The PJs

So, I guess the projects in Thailand are pretty much the same as project homes anywhere else. I learned first-hand last night.


Suvarnabhumi

After my epic, culture-shocking day and night, I arrived at the new Suvarnabhumi Airport north of Bangkok around 8:00am. I'd taken seven taxis and four buses to get there, over a 22-hour period. Best part was, I had no idea what time of day my friend was getting in to the airport, didn't know her flight number, or even the airport name and departure city.

So what? I was doing all this by the seat of my pants and it wasn't like I had anything better to do.

I humped it around this spacious new airport that outdoes Seatac for size--if not for traffic-- with my monster backpack on, searching for some internet access. I finally found the only internet computers in the place and was stunned to see that they were charging 100 Baht for 20 minutes. That's 300 Baht per hour, roughly ten times what I'd been used to paying.

But I paid it, and I got online, and there was an email from Kirra. No airline, no gate, no departure city, but there was an arrival time. 12:20 in the afternoon, on the 26th.

This was the 25th.


That Great Lunch Spot Which Didn't Have an English Sign

So, it's about 9:00am now and I'm 40 kilometers out of Bangkok at the new airport expecting to meet somebody who isn't coming until tomorrow. It'd take me two hours and a pile of cash to get to a cheap guesthouse near Khao San, and I'd have to go through it all again the next day to get back here. So I figured I'd go for a walk.

The grounds of the new airport are huge, and there's nothing like what I was looking for for miles. So, I hopped over to the bus terminal first-off. Lucky for me there was a help desk set-up just for tourists-in-need like me. Even luckier for me, there were some scoundrels at the desk who put me on a government bus line for twice the normal price and tried to send me to some expensive hotel that was way too far away!

Suvarnabhumi airport is like a huge square park with plenty of open spaces and various large complexes of hangars and office-buildings--and of course the airport itself--serviced by criss-crossing special-purpose highways. Outside of this, the place is ringed by a square of minor highways, all lined with cafes, stores, homes, and hotels. I got off the bus as soon as we made it to this outer ring and just started walking.

The first hospitable place I came to was a crowded little cafe. It was only 9:30am, so this place must be pretty great to have so much business--I decided to stop and have a bite and ask for help. I set my pack to rest, called for some water and a menu, and found out in about 30 seconds that no one there spoke more than three words of English. My lucky streak continues.

But, they were already invested in me and in customary Thai fashion, they laid on the small talk anyway.

This was really painful, with a lot of awkward gesturing and giggling Thai women. Eventually I got across that I was looking for a hotel or a guest house. This got the interest of a few other people in the place once it was broadcast around the room in Thai, and a guy from one of the crowded tables came over to help me.

This guy had awesome English, actually, and it turns out that he and his friends all worked at a nearby hotel. They worked the night shift in catering, and they'd gotten off this morning and come for a drink. His name was Sayan and he offered to help me check in somewhere and then gave me a run-down of the prices in this neighborhood.

Yikes. Even the cheapest hotels around here were three or four times what I wanted to pay. But I really WAS lucky this time. After sharing my predicament and talking together for a while, Sayan offered me a place to stay the night and invited me over for a drink with his buddies.

I shared a bit of their Sang Som, but it was only 9:30, so I couldn't really get into it. I did get into the conversation, however, as most of these guys actually had pretty good English and we had quite a bit to talk about. I was fresh out of Laos and still wearing my Beer Lao tanktop, while many of these guys were from Isaan, which is near Laos, and one of them was actually from Laos--so we all shared stories about the place.

When we finally headed out, we were great friends and the restaraunt-staff INSISTED that I reccomend this place to any travellers I knew were coming through.

That's where a sign in English would have helped out...


Project Housing

It was time now for another one of those scary moments that I've become so used to in this part of the world.

