants to do is take you round his mates’ house so he can SELL you a gorilla suit, at a hugely inflated rate. Primate attire don’t come cheap.

I am amused by Buddhas. They’re everywhere. There is even a temple built especially to house a huge reclining one. ‘Golden Gigantic Reclining Buddha’ it reads on the postcards, and they do not lie. The thing is a theistic behemoth, just lying there looking content. Anyhow, there are Buddhas everywhere, in all shapes and sizes, mostly golden and all with the same beatific grin.

19/11/02: Back to Wally’s for breakfast – far better this time. Visit Wat Saket (the Golden Mount) where you can see for miles. Got a bit miffed after being hassled by some local type, and the area was a bit rough all around. Went for food somewhere out of the way – bad move: food passably bland. Return to Hole in the Wall in the evening, get chatting to some Danish chap and bet some more with Pipi.

Bangkok simultaneously evokes pity and envy. Around the Golden Mount are streets filled with the stench of rotting waste and general poverty, yet this is not a third world country by any means. The beggars are benign in manner, as are the dogs. The con-artists play fair and the only reason you ever feel threatened is because sometimes things seem so unassuming it arouses your suspicion.

Everything functional is made of minimally reinforced concrete, and it looks great: so simple it gives the city a wonderful cohesion leaving centre stage to the glorious temples and Buddhas scattered liberally throughout the metropolis. But it must be quite a full-on place to take up residence. There are malnourished, disease-ridden canines everywhere, homeless people not much better off, street urchins with baby bats in hand hawking chewing gum and tissues, and a general air of licentiousness that makes Soho in London feel pedestrian. All this in temperatures that rarely seem to dip below 30 degrees Celsius. When it rains, though, it really rains. The lightning flickers on after the storm has passed and the thunder can no longer be heard, like a lamp with a bad connection.

20/11/02: Wally’s again, then north to see another Buddha at Wat Indrawihan, and dogs fighting. Internet café, bar with spinning orb, Gulliver’s for tea, back to hotel for an early night.

21/11/02: Do mundane things, then pop into The Hendrix for a shandy and bump into J and H. Have another drink, go our separate ways, eat pizza on Khao San Road and then meet up with J and H around the corner from The Hendrix for evening drinks. Rain, then another bar, yet more rain, even harder now, thunder, the works.

After six days spent kicking around Bangkok, we were fast running out of things to see and do; as much as I like Giant Golden Buddhas they do sort of all look the same. Come Wednesday and I had been to Wally’s for breakfast three days on the trot, and every day, expect for the first, for what they discern to be an American Breakfast. It turns out this is a standard interpretation in Thailand, consisting of two slices of toast, two fried eggs, two slices of something masquerading as ham (sometimes you get the option of bacon instead) a conserve of marmalade/jam, margarine, a side order of fruit (usually pineapple, water melon or banana) and either a cup of tea or coffee. For re-hydration purposes, I would back this up with a pineapple shake, given that most mornings I was grappling with a hangover of varying degrees.

We walk north up Samsen Road to investigate Wat Indrawihan and look over yet another Buddha, dodging tuk-tuk drivers along the way, having to contrive a very elaborate excuse at one point. When we get there a man offers to free a predetermined number of caged birds for a not insubstantial amount of money. I decline this sad opportunity for obvious reasons: if I collude, he’ll then have to catch more birds to replace the ones he’s set free, thus perpetuating the cruel cycle.

It is peaceful here, save for a couple of dogs gnarling at each other while laughing children look on, goading them cruelly, like something out of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. Then it’s back towards the Khao San Road to think very hard about our impending movements.

The plan was to hang around in Bangkok until a number (three) of our colleagues caught up with us, and then make a move en masse, but we are yet to receive the relevant emails indicating when this might be. Should we make a move now regardless, as another Southeast Asian veteran, in a recent email, has vehemently recommended I do? Or are we better served holding out for the arrival of our cadres? We decide to give it another couple of days, but on the next our minds our decided for us.

Drinking in The Hendrix late in the afternoon, two of our expected entourage breeze right on past. J and H are well travelled and their sudden presence is reassuring. It materialises that they arrived in Bangkok that very morning. Furthermore, they do not anticipate staying for a day longer. And so it is agreed. Tomorrow we will head southwards, and S, the last member of our party scheduled to arrive, will have to follow on when he finally shows up. (He’d originally been booked to come out on the same flight as me and Louise but had to reschedule, for various reasons.) These arrangements are willingly received, if only in lieu of a will to commit to anything else.

Later, we meet our friends for a drink at their hotel – just around the corner from The Hendrix – a place with the most rudimentary of dormitories – charged appropriately – which from their description makes our humble dwelling seem extravagant. At least their hotel has a bar. We do some drinking. Then we do some walking. Another storm pounces and we dive down an alley for cover. At the end of said alley is the smallest drinking establishment in the world – at least, I’ve not been to one smaller. Slightly more relaxed now,  tomorrow’s jump into the unknown no longer represents the unthinkable. I’d go as far as to say that our impending departure actually excites me.