Khao San Road, Bangkok, 10:30am. 10 hours of planes, 2 temazepam, 1 stop over, 2 taxis, 3 beers and 34 degrees. Welcome to sleep depravation hell. The first tout to approach us never knew how close to being punched in the liver he got as we stood like a poster ad for stupid foreigners that radiate cash; backpacks on, Lonely Planet open, scratching our heads and expressions on our faces like the one you have when you get hit in the temple by a flying bottle at a rock concert.
Somehow, some way, I managed to check my steaming cow-pat of a mood and spoke to the tout. He asked where we were from, a question we would learn to embrace with the utmost patience for the next month, and I replied “Australia”. The man replied with yet another gem we would now need to accept with a smile and faux-chuckle in generous quantities, “Ah, Australia! GEDAY METE!” Us: “Yes, g’day mate”. Tout: “HA HA HA HA YEAH GEDAY METE!”
I guess it’s better than “Ah, Australia! A DINGOW ATE CHYA BAYBEY!”
Then the tout did something that still perplexes me to this day… he helped us. He told us that the police station was just to our right and if we go in there, they will show us the better places to stay. We did, expecting “the catch” to severely violate our pockets at any second. The police lady inside the station could see the Watership Downesque expressions on our faces and took pity upon us; she politely walked us outside, pointed across the road and 30 metres down from the entrance to Khao San Road to a little alley.
She was right; the Sawasdee Guest House was an oasis in a sesspool of smelly pepsi-max adventurers with zz-top beards and dreads, touts, hawkers, pickpockets, drunk 17 year old Australians wearing SAME SAME shirts, drunk 50 year old poms wearing polos, drunk 60 year old frenchmen wearing 17 year old Thai girls, all trying to talk to you or push past you at the same time. We checked in, ordered a large tiger, redbull bucket and a hookah full of apple shisha and started planning our month-long adventure.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment