Bitterly, we boarded the second bus a few hours later. Erik and I settled in to the seats directly behind the driver, our valuables nestled close to us, determined not to let ourselves be duped again. We slept sporadically through several movies until we were abruptly woken by shouting.
"Everybody! Check your bags! Check your bags!” A Swedish man was calling up the aisle to us. We have 15,000 baht (US$450) missing! Check all your bags!"
"What's happening?" I drowsily turned to Erik.
"They're missing money. Check your bag."
The Swedish man was walking up and down the aisle checking with each person. His face contorted in bewilderment and rage. While I shuffled through the bag on my lap and found that everything was accounted for, I noticed the bus driver, his accomplice, and the sleeping ten year old boy all seemed to be oddly undisturbed by the commotion.
"What happened?" Erik calmly asked the Swede.
"We have been robbed! My girlfriend is missing her passport and 15,000 baht. Another is missing 13,000!" he said frantically, perspiration highlighted from the dome light of the cabin and panic flashing in his blue eyes. One of the passengers had woken to a rustling at her feet, only to find the bus driver's accomplice going through peoples’ bags as they slept.
With the anger growing among the passengers like an active volcano, courage also grew, and with the backing of his fellow travelers the Swedish man erupted, deciding to confront the bus driver.
"You stole my money! Where is my 15,000 baht? I want my money back! Now!" he demanded behind the driver’s seat.
The Thais pretended not to speak English, quietly shrugging off the uproar. The Swede began pleading, begging and yelled again. Finally fed up with no response from the Thais, he sulked back to his seat to confer with the rest of his group.
Erik and I sat in our front row seats, shocked by the whole ordeal. My pulse was racing. What’s going to happen? I looked from the back of the bus to the front; tensions were high. Interested in what the Thais were doing, Erik leaned over the divider, spying on the driver and his accomplice.
"They're on the phone, whispering!" he reported to the rest of the bus. "Call the tourist police. Have them meet us at the bus station. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
A look of determination came over the Swede and he marched, one guy with him as backup, to the front of the bus once again.
"That’s it! Pull over the bus!" he demanded. "We want our money back! Stop the bus! Stop the bus!" he shouted, his voice now raised to a deafening roar. The Thais responded this time, barking back at the Swede to sit down and be quiet. Erik was leaning over the rail watching the whole thing as I sat back in fear. This continued back and forth, each party getting louder, arm gestures increasing with violent suggestion until the yelling came to a disturbing climax.
"SIT DOWN! You see?! You SEE?!" The bus driver and his accomplice yelled to the two men.
Erik slowly leaned back. "He just pulled out a gun," he whispered to me as the Swede and muscle walked back to their seats. "It was right in front of me! A revolver like thing. He just pulled it out, right in the guy's face."
"What?" I asked is disbelief. "Holy shit." That was the end of us having any chance of reclaiming stolen property. Can't really argue with a gun, can you?
The hushed bus bumped quietly along, the passengers exchanging wide-eyed, nervous glances. The sun was just beginning to crest in front of us, the wet smell of morning coming in through the cracked windows. All of a sudden, the continual bumping changed its rhythm; we had turned onto a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.
Oh hell, what now? Were they going to execute us? Dump us? What could they possibly be doing with a bus load of foreigners in the middle of nowhere and especially, after an altercation? I recalled the woman in the Tokyo airport, her wild hair matted to her neck, who told me about the bus massacre in southern Thailand before we arrived here. A group of militants had overtaken the bus and pulled off all the tourists, killing each American they found. I dismissed it at the time. An obvious scare tactic from an older, gullible tourist who had eaten up every word she was told. Now? Well, now I was a bit concerned.
The bus jerked to the side and we were ordered out. As we all shuffled off the bus, half a dozen men came out of the bushes — shady Thai dudes, all grizzly and big — emerging from the dust and dirt of Nowheresville.
They shoved our bags into our arms while shouting destinations at us, Phuket! Samui! Trang! At our answer, they ushered us into the corresponding songthaews. We rode crammed together, one on top of the other, three people clinging to the back railings and hanging off, and several inside, all of us in stunned confusion and terror. Where were we going? All the way to Phuket like this?
We ended up getting dumped at the real bus station — which the robbers understandably wanted to avoid — and plopped onto another bus. A nice government-run bus. We rode that bus all the way into Phuket, short a camera and some trust, a little frazzled, but hey, at least we weren't shot.
Lesson learned:Private companies suck.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Never Trust a Bus Driver- Part One
"It would save us..." I made a scrunched up I'm-a-human-calculator face, "190 baht. That's a night’s stay somewhere!"
