Yes! I’ve made it to my other home, Sydney. It feels so, so amazing to be here again, so comfortable and easy, but exciting because it’s been quite a while since I was holding chunky 50 cent pieces, changing platforms in Central station, and strolling past the pie shops (that's meat pies) at King’s Cross. But first, I have to tell you about Thailand. As in Brazil, I was pretty busy getting into all kinds of craziness, so writing wasn’t my top priority. But seeing as how I’m in Sydney for 3 months, I can take some time today, as I look out over the most sweeping view of the Opera House, CBD, and Botanical Gardens from high on a hill, to try describe the wildness and beauty of Bangkok.
Last I wrote, I was sitting in Joburg airport, waiting to check in for my flight to Doha, Qatar, where I would pick up my connection to Bangkok. I was mildly nervous that I would have to collect my bag, go through Qatar’s customs, and get to the gate for the Bangkok flight in under 55 minutes. But luckily, I found out that I was flying Qatar Airways the whole way, so there were no worries about bags or gates. I saw some backpacker-types while waiting to check in, the kind I came to disdain while living in Sydney. Australia is a Mecca for British and European kids who take a “gap year” between high school and college to travel around, avoiding the pending responsibilities with which college is about to present them. I used to see them take over the town of Bondi Beach, overflowing from the hostels with dirty t-shirts, bad sunburns, growing beer bellies, and unkempt hair, stumbling to the beach after noon, to keep on drinking and smoking and partying until they passed out at night, so they could start the process all over again. They were not my favorite thing about living in Bondi Beach, but they were a staple in the culture there, so I simply tried to avoid them as much as possible. But they did wind up giving me a bad taste in my mouth about “backpackers.” I fully expected to meet some in Salvador—which I did—and I knew that I would meet many in Bangkok, which is practically the capital of South East Asian backpacking destinations.
After check in, I went outside for some fresh air, and asked for a piece of gum from a guy I had seen on line. He asked where I was going, and suggested we team up and travel around together. I was a bit apprehentious about my new travel partner, but honestly did feel glad knowing that I would roll into Bangkok with another mind and set of eyes with which to figure out how to get to the city, where to spend the night, etc. His name was Shawn, he was in his mid-thirties, a sound engineer, who hadn’t been traveling in ten years. He was wearing no shoes—just socks—which I thought was a little odd, but hey, how picky can you be when picking up travel companions?
I slept for almost the whole flight to Doha, and was overly grumpy and gruff when I woke up. But truly beautiful was the sunrise from the plane over the deserts of Qatar. Clear, clean, purple and golden and open. Doha’s airport was lovely, if only because of the many windows and Islamic shapes that constituted it. The tops of the surrounding minarets began to glow golden as the sun rose. I even caught the moon between an airport building and a nearby Middle Eastern one, hanging low in the dusty blue sky, over palm trees and Cessnas. English accompanied the Arabic script on signs and signals, and it was difficult not to remark on how beautiful the shapes of Arabic are, even in this most sterile, official form.
Awake now from the chilly morning air, I boarded the plane from the runway with hopes of sitting next to someone interesting. And, as fate would have it, I did. I was sat between two chatting men. The 55 year old man sitting close to the window greeted me with the offering of a glass of Baileys, which, for some still unknown reason, I accepted (I’m really not one to drink on planes, or to drink at 8am). We toasted as new temporary neighbors, and almost immediately began exchanging stories of life, love, travel. He was a very charismatic Persian, who had a wonderful rags-to-riches story that began during the 1970s and ended with his current holiday to visit his brother in Vietnam. At one point in the flight, while we were watching separate movies and between napping, he took my left hand and began to look at it intently. Almost immediately, he started to laugh. I asked him what was funny, and he said he would tell me later. He gave me a palm reading, after which he turned over his own hand and showed me his palm, which was eerily similar to my own. We had almost the same palm! He showed me the Danish guy’s palm, and it was completely different. Very interesting…
We got off the plane, and walked to customs together. We exchanged emails as he booked a 4 star hotel, and, kind of oddly, he fished into his briefcase and presented me with a container of Iranian pistachios, a lovely gesture of friendship. Though, it forced me to be saddled with a cylindrical container of nuts—for which I didn’t have any room—for three days. Still I was grateful. Shawn and I checked our email to find out if we had heard from any friends with hostel recommendations. We had planned as little as each other, it seemed. As we looked online, a young woman with a large backpack approached us, asking us if we wanted to split a cab to Khao San Road. She informed us that this was the place where all of the backpackers flocked in Bangkok, and where we would most likely find a hostel quite easily. I looked around the airport, at the new script that was facing me, at the confusing maps, at the people behind the desks who were only peripherally helpful in answering simple questions like, “is there internet here?,” and we decided to head out to the taxi stand with Marta. The taxis lined up outside were brilliant, each one a different color from the Paas palate. We negotiated a price, and were directed to a hot magenta colored car. Despite having just come from South Africa, my American instincts held fast, and I attempted to get in the driver’s seat. They ride on the left in Thailand, too, it seems.
