Day 27 - Ayyuthaya
I pack slowly and reluctantly. Reluctant because my things are strewn everywhere. While the location on the river is sublime the room itself is almost entirely occupied by a double bed making that my only storage option. The bus station has a departure board that bears no relation to reality so i must trust what I am told by a man who may or may not work for the bus company. I've started dressing in a particular way for these journeys. Boots and shorts. Hideous to behold but eminently practical, Alex would be proud. The blackness of the boots accentuates the whiteness of my legs. Seated on the bus I have the sense that something isn't right. It's a sense I ignore half the time but lo and behold it turns out this isn't the right bus. The driver checked my ticket but it wasn't going anywhere near the destination written on it. The correct bus gets me as far as Suphanburi and I immediately miss its ancient, juddering spaciousness as I realise my onward travel will be via minivan. The minivan interior is extraordinarily gaudy.
On the plus side it is leaving immediately, on the downside it is twice the expected price, I guess someone has to pay for all that gold. With the window curtains closed it feels like I'm in an oligarch's hearse. There's only six passengers on departure so it feels unusually comfortable. There is legally room for six more and I refuse to believe that the driver won't find a way to fill it. An unfull minivan would make the news in Thailand in much the same way a late train does in Japan. We come to a stop after a little while, here we go, but, wait, a passenger gets out. Now we are only five, what madness is this? There should be another 15 people in here at least. The handling of the vehicle must feel off to the driver when it's within its weight capacity like this. Ten minutes later there are only three of us. Headlines, day of mourning for company profits. "Why didn't he drive in circles for an hour until it was full??" the media will cry. The short walk to the station in Kanchanaburi, the immediate departure from Suphanburi and the uncommonly empty bus- is this one of those rare days of perfectly easy travel? We haven't arrived yet though and I am tempting fate with that thought. I immediately look to touch wood but I can't, it's all gold.
This way of travelling, only planning where I will be for at most a week at a time can be tedious and I don't always relish it. I do find myself wishing at times that someone was telling me where I was going, what I was supposed to be doing. Being in the moment hasn't been easy yet either. The regular uprootings probably contribute to this and I find myself in a regular cycle of coming to a place, feeling adrift and disliking the feeling and, by extension, the place. Then I start to settle in, find a bar I like, a restaurant, and feel better. Then it's time to leave. There is also the backdrop of why I'm here. My life having hit a wall. I have a constant low-level recognition that this trip should mean something, should change something and not a little thing, a fundamental thing. There's a pressure to seek meaning and gain an understanding of what I should do with the rest of my life having learned from the first half what doesn't make me happy. It can be easier to know what doesn't make you happy because there's a viscerality to it, a specificity that you can't simply invert to find the source of happiness. Removing the stimuli of unhappiness isn't sufficient. It's the same challenge facing all people though and few find it an easy question to answer. Remembering that makes me feel better though I shall forget it again soon. I am also coming to realise that anxiety is a constant background hum in my life. It's been an unwelcome companion for as long as I can remember but I don't think it was always there. Finding the source of that is another important task. Understanding who you are is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself (after a micro pig) but there are times when the complexity is too much to comprehend. Certainly after all these years the creased sheet that has been my life cannot be ironed flat with the best will in the world.
Ah but here I've found a place that I immediately like. Perhaps because it wasn't reached by some cramped-up, arse-aching conveyance and a long walk under a hot sun leaving me damp and disheveled. But more likely because I've booked into a fantastically evocative hostel in a traditional wooden building with a higgledy-piggledy style that precisely matches my romantic ideas of the old orient. The room is large and has a faded grandness that was a relief after the close confines of my river house. Panelling on both sides allows the room to be opened up to the adjoining ones but since there were other guests in there I decided that might be considered overly friendly. I settle for spying on them through the gaps. Perhaps my pleasure is also because Ayutthaya arranges itself around ruined old walls and stupas beautifully illuminated at night by dusty old lampposts throwing out yellow light.
Perhaps because I'd made the good decision for once to avoid the main strip of bars and their foghorn music. I went instead to another aesthetic wooden building serving excellent Thai food without the usual 25 page menu.
Dry leaves from the trees above the courtyard land on the tables with an attention-seeking thunk. This small city (though once the world's largest) felt like the sort of place I'd been looking for, the first place I didn't ask myself "why am I here?". It's certainly not off the tourist trail but it didn't feel as shaped by it as the other places I'd been. The restaurant closed at 9PM so I couldn't linger as I desperately wanted to but I shall come back. For now I am drawn, unwillingly and hopelessly, to the light of the main strip.
I pack slowly and reluctantly. Reluctant because my things are strewn everywhere. While the location on the river is sublime the room itself is almost entirely occupied by a double bed making that my only storage option. The bus station has a departure board that bears no relation to reality so i must trust what I am told by a man who may or may not work for the bus company. I've started dressing in a particular way for these journeys. Boots and shorts. Hideous to behold but eminently practical, Alex would be proud. The blackness of the boots accentuates the whiteness of my legs. Seated on the bus I have the sense that something isn't right. It's a sense I ignore half the time but lo and behold it turns out this isn't the right bus. The driver checked my ticket but it wasn't going anywhere near the destination written on it. The correct bus gets me as far as Suphanburi and I immediately miss its ancient, juddering spaciousness as I realise my onward travel will be via minivan. The minivan interior is extraordinarily gaudy.
This way of travelling, only planning where I will be for at most a week at a time can be tedious and I don't always relish it. I do find myself wishing at times that someone was telling me where I was going, what I was supposed to be doing. Being in the moment hasn't been easy yet either. The regular uprootings probably contribute to this and I find myself in a regular cycle of coming to a place, feeling adrift and disliking the feeling and, by extension, the place. Then I start to settle in, find a bar I like, a restaurant, and feel better. Then it's time to leave. There is also the backdrop of why I'm here. My life having hit a wall. I have a constant low-level recognition that this trip should mean something, should change something and not a little thing, a fundamental thing. There's a pressure to seek meaning and gain an understanding of what I should do with the rest of my life having learned from the first half what doesn't make me happy. It can be easier to know what doesn't make you happy because there's a viscerality to it, a specificity that you can't simply invert to find the source of happiness. Removing the stimuli of unhappiness isn't sufficient. It's the same challenge facing all people though and few find it an easy question to answer. Remembering that makes me feel better though I shall forget it again soon. I am also coming to realise that anxiety is a constant background hum in my life. It's been an unwelcome companion for as long as I can remember but I don't think it was always there. Finding the source of that is another important task. Understanding who you are is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself (after a micro pig) but there are times when the complexity is too much to comprehend. Certainly after all these years the creased sheet that has been my life cannot be ironed flat with the best will in the world.
Ah but here I've found a place that I immediately like. Perhaps because it wasn't reached by some cramped-up, arse-aching conveyance and a long walk under a hot sun leaving me damp and disheveled. But more likely because I've booked into a fantastically evocative hostel in a traditional wooden building with a higgledy-piggledy style that precisely matches my romantic ideas of the old orient. The room is large and has a faded grandness that was a relief after the close confines of my river house. Panelling on both sides allows the room to be opened up to the adjoining ones but since there were other guests in there I decided that might be considered overly friendly. I settle for spying on them through the gaps. Perhaps my pleasure is also because Ayutthaya arranges itself around ruined old walls and stupas beautifully illuminated at night by dusty old lampposts throwing out yellow light.
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