One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster (but only if you can figure out the bus system)

Remember that time I said I wouldn’t neglect my blog, and would write every week, and then I fell off the face of the earth for almost a month?  Nope.  I don’t remember it either.  So let’s press on.

Somehow the leisurely wind-down from my month of teaching craziness was anything but – I barely made it to the airport this morning after sleeping through my alarm (note to self – those people who stay up all night in anticipation of an early morning flight might have the right idea).  But after racing through Taoyuan airport and running down innocent Taiwanese I made it to the plane, and arrived safely (and sweaty) in Hong Kong.  I had a nice airport nap, and enjoyed the free wifi and feeling of travel limbo while waiting for my connection to Bangkok.

And then, when I woke up, everything started going just a bit wrong.

Our flight was delayed, and once we got on it we just sat there.  For an hour.  With no air conditioning.  In the midday Hong Kong heat.  And I must say, we were a pungent bunch.  But finally we were given the sweet gift of air con, and then took off for our ultimate destination.  Tomorrow I’ll be meeting up with my friend Cory and we will be living the life of luxury, but for today I thought I should get myself acclimated to the Spartan measures I’ll be taking for the rest of the trip.  So I booked a room in the “backpacker” area of town, and I set my course to get to the hotel from the airport via public transportation.

Perhaps I should mention that I’m not all that good at orienting myself on buses.   Trains, no problem, whether above or below ground.  But buses require a sense of direction that I don’t exactly possess in any kind of useful quantity.  So maybe I should have thought twice about my brilliant idea to take not one, but two buses into the city center.  I guess it’s a classic case of hubris – I’ve successfully navigated NYC!  And Taipei!  And Bloomington, Indiana!  I can do anything!  (except get around Jersey).  The misadventures really pick up when I disembark from the airport shuttle at the main bus station heading to the city.  I knew I needed bus 556.  What I found were buses 551, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9.   Seriously.  So I looked at the routes; none of them appeared to go to the area I wanted.  I thought about just canvasing the station, meekly asking every driver “Khao San?” until I hit upon a winner.  Instead I just went up to the first bus that seemed be carrying other dirty backpacking westerners and whispered “Khao San?”  The driver nodded, so I got on.

You know, I really should have gotten off the bus the minute the other scruffy westerners came over and asked me where they should go while in Bangkok – they had no idea, you see, and had just randomly chosen a bus.  And these were the people I had pinned my hopes on.  But no, I got another brusque confirmation that the bus was in fact going to Khao San, so I settled in.  Fast forward to the bus entering the city proper.  I’ve just awoken from my 4^th nap of the day (I still don’t function well on three hours of sleep), and the ticket taker is telling me that the next stop is Khao San.  I thank her profusely and gather my stuff.  I notice that my crunchy cohorts are getting sent off the bus as well.  As the bus rolls away, I start to take in my surroundings: I was aiming for a nightmarket-ish tourist area.  This is a highway in front of what appears to be a Thai housing project.  No matter, it’s probably just a short walk, right?  So I boldly start off in one direction, but when nothing appears but more highway I give in and ask someone which way I have to walk to get to Khao San.  Except  I can’t walk there, because I’m nowhere near there.  Apparently I need to take the 36.  So I fight my way onto that bus.  At this point it’s rush hour, and bus drivers here just kind of slow down a bit and open the doors, expecting us to jump on.  Once on the 36 a nice man tells me that no, the 36 will in fact not take me to Khao San.  I need to take the 12.  I get off the bus.  I’m starting to get worried.   I try to get into a cab.  I plead, “Khao San?”  And the driver says “No!  No, no no!” and waves his hands back and forth.  I get out of the cab.  I realize I may be in over my head.

But I rallied.  I figured, okay, I’ll get the 12.  It has to take me somewhere, right?  So I get on the 12.  While this was not the end of my transportation adventures, it was certainly the most colorful.  The bus had a wooden plank floor, and driver had rigged old school speakers throughout the vehicle so he could play an array of Asian pop songs.  Loudly.  I can’t argue though, because the man was clearly a professional.  At point, feeling a bit peckish, he reached behind his chair, pulled out a spoon, rinsed it with water outside his window, and the reached back into a cooler to get a jar of mysterious food that he promptly slurped down.  He then placed the spoon back behind his chair and continued on his way.  I should mention that the spoon wasn’t actually used for eating, rather he used it to fish the jar out of the cooler.  But you’ve got to appreciate the cleanliness, right?  I mean, it is next to godliness.

The purpose of that tangent was really to avoid the next sad part of my tale.  The 12 does not, in fact, go to Khao San.  Or at least, not that 12.  I needed the “other” 12.  I was assured that 12 would be air conditioned, but somehow I didn’t think the music would be as good. 

I was getting desperate here, folks.  I could not get onto another bus.  Also, I’d been traveling since 6:30am.  It was now 7pm.  I hadn’t showered.  I’d barely eaten.  I was broken.  I fell to pavement, threw my arms up in the air, and yelled, “Khao SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!”

Oaky, that may be a bit of an overstatement.  All I really did was run down two elderly Asian women in order to secure the next available cab.  Miraculously he understood when I sobbed, “Khao San”, and soon I made it to my destination, only three and a half hours after getting off the plane.  And from there it only took me another 45 minutes to find my hotel!  I’m amazing!  I can do anything! 

