Arrival in Bangkok

At Manila Int'l Airport, written in magic marker on a notepad. Note the retro typewriter. When I came back here on my return trip, the sign had two red lipstick kisses on it.

View of the drop-off area of the Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) [Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the Photo]
Terminal D5 at BKK. Credit again to Wikimedia Commons for the photo. Incidentally, this is the very terminal where I caught my return flight.



The patio of the Wanderlust Hostel, with free live music. Alvi, the manager, is dressed in green.
Chong Nonsi, Bangkok.


"The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarm"


Bangkok glowed through the air beyond the cabin porthole like a bed of coals smoldering in the dark. The internet travel guides were full of strident warnings of fraud and grift- all kinds of petty scams aimed at unsuspecting foreigners. Don't ride in a meterless taxi. Don't take the minibuses. Pay after you arrive, if possible. Know the exchange rates, and count your money. Beware of touts and don't believe a word they tell you. Choose motorbikes over tuk-tuks if you have a choice but never, never let a tout ride with you. In Bangkok, bribery is rampant, money is synonymous with power, and everyone is fair game.

As dawn broke over the train to Narita Airport earlier that day, I was having a conversation with a man named Ida. I had been reading a book in my usual unsociable way when Ida-san leaned over and asked me what I was reading. That's how I was sucked into an hour-long conversation with a strange, deeply thoughtful man about the chronic ills of society.
Ida is a man of sixty-five years with regular features and metal-framed glasses. He had kicked off his shoes to reveal fluffy yellow socks.
The conversation was in Japanese, but Ida seemed to have a good English vocabulary, which he would employ occasionally for emphasis. I was tired and feeling somewhat uncommunicative, but I did my best to carry my end of the conversation and Ida for his part was determined to impart his thoughts to me.
The conversation went something like this:
"You must understand, I am a very foolish old man. My IQ is probably somewhere around 85 points- a genuine idiot. You seem very smart. Your IQ is probably around 130, right?"
I didn't know how to take that, at all. "I don't know."
"Well, I may be stupid, you know, but I'm also old. I understand how things work. That's a result of experience. You may not think it's fair, since you're so young, but I've come to realize that wisdom can only result from experience." He paused to adjust his glasses. "When I was your age, I hated being told that I would only understand things 'when I got older.' But now, at 65, I have experienced a great deal of things; learned a great deal of things. Really, I think I only started understanding things clearly a week or two ago."
"Well, I always try to be open to experience. So what did you understand?"
"Well, when I was in school, we learned about something called 'The English Disease.'"
"'The English Disease?'"
"Yes- that was used during the decline of the British Empire. The English Disease was a manifestation of a sick society and it ultimately lead to the collapse of the Empire. The same thing is taking place in Japanese society. Japanese society is sick. It's a chronic illness. I think it started during the economic bubble of the 60's. The Japanese started to lose their way- to lose their identity. You know what I mean?"
"What's a 'chronic illness?'"
"It's the opposite of 'acute illness.' You understand 'acute illness'?"
"Yes."
"Well, the Japanese seized onto this idea of an ideal capitalist society, but they forgot their old nationalism. People began acting selfishly."
"I see."
"I'm not saying this is a problem in itself. But what we wound up with is a world steeped in hypocrisy and deception."
"'Hypocrisy?'"
He pulled out a dictionary, looked it up, and handed it to me.
"Ah," I said, "But hypocrisy is almost a given in any society. What did you mean earlier when you were talking about a chronic illness?"
"Well, take the building of a house for example. Forty years ago you could get a house built in two weeks for $20,000. Now it would cost ten times as much and take three times as long. People are acting entirely in their own interest. No care for others."
"Isn't some of that a result of inflation?
"Well, that's true. But the real problem is the natural naivety of human beings. Here I am talking about naivety! My daughter doesn't respect me- and it's because I'm a foolish old man with an IQ of 85. But I think you've heard of Murakami Haruki."
"Of course."
"Well, you know how he won that literary award recently?"
"Oh, no, I hadn't heard."
"Well, he won the Jerusalem Award for literature, and he wasn't keen to accept it, at first. But he figured that the award ceremony in Israel would give him a platform, and he had something to say."
"So what did he say?"
"He said that human beings are like eggs, right? And these eggs are pressed every day against a wall of hypocrisy and lies and they break one by one and that's no way for society to be. You understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes, I think so."
There is a girl asleep on the train, in a corner seat in the opposite row, balled up with her knees to her chest.
"There is a fundamental conflict between the fragility and natural naivety of human beings and the deceptive, evil world in which they live. We live in wonderfully democratic society, but we've focused too much on the individual and forgotten the big picture."
The train switched tracks then, swaying slightly. The girl's suitcase- a grey hardcase- began to roll down the isle toward the back of the train. A man got up, caught the suitcase, and wheeled it back to her. She was still asleep.
"That's what I mean," he said. "Take your dental work, for instance. You shouldn't have to go to Thailand for that! They should do it here, for five or six hundred dollars. There are people who can't afford to go abroad."
"Speaking of which, where are you going?"
"I'm going to the Philippines. I can't stand the winter here! I'm an old man, remember. But I've heard that the dentists in the Philippines are cheap- maybe I'll get some work done there myself," he laughed.