It had been rumored that the Thai people are exceptionally friendly, extremely kind, and extraordinarily fun. We pulled out from the airport maze of roads onto the highway, and our cab driver asked us where we were from. “Three continents!” we answered: Britain, South Africa, and the States. “America!?! You from America!?!” I was riding in the front seat, and instantly the people in the backseat seemed to melt away over his enthusiasm for my nationality. “You like music?” he asked. “Yes! I love music! I like music very much.” “You like Ervi Pressy?” I couldn’t understand. I asked him to repeat it. “Ervisss Pressry,” he said slowly. I thought, and it clicked. I began to sing: “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, crying all the time…” The cabdriver burst into joyous laughter, and began to sing along with me, clearly phoenetically, but with no less knowledge of the flow of the song than I had. He yelled, “Jailhouse Rock! Jailhouse Rock!” and so we did a duet of another Elvis hit. He started to tap my arm excitedly, and asked “You know Horse o Risig Sun?” It took me a minute to translate this English into my own, but soon I got it: “There is a house in New Orleans…” He joined me for the high notes: “They call the Rising Sun!” We sang almost the whole thing. Next he asked if I knew “The Winters.” I kind of nodded, and yes’ed him, assuming that I just wasn’t understanding him. He started to sing a guitar riff, and I just sort of clapped along. He realized that I didn’t understand, so he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out several glossy sheets of paper. They were advertisements for concerts here in Bangkok: one for The Ventures, one for the Shadows. They were his two favorite groups, he told me. The best I could do was sing Hawaii Five O (which he loved), and try to let him calm down so I could look out the window as the dense buildings and lights of Bangkok approached. Ten minutes later, he tapped my arm and commanded, “Rolling Stones. You sing Rolling Stones. Now!” He put his cell phone on the console between us, and it began to turn out a scratchy version of Satisfaction. I sang along until the mp3 faded out. He started playing snippets of Ventures and Shadows songs, and then scrolled through the large collection of contemporary photos of members of the Ventures he had on his phone. I tried to move the process along, as we were on a busy highway and he was distractedly sharing his beloved photos with me. The Thai, if anything like this guy, really were friendly, fun people! The two in the backseat struggled to have a conversation over the multinational jukebox of fun in the front.
He turned off the highway and quickly we were on congested streets, three crowded lanes with a lot of swerving and lane sharing occurring. Though dark, the sidewalks and their shops seemed very busy, dimly lit but overflowing with goods and people. The cab driver pulled over next to a roadblock with cars already three deep to the sidewalk. “Ok, Khao San Road!” We narrowly avoided being hit by cars as we got out of the pink cab, collected our bags (which I held tight to me, not knowing what this crazy busy zone was like, especially at night), and walked through the mini-maze of parked cars toward the roadblock at the head of the nearby street.
That street was, indeed, the famous Khao San Road, Mecca for backpackers in South East Asia. Words can hardly describe it: flashing lights and signs from the pavement to the fourth story rooftops, advertising bars, clubs, restaurants, hostels, hotels, massage parlors, "massage parlors," convenience stores, liquor stores, drug store; racks of dresses, t-shirts and bags, shoes and sunglasses, books and jewelry in each place where the food vendors with carts of fruit, pastries, noodles, insects, crepes, stir fries, and soups were not. And people! A zoo of people, selling and buying: tall, thin, very pale people, with long blonde dreadlocks and stained “Singh” beer tank tops, languidly smoking cigarettes and chatting with more of their kind. Small women in pied “local" clothing, with three trays secured to various parts of their bodies, holding carved wooden frogs and running a stick down their back to make a croaking ribbit sound, like a frog. Hip, young dudes, covered in tattoos, with long unkempt black hair, sitting on plastic stools near spotlights that illuminated the collection of books containing the possible tattoo designs they had on offer. Crusty, older travelers, coupled by gender, walking in pairs in sensible sandals, with their arms clasped behind their backs until something in the carnival of wares enticed them enough to unharness their worn backpacks and dig out their wallets. Bright, tiny teenage girls in bright, tiny one piece jumpsuits and dresses, their straight hair in high pigtails above their overly made-up faces, holding menus for the restaurants, bars, music joints, massage parlors, and other services available to the farangs, to the Western visitors to Thailand. Picturing the crowds and wares and lights and signs and spectacle is only comparable to images of Times Square in the 1940s, a place at once seedy—full of vagrants and vagabonds—and magical—an impossible amalgamation of electricity, density, and desire.
