#jaflr

The problem with memory is that it filters out the small details of day to day life, arguably the most human aspect of natural curiosity. Reading back on day 1 in Bangkok quickly reminds me of the abrupt cut from cold fresh, disastrously grey England to the tropical climate of downtown Bangkok.

“Exhausted is how I’d describe how I felt this morning. Following the long journey the day before carrying around a whole lot of weight, about 21 kilos, through Bangkok left my body deflated…The day started with a cold shower, which was actually quite nice in the 30 degree humid air of Bangkok. I noticed during my shower that I had a peeker, a little lizard; the poor little thing had a foot missing. Above him a parade of tiny ants marched into my cubicle and below that in a concrete trough were worms, flinching about in stagnant water. Other than the company…the shower was nice, even the slight burn of mint shower gel on my balls [expressly magnified by the cold shower]. “

The first day consisted of trying to find a way to hack off the lock off my bag because I had stupidly locked it after I had unknowingly reset it. The entire area seemed to be motor repair shops, but feeling dehydrated, hungry (we didn’t know where to find food yet) and soaked in sweat (physically dripping) neither of us felt brave enough to approach a group of oil covered Thai mechanics without a word of their language to share with them. Eventually the person who checked us in started work and they could speak some English so we managed to get a pair of pliers and saw off the lock.

At last we could make our way to the Vietnamese embassy to get our visa. We hopped on our first tuk-tuk, the man took us for a ride, literally and figuratively charging us 5 times the average price, and that was the average price for gweilos. Saying that though is a real first world problem considering what we paid wouldn’t buy two pints back at home, but we are trying to scrimp on what we have for a whole year! I forgot to mention we only had the money in our back pockets too since neither of our Halifax cards were in working order.

Bangkok reminded me of the film Akira, an organic grip took hold of the over built city. It stank of sewage, the air polluted, every draw of breath was felt making lungs heavy and causing perspiration to bead just about everywhere our virgin first world bodies could. Power lines drooped low enough to get caught in, cockroaches scurried along as if late for work. A man sat on the side of the road, hollows in his face where his eyes used to be, another with an arm missing. Missing limbs seemed to be a frequent occurrence, the smiley Thais just getting on without a complaint about it. A lady was using her stump like a pincer to make trinkets for offering at a temple happily chatting away, up-selling her lottery tickets. She sat next to another man selling cages stuffed full of frantic sparrows, held prisoner to be released as an offering at the temple. Everything lives on top of itself in Bangkok, street sellers spill across the pavements, people sleep under benches, behind motorway barriers, anywhere. The markets are long tunnels of tents taking up the entire pathway and are filled with endless tables selling the same repeated merchandise. The bustle is electric, the language is fast and direct and the people are your best friend if you have baht in your pocket.

First impressions of Bangkok are entirely of love, it stinks, I was certain the food would leave me bed-bound, it was fantastic, frantic, the complete turn around of culture is wonderful to fall into. There is a mixture of Asian altruism crossed with western capitalism equating to a savage friendliness. You feel like you’ll be ripped to pieces but at least every scrap of you will go to good use.

We’ve been on our travels now, ‘The Grand Adventure” for gone 5 months, but I’ve only just started to collect together images for blogging with. This is mainly because my MacBook became a giant paperweight in Cambodia at the start of the journey and used that as an excuse to not put anything solid up. This was, shamefully a terrible excuse, when in fact it was fear and perfectionism that stopped me, but more so just laziness.  Now, however, with things working and organised, it’s all ready to go up. There is a huge backlog to come so it will (hopefully) begin to trickle through onto this sparsely populated space. Warren has been doing all the blogging legwork so far, but I should be joining in more now, with some irritatingly wordy contextualising blocks to accompany lots of imagery.