Ramble
Quest - Another Long-Haired Farong in Banglamphu.
Even though this flight leaves on time, it is still after eleven at night when I finally get into town. At first I thought I'd gotten off of the bus too soon because I couldn't recognize anything at first. However, I'm where I was hoping be, on the outskirts of Banglamphu, the busiest tourist district in Bangkok.
The first place I come across is the typically named "PS Guesthouse". There may or may not be one room availablem -- a couple is looking at the last available. When the young European woman says that they will "keep looking" my first thought is that this room must be really, really bad for them to want to tromp around late at night. I have a look anyway and find it isn't bad at all. Now, no one would mistake this tiny cube for a nice room. Prison cells are larger, monks would feel claustophopic here, and only a student in a Chinese dorm could be comfortable. However, at 130b a night, they just don't get much better in Bangkok and in fact can get a lot worse.
It seems that the couple has realized this as well because they are waiting to pounce on the room should I pass it up. I don't. In fact, I wind up staying there a few days because there's not much advantage to switching.
One day I'm walking around Banglamphu when a very strange thing happens to me. A Thai guy stops me on the street and says he likes my long hair. He chats with me for a bit but clearly my guard is way up. After all, Khao San Road is only about a kilometer away, where many a freak flag flies on the head of a farong. This guy must be up to something to stop me like that.
I run into this guy again though, sitting outside eating a chicken rice and he waves at me. OK, now I'll find out what the angle was. I order some food and sit with him, waiting to see what's up his sleave. Well, here's the surprise, and in any place other than Thailand I would have been shocked: there is no ploy here. This guy doesn't want any money, he isn't gay, he isn't trying to set me up with anyone, no scam, no pitch. He's just a friendly Thai guy. He genuinely likes my hair for no particular reason and enjoys chatting with foreigners. What a concept!
Despite having been here several times before, I've never gone to see the Emerald Buddha. Remiss of me really. I start to feel a bit guilty about it, the way you might about not dropping by a distant, but dull relative while visiting their town. It's just something you should do. So, I go, early, which is the only possible way I could handle a crushing tourist mob like that at the Grand Palace.
I wouldn't say it was a waste of time either. The gaudy palace is a spectacle, much in the way Heast's Castle was. I find it humorous that they have a large model of Angkor, as if to say, "well, we can't really build a great temple, so we'll just make this replica of one." And the way they dress up this little jade buddha and the stories behind him are just a hoot. Finally, there are the tourists, who are a scream. One woman looks at the gaudiest of all stupas and says, with a tone of awe in her voice mind you, "it's sooo beautiful." Well, the murals are worth a look anyway.
As always, the best thing about Bangkok is simply walking around. So much for sale and so little worth buying! At least here, people seem to have a proper lack of bustle to their selling. By the river I see some people releasing eels, purchased from a restaurant, near a sacred tree. They do this in order to ask for favors. Never mind that the restaurant will simply catch more eels and the ones they release will likely die in their polluted new surroundings. All great religions have an element of absurdity to them. This is something we HEN appreciate very much.