Marta led the way as Shawn and I followed in apprehensive wonder, not sure whether to concentrate on all of the sights and sounds, on holding close our belongings, or on not stepping on toes. We wandered up and down and back up Khao San Road, looking for signs for hostels, popping in to price them and gauge their level of safety and cleanliness, and heading back out again to suss out the next one. Soon, my back started to hurt (my pack’s weight had somehow increased to 12 kg), and I imagined I was back on the beach in Islha Grande, wearily, desperately searching for a bed for the night. I was eager to put down my things, order a cold beer, and watch the parade of people and things go by. We settled on a triple room down a well-lit but ill-smelling alley, and, indeed, fulfilled my dream of beer and spectating. While drinking, Marta bumped into a backpacker friend of hers, who took us on a walk to Ram Buttri, a nearby street that was much more chill, far quieter, slower and dimmer than Khao San Road. As we walked past a row small shops and restaurants, I heard the somewhat obscure, LaBruto family favorite, doo-wop classic “Maybe” blaring from a trinkets shop. This uncanny moment, like so many others, instantly fell into the category of “Magical Music Moments Just for Nicole on Her Travels.” Shawn and I decided we would move there the following morning.
Marta left early in the morning, and Shawn and I woke around noon in the sweltering heat of Bangkok, a heat that air conditioners do little to alleviate. Their sound is merely a tease as sweat drips off your brow. We strapped on our packs and repeated the dance of wandering from hotel to hostel to hotel, trying to find the right balance between price ($3-6 a night) and comfort (i.e. not smelling like garbage or cat piss, having an A.C., not having random, lockless windows that open to empty courtyards…). We settled on a place, and headed out to fulfill our plan of getting the obligatory tour of museums and monuments over with (but not before a beautiful fresh Thai stir fried veggie lunch!). As we followed the map toward what we thought was the museum zone, we were stopped by an eager “guide” with a beat-up map of Bangkok on a tripod. He cunningly talked Shawn into a riverboat tour, and I, desiring a respite from the hot streets and a different view of the city on my first day here, agreed to it. The man flagged down a tuk-tuk (a roofed vehicle slightly larger than a golf cart, brightly painted and able to cut across traffic the wrong way down one-way streets), which bumped us along to a pagoda on a back street adjacent to the Chao Phraya River (around which the city was built.) We paid our fare for an hour tour that was meant to include a ride past the temples, down a tributary to "the floating market," along a canal past the jumping fish farm (?), and back out to the Flower Markets. We were led down to the long, thin, elaborately striped and roofed boat, and in we climbed. The outboard motor at the back roared to a start, and we were sent skimming and jumping along the surface of the river. The breeze was perfect as we soared past temples and monuments, bridges and hotels. Soon the pilot turned down a side waterway, and dramatically reduced speed. We found ourselves being led through a waterfront residential area, dense with small, rickety, wooden homes and large stone houses alternating spaces along the river. I saw people doing everyday things, like hanging their clothes to dry, playing board games, simply sitting and watching and waving as the boats went by (I saw Nanny’s Thai doppelganger!). The floating market turned out to be one boat with a woman selling the same trinkets as on the streets (ribbit! ribbit!), and the jumping fish, well, I thought I saw one, but I’m not 100% sure. Regardless, the ride was insightful and peaceful, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who lived along the river, what their jobs were, what they did when it rained, whether they ate dinner outside or inside, what with the mosquitoes and bugs they must get.
We docked at the Flower Market, at a little restaurant dock place, that charged 10 cents for us to walk on their planks and use their hole-in-the-ground toilet. Through the loud, busy market we walked, smelling spices, dried squid, pad thai, and body odor, attempting to see all of the minutia there was to take in on each 2x2 table. These things included millions of small, carved stone amulets, old clothes and glasses, magazines and books, plants and flowers, jewelry, buddha statues, gems, bags, toys, and, yes, false teeth. We wandered back towards the river, into an indoor market space, that was no less full of goods, just a bit less crowded with bodies. The sun began to set over the construction sites on the river, and Shawn and I headed back toward Khao San Road to meet his South African friend Steve for dinner. Steve was waiting for us at a bar, but he quickly brought us down a small alley to one of the few vegetarian restaurants in the area. Steve had been living in Bangkok for a year and a half, teaching math in English at a private school. These jobs, it seems, are easy for native English speakers to acquire. He had picked up a lot of the Thai language and had a really good understanding of how things operate. For example, he explained the cops-as-mafia scenario here. Police officers confiscate drugs at the border and arrest the carriers. Then they sell the drugs in the cities. Then they arrest the drug users in the cities. But if you want pot or meth or anything in Bangkok, you have to know a cop to get it. Interesting… Also interesting are the lady boys: they are gay boys, who know they are gay from the age of 6 or 7. They take on the habits of girls, dress in girls clothes, and aspire to get surgery to become girls. Until then, they are lady boys, who work in the nightclubs and brothels, sending money home to their rural families while hoping to meet that farang (foreign man) who will pull them from prostitution into a rich, girly life of luxury. He knew a woman who was pregnant, and when asked whether she wanted a boy or a girl, she said that she wanted a lady boy. A third gender alive and well in Thailand!
