For lunch on our first day in Bangkok, we had Thai food. It’s all very familiar, but hotter than the Thai food we get in Seattle. Delicious plates of phad thai, a big soup bowl of green curry, and a shrimp salad, swimming in lime juice, lemon grass, oh so delicious, oh so nice. Travel weary, I skipped the markets headed back to the hotel to take a shower and a nap.
I arrived in Bangkok without Julius – he opted to take the bus. I decided that the reason I work is so I don’t have to take nine hour bus trips across roadless areas when a flight will do just as well. I realized this makes me a spoiled yuppie, so be it. I am also clean and better rested than I’ve been since we left Seattle. I sprawled on the bed and listened to my iPod and then, nodded off for a hour or so of much needed unconsciousness.
We are wildly overstimulated. The temples messed with our collective subconsciousness – not a person I spoke to made it through the dark sleeping hours without wild dreams. I had tigers in mine, J had a boat trip, I think, N was in a tiny dumbwaiter watching the light slice through as she went between floors, there were more, there were others. Wandering through the real life set of an Indiana Jones-esque movie will do that to your brain, as will the ghosts of ancient civilizations who carved vast stone relief murals of the gods and the demons churning a sea by wrapping a giant snake around a mountain, while dancing on the back of a monumental turtle. It makes more sense if you’re sleeping, or if you’re walking through the tourist overridden waking dream of Angkor Wat.
We have three nights in Bangkok, enough time to do some final shopping and hopefully, to find the place where cheap photo gear goes to be dumped on unsuspecting tourists. As penance for taking the flight, I dropped my backpack and my telephoto lens snapped. It’s a drag, but not as much of a drag had it happened a few days earlier. J has the pocket camera – he’s very handy with it – and I have the Bodhisattva amulet in my wallet which I think includes a prayer for finding that which is needed. I don’t know what the Bodhisattva has to say about wayward photographers, but I think she’s on my side.
I’ve been reading your blog for about two years…with enthusiasm! It started out as a requirement for a language learning class – Frank Newman, our professor from Seattle recommended your blog for language learning. Class was over, and I found myself with an established habit of reading what you have to say. Well, I just thought you might be interested into knowing what an inspiration you are!
Greetings from Slovenia. Tina