Erik and I had been to three different travel agencies to compare the price of getting to Phuket, a southern island halfway down the Malay Peninsula, from Chiang Mai, a mountainous city close to the Burmese border in the northwest of Thailand. We had discussed all possible routes and explored combination avenues of van + bus + train, but this seemed to be the best bet with the least amount of stress. With our pockets a lot lighter than planned, we settled on a 900 baht (US$24.51 each) bus trip.
The agency of choice consisted of a nice Thai couple who were more than happy to show us pictures of the “V.I.P.” air-conditioned bus and explain the actual process of getting to Phuket in full. Their broken English was a sing-song cadence of firm instruction mixed with light-hearted jokes.
"But do you trust them? Should we just go through the guest house?" a concerned Erik asked.
"And pay 80 baht more each? They all showed us the same picture of the bus. It's all the same deal. It just depends on where you are picked up," I assured, determined in my frugality.
As we exchanged money for tickets we were instructed about the pickup: "Be here. Sik o'clock. Here. Sik o'clock. Okay? Sik o’clock? (sic)” The agent told us so many times that I was afraid I would get a tardy slip if we were five minutes late.
We turned up at six o’clock and waited in the fluorescent-lit room, its polished linoleum floor reflecting the white strips of light. A sick-sweet smell of pork buns and fish sauce added to the early morning ambience in the one-room office and home.
Erik nervously paced up and down the room past posters depicting smiling tourists atop elephants, white-water rafting, and trekking, while I hunkered down in one of three available folding metal chairs — the kind you take out from the basement for family gatherings, careful to wipe off the spider webs and dust — offered to waiting guests. Across from me sat a worn wooden desk piled with folders, brochures and an archaic computer. The owner-wife sat playing a computer game as her young daughter slept underneath a delicate mosquito net of lace.
After 45 minutes, a rusty grey songthaew (pick-up truck with a covered bed and two benches for passengers) arrived and zoomed us, packed knee to knee with other travelers, to our bus that waited for us at a gas station. The driver hurried us off the songthaew and tossed our bags into the lower compartment of the idling bus while Erik and I scurried on to find a seat. On board we were lucky enough to get two comfy, reclining chairs with blankets right in front of a large television that played such classic movies as Con Air, featuring a jacked Nicholas Cage.
The ride itself was fine. We floated in and out of sleep to adjust body positions and to stretch cramped legs. It was a decent night until we were jolted awake by our fragrantly gnarly bus driver calling, "Bangkok, Bangkok. Wake up. Wake up. Bangkok," as he went by tapping people’s shoulders.
We stretched and wiped the sleep out of our eyes. Half-glancing out of the window I saw the bus driver and staff start to toss our bags and others onto the street. Snapping awake with the threat of losing my bag, we rushed into the 5 a.m. Bangkok air to rescue them from harm. By the time we cinched up — a matter of seconds — the bus was taking off, a thick cloud of black fumes trailing behind.
"They're sure in a rush,” Erik scoffed.
I grumbled in agreement, trying to conceal my morning breath. I stood in the heavy, sticky air, blinking my eyes into coherence and my body into functionality. We stood in the middle of Bangkok at a roundabout deemed Democracy Monument. The sky was still a dark haze of bluish black with only a slight pink hint of morning peeking through the sharp cityscape.
The other passengers fanned out in varying directions around the monument. Erik and I were supposed to go to “KS Guesthouse” to confirm our seats on the next bus, so we hiked through the eerily silent streets of Bangkok, passing benches with sleeping Thais and displaced tourists from the night before.
We rolled into the guesthouse in our rumpled clothes and backpacks and found the deskman.
"We just got off the bus from Chiang Mai. We are supposed to confirm our seats to Phuket."
"Yeah, okay. Is confirmed," the unusually awake looking attendant assured us.
"Great. Here at six o'clock?" We knew the drill.
"Yeah, yeah. Here at sik o'clock (sic). Okay."
"Can we leave a bag here?" I hoped to be able to walk around Bangkok without having to lug the enormous weight around and besides, my shoulders were already hurting from the walk here.
"Okay. Bags. Yeah. In room," he said pointing to a locked gate halfway down a flight of stairs. He handed Erik the key to store my pack, and having decided to take his along with us, he unloaded some heavy objects and unnecessary weight into my bag as I waited upstairs watching Thai television with the attendant.
Sitting in the guesthouse was about as interesting as flicking boogers on the wall so, we decided to make the best of the few hours we had and walked. Our meandering lead us to Khao San Road (known as the backpackers rendezvous) as people were just beginning to set up shop for the day, and those still running from the night before were beginning to settle down. We chose a quiet café with cozy chairs, ordered two coffees and I began to read as Erik went through his bag.
"Do you have my camera?" he asked.