Following dinner, Steve took us to a very cool, hidden bar called Hippie De Bar, with “retro” lamps and seating, lots of plants, a pool table, cool music, and even an old TV-set-cum-fish-tank. We did the Thai bar thing, which is to order a full bottle of alcohol (in this case some kind of whiskey-rum hybrid), a bucket of ice, and mixers, as the boys took turns playing pool. We made tentative plans to hire a cheap chauffeured van so we would have a ride to the Thai pop music festival that Shawn’s other friends had told him about, and to which Shawn was defiantly going. At this time, I was unsure as to whether I would be going to Chaing Mai in the north the following day, or sticking around Bangkok for my whole time in Thailand. Perhaps it was the clarifying effects of the whiskey-rum, but that night I decided that it made very little sense to take a 9-hour bus trip, only to spend 24 hours in the destination, and head right back for a 9-hour bus ride to the airport to catch my flight on Monday. There was still much to do in Bangkok, including going to the Thai pop music festival in the country, and meeting up with the Kelly brothers, friend’s of Shaun McGrath’s and Phish fans from Sea Girt, whom I had somehow never met in NJ, but who have lived just outside Bangkok for over three years. I committed to staying in Bangkok. Shawn and I headed back to the hotel, with a tentative date set to meet Jack and Brian Kelly the following afternoon.
We woke up in the heat at 9am, and Shawn realized his wallet was missing. He went through absolute hell trying to contact South African banks on Thai pay phones, attempting to prevent his identity from being stolen. I sat in the shade, drank coffee, and had a fresh yogurt and fruit bowl, waiting for him to be assured that his card had been cancelled, and his backup one activated. It was frustrating, but I kept breathing, grateful that the tables were not turned.
We walked to the National Museum, and spent an hour or two learning the nation’s take on its own history. Innovative settlers, brave warriors, epic battles, rich meetings with Europeans, brilliant city planners, and fearless modern kings. Just as I was feeling sick of it all, we received the call: Brian and Jack were outside the museum waiting for us. We went out, and met up with big hugs. They had come with their dear friend, Nok, who was from Thailand, but fluent in English as well. The three of them discussed what we should do with the day: something typically Thai, but fun and exciting, and with not too many tourists. They decided to take us to the university where Nok studied forestry, which was hosting a big market that day. Glorious was that fact that Nok has a car, a really cool, new black pick-up, with ample seating for five. They drove us from the museum to the hotel, so we could gather our belongings and bring them with us, until we could ultimately meet up with Shawn’s friends, with whom we would be spending the night before we went to the music fest in the country the next day. Shawn tried to use a few ATMs near the hotel, but none worked. I could tell he was getting agitated, worried (a) that his stolen card was not cancelled and (b) that his new card would not enable him to get money. But I was so happy to be with Brian, Jack, and Nok, I just focused on the Thai pop music playing in the car, the government buildings Nok was taking us past, and the massive murals of the much-revered king that appeared all over the city outside Khao San Road. Riding around with them, things started to look more normal. I didn’t even realize it, but the overwhelming exoticism of the tourist version of Bangkok had infiltrated my perception, and was making me numb to details. Seeing a slower pace in other parts of the city gave me new insight into what Bangkok meant. Not surprisingly, the conversation in the car quickly turned to Phish, and Jack, Brian and I took over with discussions of concerts past, albums’ relevances, song lyric meanings, band member personality traits, and reasons we find the music so unique, so engaging. Jack put on a mix he had made for Nok with a lot of Phish on it, and we drove around, listening to Slave, Bathtub, DWD, and Hood, along the highways of the city, lined with empty lots, abandoned construction sites, small market stands, and the occasional Office Max or other mega-store.
Nok parked the truck at the university, and four of us bopped out of the car, excited by the prospect of food at the market. Shawn was far less buoyant. He was desperate for an ATM and a phone, and just about bolted off on a futile solo mission, when Nok grabbed his arm and offered to help him. She did, after all, attend this university, and would have a much better idea of where to find these amenities than he. Gracefully, she led the way to a phone, and then an ATM, as Brian, Jack and I discussed their experiences going to business school in Thailand, their future plans, their perceptions of the people and culture here, and their perceptions of home now. They were wonderfully interesting and insightful, as was Nok, who was able to join us once she got Shawn straightened out on the phone.
