Greetings and Salutations,
It's only been a week since I touched down in
Bangkok, yet already this trip has been amazing, engaging
and challenging, fascinating and full. Thought I'd take a step back
to check in and say hi, but also to pass along my love and riff for a second.
After 24 hours of travel, I spent the first few days
acclimating to Bangkok, adjusting to the time but mostly remembering how to be
a traveler again. It's been since Costa Rica that I've taken a trip of any
substance. So I've slowly remembered how get over myself-- how to get over
the fear of being lost or unsure or timid. Or rude (fucking tuk-tuk drivers).
Remembering how not to have an agenda or place to be or something to
do. Silly things, like remembering how to order food by pointing and nodding. Or
how sometimes your best move it to put down the camera and just take
it all in. Remembering the simple pleasures of discovering things about a
new place. Not just the obvious ways cultures differ (the only-in-Asia shopping
malls and plazas, or the harrowing, first-person Frogger experience of
crossing a street), but also the little ways they do familiar things
differently: cigarette packs with pictures of a sallow, concave-chested
old man hooked up to machines in lieu of a surgeon general's warning; Latino
flavored potato chips amongst the cuttlefish and ramen and seaweed snacks at
the 7-11 (collect 3 upc codes and you can send away for a free hairnet);
the endless stream of teen and 20-something Thai hipsters rocking the Pat
Benatar/lead singer from Goo Goo Dolls hair without a trace of irony or
absurdism--one of many, many ways countries
unselfconsciously devour and regurgitate western culture. At
times it's like I'm walking around
in a never-ending Mentos commercial.
In some ways, Bangkok is how everyone described it:
choked with pollution, frenetic, seeming to have its own grotesque logic.
It's in the day that you see the scars of a city that is overwhelmed with fumes
and mold and rust and trash, while lacking any coherent identity or organization beyond
unchecked urban sprawl....But then the night comes. And everything changes. The decay fades into the darkness, giving
way to a pulsing, writhing metropolis teeming with action and life--food,
commerce, people, music, all outlined in neon and glistening with sweat.
It's unlike any other place I've seen. Such a visceral experience to walk the
streets of Bangkok at night. The sultry carnival.
For the record, it's hot. Stupid hot. Fuck you hot. You
don't know the depths of sweaty Mark until you've seen him in Thailand. Unreal.
Yet, oddly enough, I'm not really bothered by it. My body feels amazing.
Limber. Fluid. (Though I cannot say I wear the heat particularly well, as I've
caught glimpses of my reflection and at times am reminded of the ending scene
in the first Indiana Jones movie. Clearly, I did not close my eyes when they
opened the ark.) I feel like I'm getting a crazy good workout every time
I walk outside, which is good because I haven't stopped eating. Holy shit, I
can't. Meats on sticks, bowls of Thai matzah ball soup, noodles, rice, curry.
Everything is so flavorful. Not sure how fat you can get eating a thai diet,
but I suppose I'm gonna find out.
After four days of choking down noxious fumes and paying
round-eye prices, I headed south to the Samui archipelago in the Gulf of
Thailand to relax on Koh Samui. Depending on which part of the island, Samui is
alternately overrun with shopping centers and luxury hotels and
blokes drinking beer in British-style pubs OR lush and fecund with rolling,
verdant hills and fields. I opted for the latter, setting in a bungalow on the
beach in Maenam, the low-key part of the island. I spent my first full day
taking in the sights, hoping from beach to beach on a motorbike wearing my
orange wicker shirt tied around my neck like a cape, a straw cowboy hat, and a
dangling Marlboro (just out there shattering stereotypes about Americans,
to be sure). Today, I joined a boat tour to An Thong National Marine Park, a
lush, dense group of 40 or so smaller islands that was once a haven for pirates
but is now a government protected park of coral reef, white sand
beaches, limestone caves and rain forest. I took a strenuous hike up one of the
peaks overlooking the gulf, then went spelunking in the caves, and swam in the
warm, emerald green water. Amazing day! I'm going to relax for a couple more
days and then head to the southeastern side of Koh Tao (in the same island
chain as Samui), where it's quiet, remote and with some of the best snorkeling
in the area. Then I'm heading north to Chang Mai to check out mountains.
Overall, I'm having an amazing time, my dearies.
Been writing like a muthafucka. Been enjoying myself and saying yes as much as
my heart allows. Thinking of you all and sending lots of love.
-Mark
P.S. special shout out to Margo and her hypnotherapy cd.
Flights were no problem. Choppy and bumpy for hours on end, but I did fine.
No comments:
Post a Comment