That night I descended into the jaws of the Eurasian Continent. The plane shuddered on landing and swung broadly from side to side before straightening out. Ground temperature and time of day were announced prior to deplaning, but I was completely unprepared for the humidity that enveloped me as soon as I stepped from the cabin doors. I had been swallowed, and pressing in on me from all sides were the steaming viscera of a living city.
As I shuffled towards customs and immigration with my fellow passengers I took in the surroundings. BKK is a modern marvel- a gleaming, palatial structure of soaring steel beams and cables and glass panels, all highlighted with electric blue lighting. After immigration, I walked through the exit to the car-park and immediately started sweating in the humid air. I stripped off my outer shirt and hailed a taxi. After making sure the meter was running, I asked the driver when we would arrive at the hostel.
"Oh. Sorry," he laughed. "Only English little bit."
"That's OK. I was told it would be about 200 baht."
"Yes... 200. About."
Pulling out onto the expressway, we gathered speed as we passed under an enormous gilded portrait of the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) labeled "Long Live the King. 1946-2010" in Thai and English.

In forty minutes we had arrived, and I stepped out of the cab into the heat and spotted the blue Christmas lights which I had been told would mark the entrance to the Wanderlust Hostel. I paid the driver, opened the gate, and walked through. The Wanderlust is two side-streets removed from the major Ekkamai Road, which is itself a branch, or "soi" of the central Sukhumvit highway. The address system in Thailand is horrendously confusing. Major roads are named for the areas they pass through, meaning that the name of a long road might change several times as it passes through different towns. Side streets branching off of the major roads are called soi. Soi are numbered in either ascending or descending order, with odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other. The even and odd soi don't necessarily advance evenly, so soi 49 for a given road might be directly across from soi 18. If a new road is constructed between two existing soi, it is designated with a compound number (for instance 7/1 if it is between soi 7 and soi 9). Major soi might have their own name in addition to their number designation, as well as their own soi (e.g., Ekkamai is Sukhumvit's 63rd soi). House numbers on a given soi might not follow any order at all. Also, streets do not obey any sort of North-South grid so it's all but useless to try to navigate with the cardinal directions. Instead, directions might be given in terms of Bangkok's major landmark, the Chao Phraya river. The river, however, is so tortuous that at some points in the city one may be north, south, and east of the river simultaneously. To make matters worse, representations of street and place names in the Latin alphabet are not consistent, making research beforehand very tricky.

The hostel struck me immediately as clean and friendly. The owner, Alvi, is honest, self-possessed, and fun. When I checked in, the hostel was so full of young travelers like myself that two people were sleeping on the floor for lack of beds. Alvi handed me a bundle of sheets, and gave me a little tour.
"This is the refrigerator. It's full of cold beer and bottled water. Feel free to take what you like but make sure I know so I can add it to your tab." There was a definite Australian tint to her speech.
I took a glance at the sink next to the refrigerator, where a hand-written sign hung: "Unless you brought your mother with you, do your own dishes!"
She lead me upstairs to the air-conditioned second floor. "This is the bathroom. I can only promise you warm showers, not hot. But you may get lucky."
The rest of the second floor was taken up by bunk-beds. I took a shower, made my bed, and set an alarm for 8 am.

The next day would see me in Cambodia, under less than auspicious circumstances.