A rush of dread came over me. God, did I have his camera? I rifled through my little day bag. "No, I have mine. It's not in there?" I asked as he sat elbow deep into his bag, trying to conceal the panic that we both were starting to feel wash over us.
"Do you want me to look?" I asked as he sat replaying the last time he had his camera in his mind’s eye. I began looking through his bag-thoroughly. It had to be in here. It just had to be.
"My bag was disheveled when I got it from the bus,” he said wearily. “I noticed it."
Surely it couldn’t have been stolen. “Did you put it in my bag at the guest house?"
"No. I would have remembered," he answered, the anger of helplessness welling up.
"Let's check my bag. Come on," I soothed him, not knowing how exactly to fix the situation. In times of mini-crisis like these, all one can do is to try to be positive.
Back at the guesthouse, our fears were confirmed. Realistically, what could we do? We could call the guesthouse and tell them. We could call the Tourist police and make a statement but we couldn't find the bus or get the camera back. We had to come to terms with the fact that Erik's camera was stolen. The pictures from half our trip were gone — and part of me also worried about finding my digital head pasted on an illicit body on the internet or worse… someone else finding it and thinking it real.
It was a major downer. A tragic loss and a financial, spiritual, and cultural bummer.
Erik and I had been to three different travel agencies to compare the price of getting to Phuket, a southern island halfway down the Malay Peninsula, from Chiang Mai, a mountainous city close to the Burmese border in the northwest of Thailand. We had discussed all possible routes and explored combination avenues of van + bus + train, but this seemed to be the best bet with the least amount of stress. With our pockets a lot lighter than planned, we settled on a 900 baht (US$24.51 each) bus trip.
The agency of choice consisted of a nice Thai couple who were more than happy to show us pictures of the “V.I.P.” air-conditioned bus and explain the actual process of getting to Phuket in full. Their broken English was a sing-song cadence of firm instruction mixed with light-hearted jokes.
"But do you trust them? Should we just go through the guest house?" a concerned Erik asked.
"And pay 80 baht more each? They all showed us the same picture of the bus. It's all the same deal. It just depends on where you are picked up," I assured, determined in my frugality.
As we exchanged money for tickets we were instructed about the pickup: "Be here. Sik o'clock. Here. Sik o'clock. Okay? Sik o’clock? (sic)” The agent told us so many times that I was afraid I would get a tardy slip if we were five minutes late.
We turned up at six o’clock and waited in the fluorescent-lit room, its polished linoleum floor reflecting the white strips of light. A sick-sweet smell of pork buns and fish sauce added to the early morning ambience in the one-room office and home.
Erik nervously paced up and down the room past posters depicting smiling tourists atop elephants, white-water rafting, and trekking, while I hunkered down in one of three available folding metal chairs — the kind you take out from the basement for family gatherings, careful to wipe off the spider webs and dust — offered to waiting guests. Across from me sat a worn wooden desk piled with folders, brochures and an archaic computer. The owner-wife sat playing a computer game as her young daughter slept underneath a delicate mosquito net of lace.
After 45 minutes, a rusty grey songthaew (pick-up truck with a covered bed and two benches for passengers) arrived and zoomed us, packed knee to knee with other travelers, to our bus that waited for us at a gas station. The driver hurried us off the songthaew and tossed our bags into the lower compartment of the idling bus while Erik and I scurried on to find a seat. On board we were lucky enough to get two comfy, reclining chairs with blankets right in front of a large television that played such classic movies as Con Air, featuring a jacked Nicholas Cage.
The ride itself was fine. We floated in and out of sleep to adjust body positions and to stretch cramped legs. It was a decent night until we were jolted awake by our fragrantly gnarly bus driver calling, "Bangkok, Bangkok. Wake up. Wake up. Bangkok," as he went by tapping people’s shoulders.
We stretched and wiped the sleep out of our eyes. Half-glancing out of the window I saw the bus driver and staff start to toss our bags and others onto the street. Snapping awake with the threat of losing my bag, we rushed into the 5 a.m. Bangkok air to rescue them from harm. By the time we cinched up — a matter of seconds — the bus was taking off, a thick cloud of black fumes trailing behind.
"They're sure in a rush,” Erik scoffed.
I grumbled in agreement, trying to conceal my morning breath. I stood in the heavy, sticky air, blinking my eyes into coherence and my body into functionality. We stood in the middle of Bangkok at a roundabout deemed Democracy Monument. The sky was still a dark haze of bluish black with only a slight pink hint of morning peeking through the sharp cityscape.
The other passengers fanned out in varying directions around the monument. Erik and I were supposed to go to “KS Guesthouse” to confirm our seats on the next bus, so we hiked through the eerily silent streets of Bangkok, passing benches with sleeping Thais and displaced tourists from the night before.
