I walk back inside looking for a bus ticket to Khao San Road. The airport in about 45 minutes from downtown Bangkok so I need to get a ticket and get this fucking show on the road... I find a ticket counter and said "Khao San"... "One fiddy Baaaaht" the women replies...
Side Note:
Coming from Korea, the land of bad English, I really expected the same out of Thailand, but it was completely different. Mostly everyone spoke and understood enough English to at least get by and in some cases have a conversation. In Korea, English is spoken mostly by the educated and wealthy, while some of the younger generation can speak English thanks to learning it in schools and watching The Simpsons... But in Korea, most of the jack off taxi drivers, middle class workers and anyone over 35 that doesn't have a reason to speak English, doesn't...
In Thailand, the tuk-tuk drivers spoke English very well... (You want ping-pong show buddy? *pop* *pop* "Ping Ping Pong Pong???) The old women making my pad-thai spoke English enough to tell me how great hers was and how crap the prick down the street makes it...
End Side Note:
This bus driver was a fucking maniac... He was passing people like he was fucking Richard Petty, he was weaving in and out of traffic like he was in a go cart, and he was smoking like Lucille Ball after her second divorce... But I wasn't really all that scared... It was kind of like a ride...
(Whatever the fuck this means...)There were five of us on the bus, all male... I was looking around trying to figure out what the fuck these people were doing here... One of the guys looked like a heroin addict who had just been kicked out of a garbage bin for being too dirty... One looked like a wide-eyed Mexican witnessing the birth of Christ... The other two were "Some kind of Asian" (is that racist?) and seemed like your average tourist... They had wide circular glasses and cameras around their necks. Both were wearing hats like Gilligan and were obviously wearing money belts stuffed with something obviously valuable. At this point I wondered where I fit into this equation? I didn't really give a shit after like a minute and continues looking out the window as my new home for the next 12 days sped past me.
The bus lurched to a halt and the bus driver got off and walked away, like a rock star slamming his guitar on the stage and walking to his dressing room, he just washed his hands of the whole damn bus... I guess this is my stop... As soon as I walked off I started to sweat again. I was wearing a thermal long sleeve shirt, a button up long sleeve and long pants, just in case you were wondering, I was also wearing a red thong... About 7 different Thai guys came up to the bus, smelling fresh meat. "Hey my friend, where you go?" "Hey buddy, come with me"... I walked passed them with a look on my face that was a mixture of I'm going to barf/ I'm going to kill you... Works every time...
Walking down the Khao San Road for the first time it hit me, "There's a lot of god damn hippies here"... "And they all have varying degrees of bad tattoos"...
But who am I to judge really? I'm just some jerk who writes a bad blog... But, it's probably just the heat... I'm sure when I get some cool clothes and cool drinks on and in me I'll see the light...
Where the fuck is my guest house???
I have a crude map printed from the internet, and directions to this place printed in Thai... So let me see, it say dash, dot, line, curly line, dash, dot, dot, curly line with dot... Hmmmm... What does the map say?... Ok, it says from the end of Khao San road, turn right, then turn left at the 7-11... I didn't realize how ubiquitous 7-11 was in this world... Look, here's one next to a whore house in Pat Pong...
So I turn left at the 7-11, at this point I've been walking for 15 minutes with about 50 pounds of shit and long pants and a long sleeve shirt in 90 degree weather, things started to go blurry... See, I took a picture...
Then I see it... Siri Baan Guest House... The first thing I think is, "Damn, this place looks different from the pictures on the internet"...
So I walk in and there's 2 thick mustaches to greet me... One on a man, and one on a women... "Hi, I have a reservation"
"Oh Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii, where you from where you go?", Says Mustache Women.
"What?", I reply.
"Hahaha, Thailand sooooo beautiful, so many beauty"
"Ya, I..."
"Or you see so many sites"
"I don't think you can start a sentence with "Or"..."
"So your room not ready, you have some hot coffee or tea?"
