nerd’s eye view

Fit to Be Thai-ed

February 10, 2008 – 3:42 am | by nerd's eye view

For lunch, we had Thai food. It’s all very familiar, but hotter. Delicious plates of phad thai, a big soup bowl of green curry, and a new shrimp salad, swimming in lime juice, lemon grass, oh so delicious, oh so nice. I skipped the markets after lunch and headed back to the hotel to take a shower and a nap.

Julius is still not here - he opted for the bus crossing, 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 unconciousness.

We are all wildly overstimulated. The temples messed with our collective subconciousness - 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 bas 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. Trust me, it makes 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 pennace 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 Boddhisattva amulet in my wallet which I think includes a prayer for finding that which is needed. I don’t know what the Boddhisattva has to say about wayward photographers, but I think she’s on my side.