We rolled into the guesthouse in our rumpled clothes and backpacks and found the deskman.
"We just got off the bus from Chiang Mai. We are supposed to confirm our seats to Phuket."
"Yeah, okay. Is confirmed," the unusually awake looking attendant assured us.
"Great. Here at six o'clock?" We knew the drill.
"Yeah, yeah. Here at sik o'clock (sic). Okay."
"Can we leave a bag here?" I hoped to be able to walk around Bangkok without having to lug the enormous weight around and besides, my shoulders were already hurting from the walk here.
"Okay. Bags. Yeah. In room," he said pointing to a locked gate halfway down a flight of stairs. He handed Erik the key to store my pack, and having decided to take his along with us, he unloaded some heavy objects and unnecessary weight into my bag as I waited upstairs watching Thai television with the attendant.
Sitting in the guesthouse was about as interesting as flicking boogers on the wall so, we decided to make the best of the few hours we had and walked. Our meandering lead us to Khao San Road (known as the backpackers rendezvous) as people were just beginning to set up shop for the day, and those still running from the night before were beginning to settle down. We chose a quiet café with cozy chairs, ordered two coffees and I began to read as Erik went through his bag.
"Do you have my camera?" he asked.
A rush of dread came over me. God, did I have his camera? I rifled through my little day bag. "No, I have mine. It's not in there?" I asked as he sat elbow deep into his bag, trying to conceal the panic that we both were starting to feel wash over us.
"Do you want me to look?" I asked as he sat replaying the last time he had his camera in his mind’s eye. I began looking through his bag-thoroughly. It had to be in here. It just had to be.
"My bag was disheveled when I got it from the bus,” he said wearily. “I noticed it."
Surely it couldn’t have been stolen. “Did you put it in my bag at the guest house?"
"No. I would have remembered," he answered, the anger of helplessness welling up.
"Let's check my bag. Come on," I soothed him, not knowing how exactly to fix the situation. In times of mini-crisis like these, all one can do is to try to be positive.
Back at the guesthouse, our fears were confirmed. Realistically, what could we do? We could call the guesthouse and tell them. We could call the Tourist police and make a statement but we couldn't find the bus or get the camera back. We had to come to terms with the fact that Erik's camera was stolen. The pictures from half our trip were gone — and part of me also worried about finding my digital head pasted on an illicit body on the internet or worse… someone else finding it and thinking it real.
It was a major downer. A tragic loss and a financial, spiritual, and cultural bummer.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Chinatown- Bangkok style
"Beware da pickapocket," a weathered Chinese lady said to me sternly, our eyes meeting for a brief moment as we passed in the market. Her purse was strapped to her front like an infant carrier, cradled against her body for protection.
Her friendly warning raised my already heightened awareness of my back pockets. With my right hand slightly behind me touching the pocket containing my wallet, and the left doing the same to my passport, I shuffled with the slow moving crowd through a corridor lined with, well, junk.
I'm no stranger to the dangers of traveling and I was well aware of my surroundings. Having dropped off my large pack at the bus station for storage, I maneuvered relatively well through the sea of people with their heads bobbing in and out of the shoebox-sized stores.
Erik, on the other hand, still had his pack and it was limiting his agility to wind around a family stopped to buy a pair of Pokémon socks. He instead toddled through, catching glares from shop keepers afraid that he would knock their precious cargo over.
Chinatown in Bangkok was stimulus overload. Everywhere we flowed with the masses, the scenery morphing into a different section as we went along.
"We've found the towel department!" I squealed in amusement.
"Look, it's the hair accessory aisle," Erik joked back, pointing to his right.
"Where's the sunglass section?" Our goal was to purchase a cheap pair of shades, as mine had broken. But where, in this busy, chaotic maze could they be? We walked around the tunnels of goods with the others like a colony of ants: single file and constantly looking, searching, moving.
“Which way now?" I called behind me. “Left? Right? Straight?” The right led down a small side street lined with food carts, the smells of cooking meats and sweet jellied soy hung in the air. The left was full of trinket salesmen with glittering plastic toys and porcelain salt shakers shaped like cats. Straight continued down the current path of entombment with the ants.
Decisions had to be made in split seconds; the crowd didn't stop so a tourist could look around and decide. They had twenty packs of cheap plastic doll key chains and shiny barrettes to purchase for crying out loud!