And Shawn took out some money! He was so relieved, and so were we, for him. Food time! We entered the market, and I was blown away. There were dozens and dozens of rows, intersecting dozens and dozens of other rows, each one dedicated to a different product category. Rows of food vendors alternated with a row of flower vendors, a row of clothes vendors, one of electronics vendors, one of jewelry vendors, one of heavy farm equipment vendors, one of massage vendors, one of leather goods vendors, then pets vendors…and back to another row of jewelry vendors, of electronics vendors. It really felt like an endless labyrinth of market stalls, with goods that were mostly very practical. It was easy to forget how we would ever go about purchasing all of these things in the States, without such a massive, collective venue for them. And Brian, Jack, and Nok were the best tour guides! Our focus was on food, and they were dead-set on having us try every weird Thai meat, sweet, and fried thing they had for sale. We had deep-fried breaded pork belly in a bag, pre-ripe green mangos, Thai BBQ-esque chicken skewers, Chiang Mai-style pork sausage with lemongrass and chili, coconut milk-based fruit gelatos, and these crazy green crepes with colored spun sugar that we rolled inside each crepe to make a kind-of green sugary burrito. Plus ubiquitous free pork rinds and green chili sauce between each new delicacy. And plenty more goodies I’m sure I’m forgetting. But they were all delicious, and I was quite full by the end.
As dark fell, we received a text from Shawn’s friends, who were waiting for us in Ari, a neighborhood in the city. The Thai crew drove us there, parked, and we all headed over to a table from which one woman jumped up and attacked Shawn. This was Simone, Shawn’s Australian roommate from ten years earlier in London, whom he hadn’t seen since. She lives in Jakarta, and was visiting her British friend Abs, who lived and worked in Bangkok. With Abs was her friend Ann, from Nashville, who also lived and worked in Bangkok. The throng of us had a beer, and walked to a street-side restaurant at which Abs and Ann recommended we eat. Despite our fullness, we managed to fit in some more food, this time from the Essan region in the north, known for their fresh, spicy food. Ann, at one point, started to rag on the Jersey shore. She was incredulous that we could run a surf school amidst all of the hypodermic needles she thought filled the water. And, in a weird moment, I realized that at this table of nine (Brit, Aussie, South African, Thai, 4 Americans, plus a Thai friend of the Kelly’s who had joined us), Jersey shore people were the majority. Crazy! It took all three of us to quell the "dirty Jersey" insistence that Ann offered from her big personality, but we did manage to win the hearts of those present with our tales of lovely, clean, family beaches. After the meal, Nok, Jack, Brian, and their friend left, as did Ann, leaving a crew of four (Abs, Simone, Shawn and I) to head out to Abs’ favorite nightclub, in the gay district of Bangkok.
We dropped our stuff at Abs’ sweet apartment (balcony! pool with fountain! wireless internet! vodka and soda!) and jumped in a cab. Abs instantly instructed the driver to put on some Thai music, and she immediately began to sing along wildly. She was hitting the cab driver’s shoulders, making him dance, yelling “Thaksin! Thaksin! We love Thaksin!” out the open windows of the cab (Thaksin is the corrupt prime minister who seduced the working class farmers with rebates, but swindled $2billion from the government, which was confiscated and frozen last year after his ousting, and whose trial was occurring in less than 3 weeks. Another coup and possible civil war were imminent, with upper and intellectual classes hating Thaksin, and lower classes adoring him.). Laughing uncontrollably at Abs's crazy display of support, we pulled up to this cordoned off street, which, not unlike Khao San, had lights and signs from pavement to rooftop, though they were less honky, more refined, with less people looking much classier. We grabbed a table at a bar called Tapas, and Abs ordered us a bottle of JWBlack, with soda and ice to mix. Between the six of us (two friends met us), it didn’t take long to finish. Included in the price was the cover charge to enter the club inside. She was clearly excited to go, telling us that it was a very, very cool place. And was she ever right! Upstairs in the warm, dim, modern space was a DJ, opposite a percussionist with four congas, two pairs of bongos, two snare drums, two cymbals, a high hat, a set of cow bells, and a set of wood blocks. He was playing along to the Latin-esque music the DJ played, with fresh, complicated pops and rolls that made dancing ten times more fun. Simone grabbed us another round of drinks, as Abs jumped behind the instruments and started playing the congas alongside the drummer. He smiled and laughed, and nodded in time. I joined him and Abs behind the set, and the three of us played and danced…. Abs decided we needed a break from this music, so we went outside and she led us into a bar with a stage, on which four young Thai guys in skinny jeans were playing emotional, fast rock’n’roll. In no time, Abs was up on the stage, in sunglasses, dancing along with the lead singer. He led the band into versions of Oasis and Sinead O’Conner songs, so Abs could be the proper lead singer. The rest of us were going nuts in the crowd, grabbing any one we could to make the dance party bigger. We were overheating, so we went back to Tapas to cause some more percussive mayhem before heading home. Abs—who was debating getting a tattoo on the street that night—decided that quitting her job of three years would be a better idea. So back at her place, Simone (and I [newcomer, still felt shy in the company of these raucous women]), proofread and edited Abs’ letter to her boss, explaining why she was giving her agreed three months before leaving.