My first impression of Bangkok – this is where bad 90’s cover bands go to die.  Every few feet I was met with the sounds of Nirvana, Radiohead, Eric Clapton, and Red Hot Chili Peppers sung by a guy with a guitar and a questionable sense of pitch.  The other stores were reliably pumping out the Summer of 2012 Club Anthems – I’m pretty sure that by the end of this trip I will be convinced that I do in fact have the moves like Jagger. 

After my day of traveling I only had the energy to crawl to immediate sustenance, but damn it was good.  Spicy coconut curry with chicken and, perhaps, white asparagus?  Whatever that vegetable was, it was the perfect curry conduit.  And the curry itself was so delightfully layered: spicy, salty, sour, sweet.  The national flavors of Thailand, if I’m not mistaken.  I topped that off with a fried banana crepe, and took a bit of a walk around the neighborhood.  I found all kinds of interesting things, including an alley that seems to be dedicated to prostitutes.  Yup, less than 24 hours in Bangkok and I found the scooter girls.  I really need to start using my powers for good, not evil.

Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to hit the weekend market before meeting Cory for our flight to Chiang Mai.  However, I can’t guarantee anything.  Instead of finding the market, I might accidentally stumble into Thailand’s first manned mission to the moon.  Either way, I’ll be sure to be on time for this flight.  Cory has a travel itinerary spreadsheet, and she’s not afraid to use it! 

 

Yehliu - the urban antidote

July rolled to a shattering close amid twelve hour days, distracted students, and copious servings of wine and cheese.  My exhaustion hit its peak on Friday and Saturday, and I found myself wandering the halls of the office muttering, “Must grade essays.  Must grade essays!  Where’s Bao Bao?  Give me some dumplings, dammit!” 

Note to all: This is Bao Bao

At this point my pupils were dilated unevenly and I could no longer feel my toes.  I imagine that if House heard these symptoms he would immediately diagnose PTSSD – Post Traumatic SAT Stress Disorder.  And then hopefully he would serenade me with lonesome piano blues, as this is still the only known cure.

At the end of class on Saturday I hobbled home, crawled into my bed, and slept for fourteen hours.  I awoke to a dorm room full of people and plans.  We would finally start using our Sundays productively instead of merely sleeping off the effects of a rough night out.  We would sightsee.  On tap for the day?  Yehliu.

A trip to Yehliu had first been tossed around a couple of weeks ago.  A short, cheap bus ride would deposit us at a coastal geopark filled with sandstone rock formations shaped like mushrooms, tofu, ginger, fairy shoes, and queens (the monarchs, not the borough).  Our prior plans were thwarted in a number of ways: Luxy, Luxy-related exhaustion, essays, essay-related exhaustion, and the sad realization that if laundry was not accomplished on that particular Sunday we would probably all be arrested for olfactory indecency.  Also working against us?  Our routinely suppressed irresponsibility, flightiness, and inability to get anywhere on time. 

I’ve discussed this at length with my roommate / co-worker / partner-in-crime Linnea.  As a teacher, lateness is not an option.  You run the show.  If you don’t appear, 15-20 people get screwed over as a result.  So we simply have to ignore our dilatory natures, suck it up, and arrive on time with at least some kind of plan for the next three hours.  On days off this all goes directly out the window.  Plans are haphazardly made, and often broken.  Destinations are changed mid-route, if not mid-sentence.  Invitations are poorly extended.  Lengthy expeditions through underground malls deposit us directly across the street from our departure point.  And yet, somehow, despite all this, we made it to Yehliu on Sunday a mere three hours behind schedule.

Yehliu Geopark is a short walk through a small fishing village.  This village had an immediate and visceral impact on me.  I usually chalk this up to a childhood spent near the shore: I crave water, and get antsy if I’m away from it for too long.  I remember during college feeling a sort of painful longing every time I heard a chain clank against a flagpole.  The sound reminded me of boats and harbors, which I pined for endlessly during my Midwestern sojourn.  So the immediate sight of fishing boats, the smell of sea water, and the preponderance of crusty, muscled fisherman sent me reeling.  As much as I love cities, I must also have the beach.  And after four weeks of urban hysteria, Yehliu was exactly what I needed. 

 Yehliu looks like an alien landscape.  Black, pock-marked rocks cover a floor of golden stone.  The area is unfortunately well regulated so we couldn’t dive headlong into the surf in our underwear.  Also, Yehliu is popular.  Very popular.  I can only imagine what it would be like to have this place almost to myself, with no whistling guards, no Taiwanese tourist groups, and no Falung Gong protesters.  There’s something strange about being part of the picture-taking hoards.  I wonder how much I’m actually appreciating the scene on its own merits, rather than for its pictorial value.  I also feel competitive: that Asian woman over there is taking a picture.  I should be taking a picture!  She must know something I don’t!  I sometimes think traveling was easier when I didn’t have a camera and I just stole other people’s photos.  (OPP.  Shout out to the 90’s.)

Once I had finished reliving my central park mini-rock climbing youth, I joined the group in a hot, sweaty trek up the hill.  We finally left the tour groups behind, and were able to enjoy the juxtaposition of barren rocks, lush vegetation, and a perfectly blue sky. 

It was a good day.  I'm still not entirely sure what the hell I'm doing here, but days like this help.