Hiya, I just wanted to qualify my last entry by saying they were just some base observations but in no way meant to be an all encompassing assessment of Thai culture. Obviously there is a certain sense of the unknown in all this and through whatever interactions I have around the world I can only get a glimpse of the lives of others and I cannot base any assessment of an entire culture on that. As the saying goes "Forget it Jake, its Chinatown" if you know what I mean. I'm just trying to enjoy it all and I find the nicest interactions are often the smallest like the guy who said we could lock our bikes to his front fence when we were trying to cross a busy road with them to get to a market or the bar owner who helped us find the a guest house. The small stuff is the best.
The Recount Part 1
Right then: I have heard that the worst thing you can do in a blog is describe everything in extreme detail, the biggest sin being describing what you had for dinner, here's a blow by blow account of the trip thus far for Zac who wants an update.
Day 0. Leaving Sydney. After last minute packing, I turned up at the wrong terminal in Sydney (Domestic 3) but somehow checked my bags through. Said goodbye to Ilya, Steve (the champ) and Ruth's family. Turned up for our transfer at Singapore with ten minutes to get to our connection. Yes we had to sprint through the terminal Amazing Race style to get the plane and yes, we were the arseholes who held the plane up. Ruth's luggage didn't make it to Bangkok but somehow mine did one a different flight (I thought that was illegal but whatever). Got to the hotel at 1pm which meant I'd effectively had 22 hour day.
Day 2. Wake up after having five hours of sleep. Not feeling the best and the heat and pollution has an intensity that I haven't really encountered before. Decided to ease into it by taking a walk in the street where we happen upon Leo, a good natured tuk tuk driver whose life story is laid before us. He is 46, his daughter went to University in Melbourne (RMIT and she's 27) and he loves Australians and kangaroos. We're tired but its all nice, the hard sell is on but we decide to go with it. We strike up a deal for a boat ride to see some sights and a floating market ("very intimate"). Of course, not being quite down with currency conversion we got a pretty great deal (actually we spoke to some tourists who paid a third of what we did - we got shafted badly and it wasn't in that a few cents per baht way, we were pretty stupid but that's the way it goes, no harm done.) The tuk tuk ride was great but on getting to the deserted boat dock it got a bit scary as a little boat pulled up (fortunately bigger than the one we initially though we were getting on). It ended up the trip (where "I shouldn't tell other tourists what a great deal I got" haha!) was just for Ruth and I but I didn't expect it to be the equivalent of canoeing around the Cape of Good Hope. I decide that my learning to swim was a bad thing because its made me that much more aware of how easy it is to drown. As the boat rode the waves of the much bigger tourist boats, slamming up and down and rocking precariously from side to side, I thought this could be the end. We slowed for the floating market, a single row boat peddling beer, and then made a hasty return to where we started as we were flung about the boat getting nicely sunburnt and water churned. We decideed to go home. Back at the Hotel, Leo came screaming by in his tuk tuk with two tourists in the back saying to us "Hello, my best customers..." The tourists smiled serenely as we looked on with little but admiration for Leo's style.
The rest of Day 1 was trying to have some semblance of normality but to be honest, I was just very tired. We did a bit of the sky rail thing and tried to get a feel for the city but the constant offer to go to the tourist office wore us down in the end and we ended up heading back to the hotel. Ruth's luggage eventually turned up. Day 1 ended up with lots of dozing and an early night.
Oh yeah and I had Vietnamese for dinner as the hotel didn't sell Thai food (too tired to go out). It was terrible.
Continues later... Trust me, it get more interesting...
PS May I congratulate Mary Watson on the birth of a new baby girl. Hopefully the appropriate measures have been put in place to prepare the world for another Watson lady (y'know terror alerts etc...) Much love to you guys x
1 comment:
thanks for that PS. appropriate alerts have been posted. it's very exciting in the watson households right now! miss ya angry snowman x
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