On Thai pillows on the floor I fell asleep, and woke up feeling just fine, thanks to my strictly kept new habit of having more water than alcohol after each drink. We stumbled down to the pool for a morning swim. We lounged, and I realized my writing needed a bolster from some caffeine. Coffees were acquired, and we packed up and headed out for lunch. Abs’ neighborhood was so neat to walk through. It felt very normal and local, not unlike Woodside, Queens. Street vendors, shoe repair shops, different kinds of little restaurants, and an overhead sky-train thing right there. Commerce and community felt alive and well. We ate, and Abs negotiated with a cab driver to take us the 2 hours outside the city to Khao Yai, the site of the festival. Total cost: $50. Imagine the cost of a city cab from NYC to the Catskills!
The ride to the country was very, very beautiful. The dense city gave way to malls, which led into periodic strips of shops, which ended in large tracts of green, mountainous farmland. All along the way, passing enormous golden Buddha statues tucked into hillsides, we shared the road with the brightest, most cheerfully painted pick-ups, semis, and local busses you could imagine. It was like a scene from the Magical Mystery Tour. Simone brought her ipod and speakers, so Nick Drake and other ethereal singers accompanied us on our quiet ride. We slowly drove through a small town outside Khao Yai national park, and arrived at the fairgrounds just as the sun sunk behind the jutting mountains. Onto the back of a local, rickety shuttle bus we hopped, and in no time, the dirt road led us to the Big Mountain Music Festival. Abs had purchased (what she, in her non-working understanding of Thai on the internet, thought were) three spaces in a large tent in which we would spend the night. We bought tickets, and entered the incredible grounds of the festival. There were five staging areas, each with a different set of sculptures, lights, and theatrics surrounding the stage itself. The two main stages were most impressive: one had a giant ferris wheel behind it, with huge inflatable flowers on the stage, and a castle-like set behind it. The other was surrounded by cow-print rigging, with a huge cow structure above the stage, whose head wagged and eyes googled around in her head. The other stages were smaller: the round one had a giant spotlight above it, suspended by a crane, creating a UFO look; the circus one was under a huge tent, surrounded by 15-foot long bean bags in the shapes of vegetables; and the “dance arena” was a fifty-foot tall bamboo tee-pee like structure, inside of which the DJs played to the surrounding crowd. In addition to all of this were long, long rows of food and souvenir vendors, plus sprawling camp grounds set up with literally hundreds of rows and columns of army green two-man tents, all facing the same direction, across the hillsides. This space looked like nothing but a full-scale military operation. Though the music had been going all day, and sounded like it was heating up, we thought it would be a good idea to find out where our pre-paid tents were before we had too many beers. We made it to the place where we thought our tents would be, and realized that Abs hadn’t booked 3 tents at all, but rather 3 empty plots of land on which to set up tents. We laughed and laughed! Three 9x9 plots of grass and rocks, with no tents or sleeping bags. Luckily, a young man heard us cackling about our conundrum, and sold us his two tents for less than the cost of a plot. Abs bought them, anticipating her pending Hanoi-to-Istanbul motorcycle trip with her best friend. So with our accommodations in order, we marched off to acquire beer and meet up with Abs’ Thai friend Quad, who was at the festival and eager to take us to the best acts.
Quad met us near the cow stage, and took us to the castle stage for a performance by the most popular rock band in Thailand, Body Slam (great name, huh? Better than Big Ass, another big Thai band whose performance we, unfortunately, missed). Simone, who up until this point I didn’t really think was a huge Nicole fan, opened up to me about her festival experiences. She was a regular, it turned out, at Burning Man, Glastonbury, and Woodford, the New Year’s Festival in Queensland, Australia. I told her my concert war stories, and we bonded. And then, over beers, we started to analyze the emotive, rocking Thai lyrics that Body Slam was churning out. We cracked up, imagining just how accurate our “this is the night, my heart bleeds for you, one last chance for love…” lyric predictions were. Quad’s friends were HUGE Body Slam fans, and they loved how into it Simone and I were. Though the Thai crew loved BS, the event they were really waiting for was next, at the cow stage. T Bone is Thailand’s most popular ska band, I was informed, and in Thailand’s ever-growing ska music world, these guys were the big fish. A huge crowd gathered in anticipation. The cow somehow acquired a green, yellow, and red striped flag across her head, and T Bone and his band took the stage. Thai ska, it turns out, is not like any wave of American ska, nor is it like Jamaican ska. The dreadlocked, mixed race lead singer and his band mates—with guitars, bass, horns, and percussion—played the most easy-listening, mellow, poppy, reggae-influenced music imaginable. And the crowd was going crazy! Dancing uncontrollably, or else box stepping in pairs, with big smiles across their faces. The music was light and fun, and I danced wildly alongside Quad’s friends, which seemed like the right thing to do. Lord knows I have enough experience at concerts! It was definitely unusual to be at a reggae concert and smell nothing but beer and a cool mountain breeze. But it added to the atmosphere of good clean poppiness that the whole festival aimed to convey. At one point, while we were grooving pretty hard to a song with a riff T Bone borrowed from Take a Walk on the Wild Side, Simone grabbed my arm and pointed to the big screen next to the stage. She was jumping up and down with excitement! There, behind the T-Bone’s percussion set, was the drummer we had played with the night before at Tapas! We were dancing and making beats with him less than 24 hours earlier, not knowing he was the funky drummer for one of Thailand’s biggest acts. We were pretty impressed. We debated heading up to the stage and joining in again, but decided that we would let them have their moment at the festival.