We emerged from the tight corridor, spilling into the byway. Fresh fruit stands rimmed the small area giving a splash of organic color to the dimly lit tunnel. Cart men sprayed water from plastic bottles on apples, drenching the fruit in a cool mist that beaded on the tight pink and green skins. One man meticulously placed stems and leaves perfectly atop his bunches of merlot, eyeball-sized grapes. Sliced cantaloupe, papaya, pineapple and green mango sat on ice displayed within a glass cart, ready to be placed in a plastic bag, hit with the dull side of a knife to break it into chunks, and eaten with a small wooden dowel. Piles of fruit still wrapped in its leathery skin sat in pyramids while bunches of ripe, yellow bananas hung on strings. Cardboard signs of curlicue Thai writing separated the piles of produce by price, or what I assumed was the price.
The fruit market led us into the dried-stuffs department. Little dried shrimps, fish, and unknown and indecipherable dried entities sat in large canvas and plastic bags to be weighed out and handed over. Pork rinds? Pig’s ears? Tails? Dried squid? Octopus? I couldn't say, but it looked like cheese puffs without the cheese and came in different shapes and sizes of twisted and gnarled spindles.
Sizzling meat on skewers smoked the area with a delicious tamarind-barbecue aroma. Paying the incredibly reasonable five baht price to the cart of our choice, we requested two kinds of the tender meat. The rumple-faced cart owner proudly presented the sticks, a smile wide across his face at the farang (foreigners) eating his product above the many competitors. We spilt the meat so we each had a selection to try and at each progressive chew, our eyes grew wide, our excitement mounted — how tasty!
We munched as we made our way back into the current, feeling like water going down into a dark and tight drain. We were once again squished together with the petite bodies of Asians and the odd looming tourist. We shuffled past handbags and utility belts and abruptly came to a standstill. We were all smushed together and wondering why we weren't going anywhere. In the distance the crowd separated and piled onto the sides, bodies twisted and packed together. What was going on? And then we heard it — the rumble of a motor scooter. A motor scooter! People couldn't even get through here among people, but now we had to find room to get a motor scooter by? The bike moved through the crowd like an egg passing through the body of a snake, the crowd expanding and contracting around the vehicle as it passed.
We flowed through the plastic bag and wrapping department, the textile department, the luggage department and the cheap jewelry department and as we approached the stuffed animal department, it began to rain. Booth keepers scrambled to put up large plastic sheets over their goods.
A group of men gathered around one particular booth, laughing and shuffling things. What were they looking at? We inched closer and tip-toe-peered over shoulders. Porn, lots and lots of porn: DVD's, pictures and even a sex toy magazine, its pages fluttering scantily in the breeze. Erik and I exchanged a humored glance, a chuckle and moved on in our search.
Sunglasses! A whole section of sunglasses unraveled before us. We found them! I scanned the rows of imitation Oakleys, Diors, Bvgaris and Chanels, trying on each over-sized pair for the right fit. As I looked at myself in a mirror, wearing a pair of fake Dolce & Gabbanas with encrusted faux-diamond arms, I noticed a large object over my left shoulder hanging from the booth behind me. A gun. Holy shit, guns? It couldn’t be real. Could it?
"I guess the sunglasses are in the shady department with the porn and guns," Erik snickered to himself.
The rain picked up. Huge drops began to plummet us. Time stops in Thailand when it rains; traffic pulls over, businesses close up, electricity fades in an out. Everyone at the market hurriedly covered their wares with plastic sheets and sought cover. People on motorbikes pulled off the road nearby to seek shelter underneath a building's overhang. The rain soon became a downpour. Lightning illuminated the market and a moment later the sky cracked open with the sound of a whip.
We stopped along an outer street, out of the throngs of the center market, under an awning to plan our next move. The storefront displayed large gold necklaces with cloudy green jewels. Inside the store, on top of one of the glass jewelry cases filled with yellow-gold sparkles on red silk, knelt a small Thai girl.
Her hair was tied back haphazardly. She was delicately shaking out puffs of powder and rubbing it on her skin. Several Thai women, relatives perhaps, sat around the cases talking. But this little girl, atop the gleaming case of jewelry, applied white powder on her face like a Renaissance courtesan. She had a seriousness and grace about her. She caught my eye and held it as she daintily shook more out into her tiny, upturned palm. She didn't smile, but she didn't grimace either. She just held my eye as she continued smoothing out the powder, turning her skin a ghostly white.
Everything stopped. The sound of my breathing and her eyes were all there was. She was like a pearl, a gem among the shining brilliance of the room. Was she for sale? Was she on display, or just an ordinary kid who just happened to like sitting on jewelry cases instead of the floor?
There was something so innocent, but also perverse in this act. I couldn't help thinking of all the girls involved with the sex trade here, kidnapped or bred into the life of a whore. I became enchanted with this girl, hoping that she wasn't one, but at the same time imagining she was. There was a kind of withdrawal in her eye, an absence. Maybe she was just mechanically powdering as if brushing her teeth; an act so ordinary it was boring and she dissolved into herself while doing it. Why didn't her family notice her?
