Day 12 - Bangkok
Week 2. The last week of the old world. Get through this and I'm clear, in the wind, this trip can properly start. Whatever that means. But first the other minor thing I failed to do, apart from not lose the laptop, was to return the work phone. It was put into a jiffy bag, addressed and 3 first class stamps affixed ready to put in a postbox. And then it was brought to Thailand where the queen's head (even when she has 3 of them) doesn't carry much weight. This wouldn't have been a problem in the good, old colonial days (n.b. likely untrue). So more diligent planning rendered pointless by a lapse of memory. I'd moved out of 'one of the best boutique hostels in the world' by this point to somewhere half the price. It wouldn't feature on any 'best of' lists but it was adequate. And fortuitously near a post office. Except as I soon found out the Thai Postal service doesn't send mobile phones owing to the risk of batteries exploding. I began to countenance the unpleasant thought that I wouldn't be able to send the phone back at all. And what do I tell work in those circumstances? That I lost it? The week before I go on sabbatical? Yes, that's believable. Fortunately DHL would post it, less fortunately they wanted a pound of flesh to do it. I winced, paid and allowed myself a measure of relief that another installment of the idiot tax was settled. I stopped on the way back at a kind of beach bar in the backstreets of Rattanakosin. It was the sort of place that has a hollow feel to it like it is desperately waiting for the good times to roll. Waiting for an influencer to post a TikTok story (is that the term?), and in fact there are free drinks here if you do, so they can become the hotspot they are masquerading as. In the meantime they yellow at the edges and have the feel of so much else here. Light fittings that were smashed before they were installed, pavement that was cracked before it was laid. Nothing was ever shiny, nothing was ever new.
I eat a gritty minced pork salad and order another beer, resisting the allure of the perfect bar around the corner where everyone wants to talk to me. What I take to be the owner sits at a table sampling his wares and occasionally standing to bark at inattentive waiting staff. He'll go hoarse in no time if he has a problem with that, in Thailand you wait on staff. There is a hostess on the street to solicit customers. Her world-weary demeanour has a certain strange appeal. She hauls herself up from her seat to proposition the next group of people that walks past. She doesn't even bother to use English such is their obvious disinterest. She scuffs her white crocs back to the seat. It's not that she's especially beautiful, more that her mountain of indifference would be such a thing to summit you'd feel like a hero if you managed it. As for the view on the other side, well the rawest sort of attraction does not think of it because the journey is all. As group after group walk past it is easy to believe that the tourists outnumber the locals here. But they can't, every extra visitor draws another person into the industry and every full hostel spawns another one. And so a country becomes dependant, beholden and contorted. The thought leaves me melancholy and again uncertain of why I am here. I don't recognise myself in these moments. Where is this immense mental fortitude I credit myself with? Perhaps it wasn't mine. I think I have leaned too heavily on an immovable object that moved and now I have fallen to the floor with a dull, wet thud. Cheerier missives to follow, let us hope.
To prevent another spiral into gloom of the sort that has bedevilled me since I've been here I reflect on the day's successes. The phone is no longer a problem. I've made plans to quit Bangkok at the weekend and head for the beach. And it has been a quiet day that has given me the first feeling of genuine control since I've been here. Those positives allow me to glimpse some light above me and feel like I have almost climbed out of the hole I put myself in. I credit myself with an uncommon patience and skill to get around the problems I've faced. Though they were created by an uncommon risk-taking attitude I must also admit. I go back to Penguin Bar (for that is the name of my local). The owner, whom I shall have to start calling Mr. Penguin because 1, I'm not going to learn his real name and 2, he does shuffle a bit like one, is as inscrutable as ever. The service is as halting. The fan closest to me moves slowly from side to side groaning complaints about trying to cool the 35c outside air. There's an international crowd in the bar tonight. French, German and English. It's not a Thursday so there is no sign of old rocker, Lobes and the others. Eeyore is in though (honestly stick a moustache and some glasses on a downtrodden donkey and you have this man). A group of 4 replace the French to my left and immediately inquire about food. I'd been toying with getting something to eat but the food operation appeared to be run by a woman who lived in the adjoining house and the appearing was sporadic. But down her steps she now came with a menu for the newcomers. In a moment of rare decisiveness and efficient hand gestures I manage to get in my dinner order and another beer while the 4 Slavs (at the roughest of guesses) were mired in group inertia. The young Germans were perplexed by Mr. Penguin's negligence in removing their empties when he brought fresh beers. They had failed to comprehend his tab tallying system. The stereotype of German efficiency is partly a myth in my experience though it is something they appear to believe themselves at times. I've seen this reaction before when the pipework of life runs above the surface rather than below. The other 2 Germans (are you keeping up? There may be a test) chose this moment to leave and offered a cheerful "ciao!" to their countrymen. The young Germans had a confused reaction to this, as if they hadn't been informed that anyone else from the fatherland would be in Bangkok this Wednesday night. Still, they have a belated "servus". Ah, Bavarians. The food was excellent healthy pieces of fried pork with garlic rice and dotted with rounds of tiny chillies of outsized heat that despite their sparsity seemed to end up on every forkful. And now 2 Americans who I could see debating whether they could step over the drainage pipe. They eventually do and, bless their naivety in my local, ask for 2 small beers. There's only 1 size of beer here and it isn't the 'small' that newcomers keep asking for. The Americans elect to share a large. I suppose there's some logic as a large beer will be warm by the time you finish it but the simplest solution is to drink it as fast as a small. But I must also show some restraint as my 2, technically lunchtime, beers begin to stupify me. Ciao/servus.