After T Bone were one or two more Thai ska bands: fun, light, easy. Simone and I were getting bored by the end of the third one, so the group decided to grab some food at the Chinatown area of the food stalls. One weird delight were mini-hotdogs, boiled, then put into a plastic soda cup and covered with a mild, sugary chili/tomato sauce. After we were fed, we wandered around the grounds for a while, as most of the stages were being packed up. We knew that we had one last area to look forward to before we had to get a party going ourselves: the late-night DJ’ed “dance arena,” under the huge bamboo sculpture. One of us decided it would be a great idea to team up and carry a bale of hay over to the event, so carry it we did! We set it up just outside all of the dancers, who were still pouring in. Abs and I jumped on top and tried to rally the crowd to get more excited. But that was asking a lot, considering the crappy music and frequent abrupt stops the DJs’ performances included. Whole bad 90s pop songs, with speaking in between each one. I tried to start a glow-stick war with the scattered neon tubes I found on the ground, but the music wasn’t good enough for people to get it. So around 4am, we walked back to our tents, grabbing some plastic chairs and beers as we went. We partied for a while longer, and eventually fell asleep, with Abs, Quad and I squished in one 2-man tent, and Simone, Shawn and a bale of hay in the other.
I woke up covered in sweat at 9am, to the sound of a group of Thai kids giggling and oh-ing and ah-ing each others’ stories. I stumbled out, and went on a mission to find coffee. The sun was beating down already, and the cool mountain breeze had all but stopped, except to blow bits of dirt and dust across the path my mud-stained feet were taking. I felt like Lawrence of Arabia, crossing the barren desert with little hope of finding salvation. But there they were, two young Thai women, selling what Jack had described to me as “ancient-style coffee.” Starbucks should take note: over shaved ice, they pour a thick, syrupy coffee goo, and they top if off with sweetened condensed milk. It was the most delicious, refreshing coffee I’ve ever had (the hangover situation—plus the sweating in a tent situation—added to the amazingness of this experience, I think…). I bought one for everyone, and carried them in bags back to the crew, who were beyond grateful. I began to pack up the tents for Abs, and officially received the Most Useful Person award from the gang. Randomly, a guy on a bike-powered ice cream cart rang his bell as he rode by, and we enjoyed some cool, sweet popsicles for breakfast. The shuttle bus came by, and we—somehow much filthier and stinkier than our Thai counterparts—jumped on and headed back to find a ride to Bangkok. A big, cushy bus was leaving and had seats for us, so we hopped inside the pink-upholstered, pink window-curtained, pink ceilinged bus and napped all the way to the city.
Abs and Quad were tired and headed home, but Shawn, Simone and I decided to check out the J.J. Market. Brian and Jack had told me about them: allegedly, it is the biggest market in all of Asia! It operates on weekends only, and contained miles and miles of stalls, loosely grouped by what they sell, set up in a massive labyrinth of tented, semi-permanent stores. I knew I would be disappointed if I missed this spectacle while in Bangkok. So despite the stifling heat and humidity, we ventured into this weird world of commerce. Inside the maze was still and hushed, even with the constant stream of people filing past. The thin tarps overhead cast a quiet light on all of the wares. The winding breeze-less corridors seemed suspended in the humidity. We entered into a leather goods sections, turned and found ourselves in a house wares section (with the most beautiful gold-plated tea cups and plates, all stacked onto top each other). This turned into a beautiful lighting section, with all different colored and textured lamps, fixtures, and strung lights surrounding the pathway. One more turn, and we were in the pets section: a bizarre place where puppies, goldfish, hamsters, lizards, and squirrels dressed in circus outfits :( lined the corridors. The weirdness of it all started to get to us, so we tried to find a way out of the labyrinth. We emerged in a food vendors area, now sun-filled, but still breeze-less. We had some food, and decided we were losing steam. We tried to find our way back to our starting point, but it was near impossible, what with all of the twists and turns we had made inside the market. After 45 minutes of wandering, we made it back to the SkyTrain, and headed back to Abs’s.