It was dark and grey, drizzling outside, but this store was like a warm fire with all its radiant, lush colors.
My mind was snapped away by a jolt of lightning reflecting on the glass, a crack of thunder and of the pounding rain. We had a train to catch.
Her friendly warning raised my already heightened awareness of my back pockets. With my right hand slightly behind me touching the pocket containing my wallet, and the left doing the same to my passport, I shuffled with the slow moving crowd through a corridor lined with, well, junk.
I'm no stranger to the dangers of traveling and I was well aware of my surroundings. Having dropped off my large pack at the bus station for storage, I maneuvered relatively well through the sea of people with their heads bobbing in and out of the shoebox-sized stores.
Erik, on the other hand, still had his pack and it was limiting his agility to wind around a family stopped to buy a pair of Pokémon socks. He instead toddled through, catching glares from shop keepers afraid that he would knock their precious cargo over.
Chinatown in Bangkok was stimulus overload. Everywhere we flowed with the masses, the scenery morphing into a different section as we went along.
"We've found the towel department!" I squealed in amusement.
"Look, it's the hair accessory aisle," Erik joked back, pointing to his right.
"Where's the sunglass section?" Our goal was to purchase a cheap pair of shades, as mine had broken. But where, in this busy, chaotic maze could they be? We walked around the tunnels of goods with the others like a colony of ants: single file and constantly looking, searching, moving.
“Which way now?" I called behind me. “Left? Right? Straight?” The right led down a small side street lined with food carts, the smells of cooking meats and sweet jellied soy hung in the air. The left was full of trinket salesmen with glittering plastic toys and porcelain salt shakers shaped like cats. Straight continued down the current path of entombment with the ants.
Decisions had to be made in split seconds; the crowd didn't stop so a tourist could look around and decide. They had twenty packs of cheap plastic doll key chains and shiny barrettes to purchase for crying out loud!
We emerged from the tight corridor, spilling into the byway. Fresh fruit stands rimmed the small area giving a splash of organic color to the dimly lit tunnel. Cart men sprayed water from plastic bottles on apples, drenching the fruit in a cool mist that beaded on the tight pink and green skins. One man meticulously placed stems and leaves perfectly atop his bunches of merlot, eyeball-sized grapes. Sliced cantaloupe, papaya, pineapple and green mango sat on ice displayed within a glass cart, ready to be placed in a plastic bag, hit with the dull side of a knife to break it into chunks, and eaten with a small wooden dowel. Piles of fruit still wrapped in its leathery skin sat in pyramids while bunches of ripe, yellow bananas hung on strings. Cardboard signs of curlicue Thai writing separated the piles of produce by price, or what I assumed was the price.
The fruit market led us into the dried-stuffs department. Little dried shrimps, fish, and unknown and indecipherable dried entities sat in large canvas and plastic bags to be weighed out and handed over. Pork rinds? Pig’s ears? Tails? Dried squid? Octopus? I couldn't say, but it looked like cheese puffs without the cheese and came in different shapes and sizes of twisted and gnarled spindles.
Sizzling meat on skewers smoked the area with a delicious tamarind-barbecue aroma. Paying the incredibly reasonable five baht price to the cart of our choice, we requested two kinds of the tender meat. The rumple-faced cart owner proudly presented the sticks, a smile wide across his face at the farang (foreigners) eating his product above the many competitors. We spilt the meat so we each had a selection to try and at each progressive chew, our eyes grew wide, our excitement mounted — how tasty!
We munched as we made our way back into the current, feeling like water going down into a dark and tight drain. We were once again squished together with the petite bodies of Asians and the odd looming tourist. We shuffled past handbags and utility belts and abruptly came to a standstill. We were all smushed together and wondering why we weren't going anywhere. In the distance the crowd separated and piled onto the sides, bodies twisted and packed together. What was going on? And then we heard it — the rumble of a motor scooter. A motor scooter! People couldn't even get through here among people, but now we had to find room to get a motor scooter by? The bike moved through the crowd like an egg passing through the body of a snake, the crowd expanding and contracting around the vehicle as it passed.
We flowed through the plastic bag and wrapping department, the textile department, the luggage department and the cheap jewelry department and as we approached the stuffed animal department, it began to rain. Booth keepers scrambled to put up large plastic sheets over their goods.
A group of men gathered around one particular booth, laughing and shuffling things. What were they looking at? We inched closer and tip-toe-peered over shoulders. Porn, lots and lots of porn: DVD's, pictures and even a sex toy magazine, its pages fluttering scantily in the breeze. Erik and I exchanged a humored glance, a chuckle and moved on in our search.
