The Road Warriors: Bangkok, part 2.

It was a hot, cramped minibus ride back to Bangkok. When are minibuses ever NOT hot and cramped? This one took us right back to Khao San Road. Right back into the fray. Nothing was different. "Hello sir, suit?" or "Tuk-tuk, anywhere 5 baht." or "You need ID card? Diploma?". Yeah, there were dudes selling fake diplomas there. Among the universities represented: McGill and U of T. This is probably why there's so many dumb and seemingly uneducated people teaching in Korea. They all got their "degrees" from U of Khao San.

I checked back into the same guesthouse and bumped into Adam skulking around in the halls. He had a good run by himself. A party in Koh Pha Ngan, a hike in Khao Sok National Park and of course, the visa run to Myanmar.

Before we parted ways, Sophia and I made plans to meet up later. I told her about the rooftop bar I had discovered and she seemed keen to check it out. It would be a whole group of us, and as it was the last night of Sophia's vacation, there was a lot of expectation riding on the night. We were flung around the various adult beverage dispensaries of Khao San Road. A basement nightclub with a daft circular pool table. A British pub with an ill-conceived dancefloor.My favorite was the Dr. Fish Spa, where you could dip your feet in a shallow pool of fish and have them eat all of the dead skin off. At first, terrifying, but after about 20 minutes, only mildly disturbing. Such a bizarre feeling. Like mild electrocution, but distinctly organic. Unmistakably it was creatures that were causing this sensation, even if you tried to pretend otherwise. The last place we ended up in was one of those classy "cheap, very very strong" cocktail joints before Adam and I called it a night.

When I got back home, I made a discovery that can account for all of the venom and vitriol I've had for Khao San Road in all of my entries up until this point. I had apparently improperly locked my room, and in the five hours I had been gone, someone seized the opportunity to enter my room and take my ipod and my Rollei camera. I was livid when I discovered this. Naturally, everyone else in the guesthouse was clueless as to what had happened. I felt so stupid and angry, a feeling which lingered for the duration of my time in Bangkok. My ipod was my all-purpose device. My Internet, my Skype, my photos of friends and family, my music, my alarm clock, my currency converter, my dictionary/thesaurus for all of these long-winded entries, my sanity retainer for those long hours in transit. My Rollei had about 20 exposures in it that I had yet to develop from Myanmar, Kanchanaburi and the Red Shirt rally. Also, not a terribly easy camera to replace. no doubt it was one of the many unscrupulous guests staying at that flophouse who helped themself to my possessions. Thais may rip you off, but they never outright rob you. I wanted to burn Khao San Road to the ground with napalm.

Early the next morning, at 6am, I went to the police station to report my loss. no one there spoke English (an oddity considering it was the Khao San Road Police Department and considering the fact that every other Thai has at least some rudimentary skills), but they were quite helpful regardless. They wrote me a police report in Thai which I would attempt to use while claiming the ipod on my insurance. I went back to bed again until noon.

Adam, perhaps in an attempt to pull me out of my rut, invited me out to MBK and a movie. Doing something different took my mind off of the loss for a bit. We had to cross through the Red Shirt area first, but everyone seemed to be gone. I guess they took their show on the road. We then wandered the dense corridors of the men's fashion department of MBK before checking out Clash of the Titans at the upstairs cinema. However, before Liam Neeson could release any Krakkens, we were made to stand for the Thai national anthem. Man what a bad movie that ended up being. I always feel ashamed after watching a bad Hollywood movie in Asia, like I want to get up during the credit roll and apologize for my culture's insipidness. It was a low-key evening on Khao San Road, but only for us of course.

The next day I decided to leave this wretched expanse. It seemed insane to have gone back after Kanchanaburi. I had nothing more I wanted to do in Bangkok. I had in fact, just been there just nine months prior on a four day whirlwind tour. I had already seen the grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun, Thai boxing and a slew of other attractions. And with the protests, the whole city had ground to a halt making everything inconvenient and frustrating. I decided I would leave in the evening and maybe get a nice day out of Bangkok. I went to Lumphini Park, but it had been fashioned in to some sort of Red Shirt citadel, with bamboo, tires and red flags fencing off the perimeter. Nearby, in the neighbourhood of Silom, police and military were out in droves brandishing shotguns and assault rifles. The subway was shut down and banks were barracaded with razor wire. I had stayed in this area last time I was in Bangkok and as you can imagine, it was 100% different. Nothing to do really but take pictures.

That evening I made my way to the train station for my trek up north. I had planned to stay in Bangkok for 8 days, but I honestly couldn't stand another minute. Adam remained behind because he still had some stuff he wanted to do. I bought a ticket to Ayutthaya, the old old capital just an hour and a half north of the city. Apparently it's all temples and really really quiet. I brushed off my final tout in bangkok and couldn't wait to get there.