I wrote this yesterday after a mind numbing day of walking. I don't really feel like editing it so you get it in all of its raw glory. probably no pictures for a while since my memory card managed to get viruses on it at the last place and I'm loathe to stick it in any more places. hehe, I've still got the mind of a 12 year old. Anyway:
Well I went all the way to hither and fuckin' yon today. I took a cab out to this electronics mecca place that was full of guys trying to sell less-than-legitimate DVDs but who wouldn't bargain (there was no way I was paying $3 for a movie, $1.50 or less tops, that's what it was in cambodia). Anyway, wasted a few hours there then off to find the tailor Scott's old boss knew about. I found him but he was a little used-car-salesman-y so I went a few doors down to another place where the guy only tried to sell me pants a little and otherwise was quite nice. He'd been in business for about 30 years too so he can't be awful. Anyway, I've got 10 shirts coming which are either going to be awesome or going to be inside out. I brought along one of my shirts from Buckle on this trip just so I could show them how I liked the shirts to fit. They said they could copy it no problem, make the collar stand up a little better and the cuffs a tad shorter and all would be good. It occurred to me on my walk home though that if they COPY copy it then I'm going to get 10 shirts with stitching on the outside (Buckles was being all trendy and whatnot) so we'll see. After that I took the sky train down to the end of the line and was planning on taking a water taxi home (long boat) but the travel time was like 30 minutes so I get the great idea to WALK the 15 or so miles home through downtown bangkok. In rush hour traffic. That's the hither and yon I was referring to.
It was actually kind of nice - though the last mile or two started to suck on the old calves - I ended up wandering through a couple of areas that clearly no tourists were supposed to go, or at least rarely went. All of the Tuk-Tuk drivers stopped shouting at me to get a ride and figured if I was walking I must have a good reason for walking (whenever I crossed into a touristy market area they'd start back up again then die down when I left). I passed an actual honest to god tailor - with sewing machines and everything - instead of what all of the places english speakers go (they're basically just fitting shops). Then there were a couple of really run down looking guys huddled around an overturned bucket playing checkers with bottle caps. They were having a blast though so I stopped and watched for a while. Just before getting into china town I saw a really quick taxi transaction that had a pretty older looking white dude escorting a young thai girl into the back and taking off - that really can't be good. Chinatown after dark (it took a while to walk home) was sort of interesting too, everyone was just cleaning up all of the cheap plastic crap and making plans for dinner. kind of cool. But I'm "home" now so I can rest and drink a coke with actual sugar in it (no high fructose corn syrup out here).
In case you can't tell this is totally stream of consciousness, not enough brain juice left to format it into really readable sentences. It's been quite strange actually, I keep forgetting where I am. I mean, country wise. I know I'm someplace foreign but I really keep expecting it to be a different city. I was bored the other morning so "read" a french magazine I found in the lobby and I swear to god when I looked up I expected people to be speaking french, it took a while to readjust. Then today while killing some time during the tailor thing I partook of my long standing solo travel tradition and saw a movie that's been out of the theaters for a while in the states (Traitor in this case) and enjoyed the AC. But again, as the movie ended I was really expecting everyone outside to be speaking italian or something, it took me a second to readjust. It's been very strange. Oh yeah, and before the movie the had this tribute thingy to the King of Thailand and everyone (all 15 people or so) stood up while it was playing on the screen. Crazy.
Well I went all the way to hither and fuckin' yon today. I took a cab out to this electronics mecca place that was full of guys trying to sell less-than-legitimate DVDs but who wouldn't bargain (there was no way I was paying $3 for a movie, $1.50 or less tops, that's what it was in cambodia). Anyway, wasted a few hours there then off to find the tailor Scott's old boss knew about. I found him but he was a little used-car-salesman-y so I went a few doors down to another place where the guy only tried to sell me pants a little and otherwise was quite nice. He'd been in business for about 30 years too so he can't be awful. Anyway, I've got 10 shirts coming which are either going to be awesome or going to be inside out. I brought along one of my shirts from Buckle on this trip just so I could show them how I liked the shirts to fit. They said they could copy it no problem, make the collar stand up a little better and the cuffs a tad shorter and all would be good. It occurred to me on my walk home though that if they COPY copy it then I'm going to get 10 shirts with stitching on the outside (Buckles was being all trendy and whatnot) so we'll see. After that I took the sky train down to the end of the line and was planning on taking a water taxi home (long boat) but the travel time was like 30 minutes so I get the great idea to WALK the 15 or so miles home through downtown bangkok. In rush hour traffic. That's the hither and yon I was referring to.
It was actually kind of nice - though the last mile or two started to suck on the old calves - I ended up wandering through a couple of areas that clearly no tourists were supposed to go, or at least rarely went. All of the Tuk-Tuk drivers stopped shouting at me to get a ride and figured if I was walking I must have a good reason for walking (whenever I crossed into a touristy market area they'd start back up again then die down when I left). I passed an actual honest to god tailor - with sewing machines and everything - instead of what all of the places english speakers go (they're basically just fitting shops). Then there were a couple of really run down looking guys huddled around an overturned bucket playing checkers with bottle caps. They were having a blast though so I stopped and watched for a while. Just before getting into china town I saw a really quick taxi transaction that had a pretty older looking white dude escorting a young thai girl into the back and taking off - that really can't be good. Chinatown after dark (it took a while to walk home) was sort of interesting too, everyone was just cleaning up all of the cheap plastic crap and making plans for dinner. kind of cool. But I'm "home" now so I can rest and drink a coke with actual sugar in it (no high fructose corn syrup out here).
In case you can't tell this is totally stream of consciousness, not enough brain juice left to format it into really readable sentences. It's been quite strange actually, I keep forgetting where I am. I mean, country wise. I know I'm someplace foreign but I really keep expecting it to be a different city. I was bored the other morning so "read" a french magazine I found in the lobby and I swear to god when I looked up I expected people to be speaking french, it took a while to readjust. Then today while killing some time during the tailor thing I partook of my long standing solo travel tradition and saw a movie that's been out of the theaters for a while in the states (Traitor in this case) and enjoyed the AC. But again, as the movie ended I was really expecting everyone outside to be speaking italian or something, it took me a second to readjust. It's been very strange. Oh yeah, and before the movie the had this tribute thingy to the King of Thailand and everyone (all 15 people or so) stood up while it was playing on the screen. Crazy.