Sunglasses! A whole section of sunglasses unraveled before us. We found them! I scanned the rows of imitation Oakleys, Diors, Bvgaris and Chanels, trying on each over-sized pair for the right fit. As I looked at myself in a mirror, wearing a pair of fake Dolce & Gabbanas with encrusted faux-diamond arms, I noticed a large object over my left shoulder hanging from the booth behind me. A gun. Holy shit, guns? It couldn’t be real. Could it?
"I guess the sunglasses are in the shady department with the porn and guns," Erik snickered to himself.
The rain picked up. Huge drops began to plummet us. Time stops in Thailand when it rains; traffic pulls over, businesses close up, electricity fades in an out. Everyone at the market hurriedly covered their wares with plastic sheets and sought cover. People on motorbikes pulled off the road nearby to seek shelter underneath a building's overhang. The rain soon became a downpour. Lightning illuminated the market and a moment later the sky cracked open with the sound of a whip.
We stopped along an outer street, out of the throngs of the center market, under an awning to plan our next move. The storefront displayed large gold necklaces with cloudy green jewels. Inside the store, on top of one of the glass jewelry cases filled with yellow-gold sparkles on red silk, knelt a small Thai girl.
Her hair was tied back haphazardly. She was delicately shaking out puffs of powder and rubbing it on her skin. Several Thai women, relatives perhaps, sat around the cases talking. But this little girl, atop the gleaming case of jewelry, applied white powder on her face like a Renaissance courtesan. She had a seriousness and grace about her. She caught my eye and held it as she daintily shook more out into her tiny, upturned palm. She didn't smile, but she didn't grimace either. She just held my eye as she continued smoothing out the powder, turning her skin a ghostly white.
Everything stopped. The sound of my breathing and her eyes were all there was. She was like a pearl, a gem among the shining brilliance of the room. Was she for sale? Was she on display, or just an ordinary kid who just happened to like sitting on jewelry cases instead of the floor?
There was something so innocent, but also perverse in this act. I couldn't help thinking of all the girls involved with the sex trade here, kidnapped or bred into the life of a whore. I became enchanted with this girl, hoping that she wasn't one, but at the same time imagining she was. There was a kind of withdrawal in her eye, an absence. Maybe she was just mechanically powdering as if brushing her teeth; an act so ordinary it was boring and she dissolved into herself while doing it. Why didn't her family notice her?
It was dark and grey, drizzling outside, but this store was like a warm fire with all its radiant, lush colors.
My mind was snapped away by a jolt of lightning reflecting on the glass, a crack of thunder and of the pounding rain. We had a train to catch.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Heaven, heaven is a place...where nothing, nothing really matters... Talking Heads
The Talking Heads song, Heaven runs through my head as I listen to the repitition of the tides touching the white sand. It is quite different from the hustle and bustle of Phuket Town. The constant whirring of motorbikes and incessant honking of horns seemed to have missed the island of Ko Samui. Oh, they're here all right, but not on the same scale as my former residence.
I was picked up, blery-eyed and exhausted from the airport by Erik. I stood at the baggage claim amongst Farang travelers and a group of boisterous young (dare I say) hooligans. Their tousled hair and foul language echoeing throughout the plane and now the terminal. "Are you guys going to the Full Moon party?"
"Yeah, fuck we are." they hooted to each other. I wasn't sure if there was going to be belly bumps-Friar Tuck style- or just high-fives. Turns out they just kind of shoved each other around a bit. "Are you?"
"Yeah. See you there." Nice chaps. I was watching for my bag while scanning the airport for Erik. It was as if he was a figment of my imagination, an old memory on replay, as he walked towards me. I may have rubbed my eyes in disbelief. Was it really him?
We crusie around this island on his silver bullet of a motorbike. I, with my pink helmet and rockets blasting on the side and he, with his red domed cap helmet. The sun shines down on us in blessing as we venture into uncharted territories. We have covered this island, circumvated it, and tomorrow we will criss-cross it.
The only bad thing was the alien I had in my stomach for a few days. I was Sigorny Weaver, hunched over in agony, begging the little bugger to move on or just take me down. It was the oddest thing. Was it the damn noodle house I went to for lunch? That tea, God! The tea! I drank the whole thing. Or was it something more serious? An implanted viral insect burrowing into my guts and turning everything to mush. Everything hurt. My stomach erupted at random moments bending me in half and making me curse to the sickness gods to make it all stop for Christ's sake. My kidneys ached with a dull pain, my shoulder was sore and my head began to be its own construction site.
"Erik, what's wrong with me?"
"Here, drink this. It'll make you feel better. I had the same thing." He said as he handed me what looked like a glass of dark orange urine.
