FIRST NIGHT OUT

Side streets here are known as ‘soi’s’ and they’re numbered in order from the main street that they run off. I’m in Silom and the main streets ‘Silom’ St – so the side streets are Silom Soi 1-30.

The club we went to was on Soi sii – 4th Street – or as it’s commonly referred to, Gay Soi. The street is so camp it’s hilarious – even down to the places only employing gay waiters who swish about the place. We went to a bar/club, which was OK, or more specifically the décor was pretty good but the music was terrible.

The place filled up with Thai people, which I was a bit surprised at, and to tell the truth a little intimidated by. Not that they were threatening (well maybe some looked a bit so) but it’s more that I didn’t know the rules of what was going on. Were the girls hookers? Were the girls girls? Were the guys the thugs they dressed up to be? Would I get beaten up for looking at the wrong person the wrong way?

Who knows, obviously nothing happened and we all just had a drink chat and very limited boogie – as I said, the music was terrible.

JAMES THINKING LIKE A DICKHEAD: 1
BEERS: 1 too many

THE MARKET (FOR WHAT?)

At Pat Pong just about everything is for sale, but much of it is tainted goods. Yeh, that’s a real Rolex. I don’t know why anyone would wear a real one here – everyone will just assume it’s a fake. One of my colleagues tried to run an argument that prostitution wasn’t that bad – it’s amazing how many holes one twist of logic can contain. I’m not sure where the argument begins and ends – who’s at fault? Is there fault? There must be.

We had a wander around and saw the scum of many nations slinking along the street, but we also saw a few guys who looked like they’d just left high school and suburban Melbourne. The horror.

I managed to make my first purchase as well – the guy asked for 1,200 Baht and I ended up paying 500 Baht. I think I did OK, but I’m still pretty sure I paid a Farang (foreigner) price – let’s face it, the marketeers are far more shrewd than I am.

DIRTY OLD MAN COUNT: A big number
WOMEN BEING EXPLOITED: A big number

A Visit to the Coal Face

I ventured out to visit my workplace for the first time. It was described as being outside Bangkok, by which they meant way outside Bangkok. Think Nth Thornbury from the CBD. It took an hour to get there, and that was using the tollway, against the traffic and when there was fortunately no traffic jams. Work’s situated on a university campus full of open spaces and trees. Apparently there are large lizards that live in the multiple pools around the place, but so far they’re a bit like the drop bears from what I can see.

Today also prompted my first visit to an international chain – Starbucks. Look, it’s not my fault – I needed somewhere air-conditioned and quiet to write this. OK.

TOLLWAY COUNT: 4
LIZARD COUNT: 0

After not enough sleep A NEW BEGINNING

I had a chance to get around Bangkok a little bit. I’d been here 3 years ago a remembered a dirty, smelly, crowded and poverty infested city. Today everything’s clean though in need of a paint job, the bums have been moved on elsewhere, there’s less need to push your way along the footpath and the smell’s even tolerable. Maybe my impressions will change, but it feels like the town’s been cleaned up – sort of like the effort Sydney made to become Disneyland for the Olympics. It’s still disorientating though not because of the countless people and swirling streets but because of the constant repetition of the same chain stores.

SMELL COUNT: Reduced
7-11 COUNT: Countless

Pre-Departure

25/9 PRE-DEPARTURE

Everything seemed to be running smoothly. Houses were moved out of, stuff stuffed in every spare corner of my parents’ house, friends said goodbye to. All that was left to do was pack the last few things leave for the airport at 12.45 and say final goodbyes to my parents and girlfriend. Too easy.

Or so I thought. For the first time in living memory I managed to lock myself out of the house at 10.30, with no packing done. That’s OK, Luke’s at cricket training I’ll just call him to bring his key over. My phone told me I had 70c left, which was spent talking to Luke’s colleague to whom he had his phone diverted. Send him a message she suggested as the last of my credit ran out. From a phone box I called Tim, the only other person in Melbourne with a spare key, but no response.

I headed back to the house, increasingly fraught girlfriend by my side. At the back was the garage roller door into the backyard. From the guys having a party in the alleyway I was able to borrow a ladder, lent it up against the garage door and climbed to the top. From over a storey up I surveyed my options. I grabbed the short metal pole jutting out of the garage door and the top of the carport support pole. Swinging in mid-air I looked down onto uneven ground. I pushed off the wall to get some momentum, let go, aimed for level ground a couple of metres away, and with a “please don’t hurt myself” running through my head I landed. Safe.

I hit the garage opening mechanism, and as the door scrolled up I expected a “your such a hero” but got a “oh my God!” instead. Looking down, I saw that one of my girlfriend’s dogs was bleeding from her eye. It was 11am.

Quickly into the house we grabbed the car keys and were quickly on the road to the doggie hospital. And when I say ‘hospital’ I mean it – better facilities were never afforded to the care of those in the third world. After quick admittance the vet cheerfully told us that the dog would need stitches, and would we (chuckle) mind paying the $300 bill. Sure, we said.

Back home at 12am I went to my ‘to-do’ list, only to discover it was missing. Every bit and piece I could think of got stuffed into various bags – after all, I’d been given up to a 40kg limit so there’d be no problem. My clothes and uni books were already packed, so I gathered my laptop and toiletries and sealed the main case. My cricket bat went in the backpack, and guitar case closed with a satisfying thud.

My parents arrived with the wagon, we loaded everything in and got to the airport. The first bag weighed 16kg, the guitar 6kg, and the suitcase 31kg. Holy Shit! “Hey man, I’m going for a year, can you help me?” He was quiet and just started processing things. I was quiet. He gave me my boarding pass. I left.

TRAVEL TIP #1: It never helps to be a jerk at the first instance.
TRAVEL TIP #2: Just shut up sometimes. They don’t want a hassle and if what you want is their path of least resistance that’s what you’ll get.