Simone packed up her things, and we had a sunset drink on Abs’s balcony to toast her farewell. Shawn, Abs and I decided to have a chill evening, with some lovely curry (they had spaghetti and basil sauce!) at a local restaurant. It was my last night in Bangkok, and I realized I hadn’t received a famous Thai massage! So Abs pointed me in the right direction, and I had an hour massage from a strong but gentle woman, who I think was giggling about me to her friend, but whatever, it was a nice massage. We got back to Abs’s, and I wrote out a bunch of postcards. I packed up, thanked Abs and Shawn for everything, and fell asleep on the floor with my alarm set for 5:30am: I was getting up to meet Jack, Brian and Nok at a hotel to watch the Super Bowl at 6:30am. My flight was at 6:30pm. So I figured I would roll with the whole sleeping-less-than-4-hours-a-night thing and push it on my last night here, as well!
I arose groggily at 5:30, and headed out into the dusty light of morning. The security guard at Abs's apartment building jumped onto his moped and rode to the main street to hail a cab for me. Riding in it through the waking city was beautiful. I saw business people walking about; shopkeepers opening for the day; the dull, low, golden sunlight catching the turned-up eaves of the temples, waking the concrete apartment complexes and glassy corporate buildings. Bangkok looked more than ever like any other city. Not the cacophony of things, people, lights, sounds, and signs I encountered when I first arrived, but rather an urban place where quarters are tight, money matters, green is rare, and people, well, are just people, like anywhere else. I thought back to my first moments on Khao San Road, and how I wasn’t really able to process that experience until this moment. That piece of Bangkok would be like going to Times Square for a few days, and saying, “Wow, New York really is wild! There’s so much going on! I think I like it!” It takes seeing other parts of the city, and even getting away from the city, to begin to see what that city might really be, what it might be like to live there, or to be from there, or to visit from the outskirts to work or play…
I arrived at the hotel with my mondo pack, which reception packed away for me as they directed me to the 6th floor for the Super Bowl Party. It was an event/function space, which had been rented out by the NFL fan club of Bangkok. It cost $9 to get in, but included an enormous buffet of both Western breakfast food (pancakes, eggs, bacon, croissants, sausage…) and Thai food (noodles, rice, veggies, chicken, some kind of DIY milky, gelatinous dumpling soup…), plus all the juice and coffee 100 people at 6:30 in the morning could need. It was already into the first quarter when I arrive, and I spotted Brian, Jack, and Nok at a table. I grabbed a plate and joined them. They were rooting for the Colts, but I found myself rooting for the Saints, so I went with it. The NFL fan club members were great. They jumped, yelled, and cheered at every play, and frequently swapped money when unexpected things occurred in the game. One funny aspect was that the Thai sports network broadcasting the game showed only two commercials, for their own station, over and over… so no Super Bowl commercials! It was definitely all about the game for the people there.
Afterwards, we posed for a big group picture, and Jack, Nok, Brian and I headed out. They knew that I was eager to see a Thai mall (hey, I seen them in Rio and Cape Town. Leaving out Bangkok, known for it's craziness of markets and shopping, would have been a shame!), so Nok drove us to the older mall in Bangkok. The Rio mall was pure, a respite for the middle class; the Cape Town mall was fun and young, with overflowing nightclubs and chi-chi restaurants; and the Bangkok mall was a Thai marketplace, like so many I had seen, but surrounded by white tiles and escalators. The stores were a quarter of the size of stores in US malls, and there were just as many set up in the mall corridors and spaces below the escalators as in the shop spaces themselves. And, it turned out, prices were negotiable, just as in the markets. Nok gave me a lesson in haggling, and I walked away with beautiful pearls that really couldn’t have been less expensive. The stores in the mall, like the markets, was grouped according to goods sold. The crew took me to the electronics section, the gold section (amazing!) and the food court. After that, we walked through a tunnel filled with balloons in the shapes of dragons for Chinese New Year, into a sub-mall, connected to but more cramped and cheaper than the mall proper. It was a maze of malls, it seems. Time was running out, so Nok, Jack and Brian drove me to Khao San Road, which was very quiet. We wandered through a wonderful bookstore (Sydney, here I come!), and had some amazing sreet food down a back alley that I never would have found I had not been with the “locals.” Brian, Nok and Jack could not have been more insightful, generous, and excited to show me different sides of the place they live. And onto the airport bus I got! Exhausted, I napped a bit, and rolled out at the terminus. As the sun set in a clear sky over the shiny, new Bangkok airport, I boarded a red-eye bound straight for Sydney (the first direct flight on the whole trip!). I slept most of the way, and woke up in Australia on a rainy morning, excited to be home again.