I'm pretty big compared to most Thai people, especially if they're from Isaan like Sayan was. I also travel most everywhere with a 70lb backpack strapped to me. Put me on the end of a tiny motor-scooter with a whiskey-drunk Thai driver that weighs about the same as my pack alone and you're asking for trouble.

Lucky for me, he had an extra helmet.

We zipped through the lunch-time traffic, over bridges, along freeways, and down the side-roads. There's a vibrant community that's sprung up here near the airport: a suburb built just to service the construction and operation of the place, now also serving the airport employees and their families and everything they've brought with them. Part of this suburb is the project houses.

They're big and blocky and put up in rows like white-painted concrete bricks. Laundry dries hanging from the bars on the windows, and stray dogs run around looking for scraps of garbage. Shops on the ground floor sell cheap beer and cigarettes and tiny packs of toothpaste.

But, yeah, that's home for a lot of people, all over the world.

Sayan's room was on the top floor of one of these blocks and there were no elevators. After huffing it up flight after flight, we got lost down a dim hallway, found the room, and I threw my backpack on the floor--figure I got my workout in for the day.

The place looked like it came out of Spinal Tap's "Hellhole". The crumbling walls were hung with clothes-hangers, jeans, and t-shirts. The floor was stained tile, clean in the middle, but the edges were piled with papers and clothes and empty beer-bottles. There was one sad cot in the corner of the room and the toilet was outside on the porch.

Sayan apologized for the state of the place, but I didn't care 'cause I was just desperate for some shut-eye.

I laid-out my sleeping bag and passed out on the floor, awakened every now and then by somebody-or-other insistent that I try a snack or down a glass of iced beer. By 1:00pm, the room was silent.


The Night Market

Sayan and I woke around 8:00pm to notice that the sun was down but the neighborhood was hoppin. We stretched and took showers and watched some Thai news on a TV so old that the only working color was green.

Lacking energy and failing any other good ideas, we headed out to the night market to hear some noise and eat some greasy street-food.

Unlike most of the night bazaars I have encountered in Southeast Asia, this one was for the locals. Stalls crammed with used hardware and fresh-fruit filled a rubble-strewn lot. Loud Carabao (Thailand's hometown-hero heavy metal band) blasted over the sounds of haggling vendors and popping grease. There was not one Farang in sight other than myself, but if they were there they would have filed suit over the condition of the aisles, cluttered with so much garbage and wood-scraps and riff-raff and people that they practically screamed-out for turned ankles and stubbed toes.

We picked up some fruit, bought fresh Thai omelets, and I got a bargain on a pocket-knife to replace the one that went missing (or stolen) in Laos.

Tired me and hungover Sayan had really had enough of the place already, so we popped over to the 7-11, picked up water, and headed back to the room to eat.

We ate and chatted and Sayan picked his version of some Lynrd Skynrd songs on the guitar. I really liked it actually. This wasn't a jungle or a beach or something beautiful and exciting like that, but it wasn't one of the tourist centers with more white faces than Asian ones either. This was real life.

Dinner down and water in our bellies, we said, "to hell with it," turned the lights out, and faded back into sleep.


Suvarnabhumi, Part Two

We woke up at whatever time we did and Sayan went downstairs to get some donuts and warm milk with tapioca.

Breakfast was followed by showers and those by a nap. Naps were followed by stretching and yawning and reluctant shrugs that said we better start heading towards the airport.

On the way, we stopped at that nameless cafe again where we ran into another group of Sayan's friends and co-workers, also enjoying whiskey with their lunch after a long night of luxury-hotel catering. I made some new friends, had some drinks, and it was off to the airport again.

We ran around the airport like headless chickens, got mixed-up and mashed-up and eventually found my friend and her bags on the way out to the taxi--but that's another story.

I said goodbye to my new friend Sayan here, glad to have met him, grateful for the hospitality, and thankful for that slice of life that he let me in on.

I figure I'll see him again, and I'll definitely be crashing at his place if he offers.

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