Bewildered in Bangkok

I was going. Nothing was stopping me. But when I earnestly planted myself on that plane… that is, after I had to drop another $450 for a return flight home because they wouldn’t let me board the plane to Thailand without proof of a way of exiting the country… I couldn’t help but think, ‘What am I doing? I’m on a plane… with a bunch of Germans on my way to Bangkok.’ I can’t help but wonder… ‘Am I crazy?’ There you have it. Bold and sassy Laura gets scared. Gasp. Secret’s out. All my life I’ve been asking for an adventure like this. Dreaming of it. But again, I think, ‘Ahhh! I’m on a plane to Bangkok with a bunch of Germans!!!’ I shiver… and I can’t believe it. So yeah… am I crazy? I can’t help but think of the nickname my dear old friends from Madrid Lane affectionately christened me with not too long ago: “Pluto.” They say I’m just “too far out there.” I’m beginning to believe they’re assessment is dead on. And as I fly over foreign lands with foreign Germans I think of Jonathon and Ryan… and I miss them. I miss the comforts of Madrid Lane… homemade hummus… strawberry milk… and Rupert… (cringe) I guess. ; )

I love the way Ben described how us travelers looked when I arrived in Bangkok… because that’s just how I felt... " their gaze slowly drifted up to the top of the terminal, leaving their chin hanging slack below, and their eyes took on an unfocused 'I’m so lost right now, help me God' look. " I wondered how in the world was I supposed to find Ben in the jumble of people holding name signs and calling out to us dazed and confused travelers. But then, suddenly there was Ben striding confidently towards me, slowly materializing out of the mad throng of people… and I smiled a sigh of relief. Ben led me through the hustle bustle in the airport, I changed my remaining euros to Thai baht and then we took off in a bus headed for Kao San Road, the tourist district of Bangkok. It was the start of a new kind of traveling for me. I was no longer traveling as a couchsurfer, but as a backpacker. No longer holing up with a local, but sharing a guesthouse with fellow foreigners… from every part of the globe.

On the bus ride I could see that Bangkok stretched on forever. Literally, the city, the skyscrapers, the high rises, the factories, the web of streets, the people like colonies upon colonies of ants… they just didn’t seem to ever stop. This city is massive. But, then again, it is the third largest city in the world. And if you don’t gather that from the sheer size of the city… you most certainly will get the hint from the thick, smog-filled air. It’s hard to breathe in Bangkok plain and simple… and you don’t really get used to it.

Kao San Road was no different. We had to weave our way through throngs of people, except now they were mostly all Westerners... of course there were swarms of Thai tuk-tuk drivers trying to tell you that you really did need a ride versus asking if you needed one. There were also plenty of Thai street vendors selling everything from fresh pineapple and watermelon, to crepes stuffed with banana and chocolate that where drizzled with more chocolate and condensed milk to fried crickets and other bugs I couldn’t identify. There were vendors selling T-shirts and sunglasses galore… and every other Asian and Western trinket you could think of. It was a tourist madhouse. Both intriguing and repelling all at the same time. It was definitely a bit overwhelming. Especially since I was already a bit dazed, a bit tired from the long flight and to be honest, already a bit rundown from my blitz-like travels in Europe. I felt really relieved to have a travel companion… someone to kind of hand over the reigns to for a little bit. Pretty much, whatever Ben threw at me I was game for… thinking more or less, ‘if you plan it, I will come.’

The guesthouse Ben showed me helped clear the bedazzled fog for me a bit. It was near crazy Kao San Road but it wasn’t on top of it. It was nestled in a little corner just behind it… close enough to the action, but far enough to find some reprieve from the madness. It was perfect really… and immaculately clean for that matter. There were always young girls scrubbing the floors and walls with toothbrushes. You almost felt bad walking through the place. You did have community bathrooms. But the toothbrush queens kept them pretty clean for the most part.

Though I was a bit tired because it felt as if it should be time for bed in Europe… it was mid-morning in Thailand, so there was no sense in sleeping. Thus, Ben and I took off to find me some proper backpacking gear. Another road not too far from Kao San was the place to find authentic goods… though they were being hawked… whether they were old bags sold off… or simply stolen… one has no way of knowing. Either way, I ended up with a steal, getting a huge backpacker-style bag with all kinds of pockets, straps and pads for about $60. It’s easily a $180-$200 bag new. So yeah, a steal either way you look at it. I also picked up some ‘fishermans’ pants.’ They’re one size fits all loose-fitting pants with huge wastes. You just tie the two cloth strings and fold over any extra material. Cool and comfy for the heat.

Though I was not couchsurfing anymore, there are actually a ton of couchsurfers in Bankok and Ben had already met a handful of them. There was a cs gathering that night in Bangkok, so after a bit of afternoon relaxation, Ben and another traveler he knew and I took off to navigate our way to another part of the massive city that evening. That meant taking a water taxi… and that was a rather new and exciting experience for me. You clamber on to this oversized rickety, rusty bucket of boats that has rows of wooden planks for seats, rusty metal sheets for roofs, and blue tarp for splash guards. You speed through the water, winding on the river through Bangkok. At least, it supposed to be a river. It’s more like a sewage dump that’s surrounded by some of Bangkok’s poorest… the poor people’s excuses for shacks litter the river’s banks just as the cities endless trash and sewage litter the water. On a different water taxi ride, Ben and I spied the all too familiar street vendor preparing fruit amid the poor, filthy riverside shacks… and we thought maybe eating that fresh looking fruit wasn’t such a good idea. But, in the end. You still eat from the vendors. Though, maybe that’s why I got sick later. But, I’m getting ahead of myself…

The cs gathering was great fun. There were about 30 of us… mostly Thai… but a fair amount of travelers… all dining at a lovely restaurant with colorful lights and green, flowery foliage… with the occasional rat scampering through the leaves. The people were all great. Everyone had their own travel stories to retell and travel plans to delight over. After dinner a handful of us trekked back to a open-air bar a few floors up near Khao San Road. I had so much fun sharing more travel stories and good ol laughs and a few dance moves here and there. Finally, Ben and I decided to head back to our guesthouse.

The rest of my time in Bangkok was spent eating coconut shakes, coconut porridge, pad thai and banana flower salad, glimpsing a few golden buddhas, zipping around on Tuk-tuks (wheeled carts with seats attached to the back of a moto), getting scammed like an idiot, sneaking into swimming pools, getting ahead on some work, chatting with fellow travelers and chilling out to some movies here and there with Ben. Oh, I musn’t forget the ginormous techno mega mall… I snagged a great deal on a 2-gig SD card I needed for my camera. I also bout some knock off Final Cut software (for vid editing) for my MAC… I still haven’t gotten the program to load though… ah, well. It was a $15 trial and error for a program that costs hundreds. We also hit up the massive and I mean massive market in Bangkok. It took us an hour just to get to that part of the city where the market was located. You can buy nearly anything there…. Including a few puppies and birds and rabbits and whatever. Ultimately, Ben and I were gearing up for a long bout of travel. The goal: to get to Nepal by March to trek to base camp on Mt. Everest. The plan… to get there by land… traveling through Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and India…