"What is it?"
"Drink it." I took a swig of the liquid as he eyed me, making sure that I finished every last drop. It tasted like warm iodine and salt. Bitter, but sweet and revoltingly salty.
"Ugh, God! What was that?" I moaned. He laughed at me as I lay fetus position on the corner of the bed making faces to change the taste in my mouth.
"It's good for you. Electrolyte stuff. It was recommended to me."
swell, I'd try anything at this point. I tossed and turned throughout the night in an inferno of chills and soaking my pillow. I had half dreams of going to the pharmacy (where you go if your sick. They are basically doctors for non-emergencies) given some miracle pill and doing cartwheels down the street in celebration of being released from the grips of death.
As time wore on, it lifted like the hood of the grim reeper and I was restored side-kick Molly. It was amazing. I really have never felt so out of control of my own body. I can usually ignore things, eat them off, or deal (sometimes whiskey helps), but this, I tried it all and it just wanted to hang around. One more day and I would have sought help. One more.
Now, back to myself, things are much more enjoyable. We moved to a bungalow on the beach and roll off of our porch and into the ocean. A lovely restaurant and Thai family accompany the rental of our little hut and the children squeal and bring things on platters to us. It's nice to be back.
I was picked up, blery-eyed and exhausted from the airport by Erik. I stood at the baggage claim amongst Farang travelers and a group of boisterous young (dare I say) hooligans. Their tousled hair and foul language echoeing throughout the plane and now the terminal. "Are you guys going to the Full Moon party?"
"Yeah, fuck we are." they hooted to each other. I wasn't sure if there was going to be belly bumps-Friar Tuck style- or just high-fives. Turns out they just kind of shoved each other around a bit. "Are you?"
"Yeah. See you there." Nice chaps. I was watching for my bag while scanning the airport for Erik. It was as if he was a figment of my imagination, an old memory on replay, as he walked towards me. I may have rubbed my eyes in disbelief. Was it really him?
We crusie around this island on his silver bullet of a motorbike. I, with my pink helmet and rockets blasting on the side and he, with his red domed cap helmet. The sun shines down on us in blessing as we venture into uncharted territories. We have covered this island, circumvated it, and tomorrow we will criss-cross it.
The only bad thing was the alien I had in my stomach for a few days. I was Sigorny Weaver, hunched over in agony, begging the little bugger to move on or just take me down. It was the oddest thing. Was it the damn noodle house I went to for lunch? That tea, God! The tea! I drank the whole thing. Or was it something more serious? An implanted viral insect burrowing into my guts and turning everything to mush. Everything hurt. My stomach erupted at random moments bending me in half and making me curse to the sickness gods to make it all stop for Christ's sake. My kidneys ached with a dull pain, my shoulder was sore and my head began to be its own construction site.
"Erik, what's wrong with me?"
"Here, drink this. It'll make you feel better. I had the same thing." He said as he handed me what looked like a glass of dark orange urine.
"What is it?"
"Drink it." I took a swig of the liquid as he eyed me, making sure that I finished every last drop. It tasted like warm iodine and salt. Bitter, but sweet and revoltingly salty.
"Ugh, God! What was that?" I moaned. He laughed at me as I lay fetus position on the corner of the bed making faces to change the taste in my mouth.
"It's good for you. Electrolyte stuff. It was recommended to me."
swell, I'd try anything at this point. I tossed and turned throughout the night in an inferno of chills and soaking my pillow. I had half dreams of going to the pharmacy (where you go if your sick. They are basically doctors for non-emergencies) given some miracle pill and doing cartwheels down the street in celebration of being released from the grips of death.
As time wore on, it lifted like the hood of the grim reeper and I was restored side-kick Molly. It was amazing. I really have never felt so out of control of my own body. I can usually ignore things, eat them off, or deal (sometimes whiskey helps), but this, I tried it all and it just wanted to hang around. One more day and I would have sought help. One more.
Now, back to myself, things are much more enjoyable. We moved to a bungalow on the beach and roll off of our porch and into the ocean. A lovely restaurant and Thai family accompany the rental of our little hut and the children squeal and bring things on platters to us. It's nice to be back.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Bona-Fide
Yessirree folks. I'm a certified TESOL teacher. I'm ready to break new ground in molding minds in the ways of the English language. Now, I just have to find a job. But that will come. First thing is first- more traveling. I head out of Phuket Town tomorrow to reconnect with my other half. I fly to Ko Samui and then continue on to Ko Pan Yang (spelling?) Then we'll cruise back to Bangkok and head north to Chaing Mai and everywhere inbetween and finally dropping down the Adaman coast and back to Phuket--all the while waving my certificate around!! Yippee.
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