"It's like 90 degrees..."
At this point the bearded lady runs off and comes back with a piping hot mug of coffee... I literally have sweat stains the size of dinner plates and my mouth feels like a camel farted dust into it... But, not wanting to be rude, I drink the damn coffee...
Sitting in the courtyard at a bamboo table, drinking coffee in the direct sunlight, I begin to ponder life's mysteries, but was interrupted by...
"Oh Hiiiiiiii, room ready, room ready..." Captain Lady Beard screams...
"Oh I..."
"Room is now ready"
(At this point I begin to speak very fast in order to get my sentence out before the bearded women has a chance to start talking.)
"Thank you it looks nice I hope to have a nice stay at your fine establishment..." (All in one breath)
She hands me a pad lock and key, smiles, probably not understanding me, and walks off... As soon as I get into my room I change into something a little more appropriate and dry...
I notice that I have profusely sweated through my money belt, and now have the imprint of a 1000 Baht note slightly visible on my stomach...
So I put the giant padlock on the door, smile and wave as I walk past the mustache twins, and step out onto the streets of Bangkok...
With sight seeing planned for the next 4 days, today would just be a chill day for me... Exploring Khao San Road and getting familiar with Thai culture, i.e., drinking...
I pop into the 7-11 on the corner and buy a bottle of water and a Thai red bull, this stuff is banned in every country in the world except Thailand due to it's awesome ability to keep you more wired than River Phoenix at the Viper Club... In fact, Red Bull was invented in Thailand... Krating Daeng, it's original name, means Red Bull in Thai... I was immediately struck by how cheap everything was here... The exchange rate is roughly 30 Baht to the Dollar... A Thai red bull costs 10 Baht and a 2 liter bottle of water costs 12 Baht... Awesome! With all this extra money I can afford to get a Thai hook... I mean... Save it for college... Ya... College...
It's around 2 P.M., lunch time... Walking down some main road in the direstion of Khao San, I see a plethora a street vendors, bums and people who are either super ugly chicks, or lady boys... See, lady boys are like wigs... You can only spot a bad one... Which is why I need to be super careful when dealing with the opposite sex here in Thailand, because what is perceived to be a friendly valley could turn out to be a mighty peak... Gross...
You can literally buy anything you want in Thailand...
For 300 Baht I could be a student, driver, member of the press AND a college graduate... People selling batteries, Levis, little pink candies, fried scorpions, purses, shirts, fruit, pad-thai, Suits...
The fucking Suit people... These people looked different from the Thai people, I'm going to guess "some kind of Arab"... They would stand in a row of usually 2 or 3 slapping a worn-out laminated card against their other hand and saying, "Oh buddy, nice suit for a nice buddy?"... "Suit, suit, suit suit..." ... The entire time I was in Thailand I didn't see anybody wearing a god damn suit...
Walking around Khao San, I got the distinct feeling that this isn't what Thailand was really about... Let's examine this place in more detail...
Advertising:
What pops out? iPod touch, Subway and Durex... Listening to music, eating and fucking... Sounds like a pretty nice little Saturday, but not what I came to Thailand to do...
People:
( My guess is that he wears that shirt a lot)The people on Khao San were an interesting mix of drunk bastards looking to get more drunk, and hippies...
Let's take a time out and define hippie. By hippie I don't mean free loving, people from the 60's, I mean dirty, probably dreadlocked, kind of socially inept, kind of weird looking, usually has some kind of weird scar, wearing what they think the earth would want them to wear type of people... Let's call them power hippies...
Seeing the power drinkers and the power hippies together was super weird, like seeing a cat mounting a dog or hearing Sarah Palin saying a sentence that doesn't end in "Don't cha know..." If there's one thing I can't stand... It's bears... And if there's two things I can't stand, it's bears and power hippies...
Next -> Part 3 - Wat the Fuck, Po?
1 comment:
If Holden Caulfield had a blog, this would be it!
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