Week 2. The last week of the old world. Get through this and I'm clear, in the wind, this trip can properly start. Whatever that means. But first the other minor thing I failed to do, apart from not lose the laptop, was to return the work phone. It was put into a jiffy bag, addressed and 3 first class stamps affixed ready to put in a postbox. And then it was brought to Thailand where the queen's head (even when she has 3 of them) doesn't carry much weight. This wouldn't have been a problem in the good, old colonial days (n.b. likely untrue). So more diligent planning rendered pointless by a lapse of memory. I'd moved out of 'one of the best boutique hostels in the world' by this point to somewhere half the price. It wouldn't feature on any 'best of' lists but it was adequate. And fortuitously near a post office. Except as I soon found out the Thai Postal service doesn't send mobile phones owing to the risk of batteries exploding. I began to countenance the unpleasant thought that I wouldn't be able to send the phone back at all. And what do I tell work in those circumstances? That I lost it? The week before I go on sabbatical? Yes, that's believable. Fortunately DHL would post it, less fortunately they wanted a pound of flesh to do it. I winced, paid and allowed myself a measure of relief that another installment of the idiot tax was settled. I stopped on the way back at a kind of beach bar in the backstreets of Rattanakosin. It was the sort of place that has a hollow feel to it like it is desperately waiting for the good times to roll. Waiting for an influencer to post a TikTok story (is that the term?), and in fact there are free drinks here if you do, so they can become the hotspot they are masquerading as. In the meantime they yellow at the edges and have the feel of so much else here. Light fittings that were smashed before they were installed, pavement that was cracked before it was laid. Nothing was ever shiny, nothing was ever new.
I eat a gritty minced pork salad and order another beer, resisting the allure of the perfect bar around the corner where everyone wants to talk to me. What I take to be the owner sits at a table sampling his wares and occasionally standing to bark at inattentive waiting staff. He'll go hoarse in no time if he has a problem with that, in Thailand you wait on staff. There is a hostess on the street to solicit customers. Her world-weary demeanour has a certain strange appeal. She hauls herself up from her seat to proposition the next group of people that walks past. She doesn't even bother to use English such is their obvious disinterest. She scuffs her white crocs back to the seat. It's not that she's especially beautiful, more that her mountain of indifference would be such a thing to summit you'd feel like a hero if you managed it. As for the view on the other side, well the rawest sort of attraction does not think of it because the journey is all. As group after group walk past it is easy to believe that the tourists outnumber the locals here. But they can't, every extra visitor draws another person into the industry and every full hostel spawns another one. And so a country becomes dependant, beholden and contorted. The thought leaves me melancholy and again uncertain of why I am here. I don't recognise myself in these moments. Where is this immense mental fortitude I credit myself with? Perhaps it wasn't mine. I think I have leaned too heavily on an immovable object that moved and now I have fallen to the floor with a dull, wet thud. Cheerier missives to follow, let us hope.
To prevent another spiral into gloom of the sort that has bedevilled me since I've been here I reflect on the day's successes. The phone is no longer a problem. I've made plans to quit Bangkok at the weekend and head for the beach. And it has been a quiet day that has given me the first feeling of genuine control since I've been here. Those positives allow me to glimpse some light above me and feel like I have almost climbed out of the hole I put myself in. I credit myself with an uncommon patience and skill to get around the problems I've faced. Though they were created by an uncommon risk-taking attitude I must also admit. I go back to Penguin Bar (for that is the name of my local). The owner, whom I shall have to start calling Mr. Penguin because 1, I'm not going to learn his real name and 2, he does shuffle a bit like one, is as inscrutable as ever. The service is as halting. The fan closest to me moves slowly from side to side groaning complaints about trying to cool the 35c outside air. There's an international crowd in the bar tonight. French, German and English. It's not a Thursday so there is no sign of old rocker, Lobes and the others. Eeyore is in though (honestly stick a moustache and some glasses on a downtrodden donkey and you have this man). A group of 4 replace the French to my left and immediately inquire about food. I'd been toying with getting something to eat but the food operation appeared to be run by a woman who lived in the adjoining house and the appearing was sporadic. But down her steps she now came with a menu for the newcomers. In a moment of rare decisiveness and efficient hand gestures I manage to get in my dinner order and another beer while the 4 Slavs (at the roughest of guesses) were mired in group inertia. The young Germans were perplexed by Mr. Penguin's negligence in removing their empties when he brought fresh beers. They had failed to comprehend his tab tallying system. The stereotype of German efficiency is partly a myth in my experience though it is something they appear to believe themselves at times. I've seen this reaction before when the pipework of life runs above the surface rather than below. The other 2 Germans (are you keeping up? There may be a test) chose this moment to leave and offered a cheerful "ciao!" to their countrymen. The young Germans had a confused reaction to this, as if they hadn't been informed that anyone else from the fatherland would be in Bangkok this Wednesday night. Still, they have a belated "servus". Ah, Bavarians. The food was excellent healthy pieces of fried pork with garlic rice and dotted with rounds of tiny chillies of outsized heat that despite their sparsity seemed to end up on every forkful. And now 2 Americans who I could see debating whether they could step over the drainage pipe. They eventually do and, bless their naivety in my local, ask for 2 small beers. There's only 1 size of beer here and it isn't the 'small' that newcomers keep asking for. The Americans elect to share a large. I suppose there's some logic as a large beer will be warm by the time you finish it but the simplest solution is to drink it as fast as a small. But I must also show some restraint as my 2, technically lunchtime, beers begin to stupify me. Ciao/servus.
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