Lost in Bangkok.

---

Hi. I got the pictures developed, so I don't feel like I have any sort of obligation to continue writing this blog, but now that I've read the last entry, all those images come flowing back to me...

Just to forewarn you... this one's dense.

It's way early in the morning. I think it's a friday morning still; We've just departed the bus, and are finally in a new country. The thought that this road, this Khao san road, is just the gateway between Western culture and Eastern culture is screaming in my head. "this is not actually thailand" i think to myself... but that's ridiculous, because of course it is. Khao san is this gloriously filthy tourist trap...and it's all new, but all old at the same time. I notice that there are many large back packs close to many travelers in all directions. The Khao san road is a solid city block...and it's filthy. We walk down the middle of the road, because it seems like that's what you do here. In America, I've pretty much conditioned myself to obey certain social norms...walk on sidewalks, cross at crosswalks, stop at interesections, go on green lights, make eye contact with drivers....typical stuff. Here...it seems like anything goes. So what do I do? Do I just forget all my previous conditioning? There were barricades at the beginning of the road, that weren't totally preventing thru traffic, yet this is obviously not predominantly a thoroughfare for cars. Yet I see cars, taxis and tuk-tuks, pickup trucks and motorcycles, and vendors. Lots and lots of vendors. Most of the vendors are just beginning to set up here on Khao san, but just one street over, I saw a market in full swing, as our bus eased into it's stop. I have no idea what to do, but I know that I want to spend the money I have. I want to try and buy something. I want to eat something authentic. I want to be trying something totally foreign. Jen and I are pretty quite, because we don't really know where to go, or what to do. We just sort of keep putting our left feet in front of our right feet, and vice versa. Eventually, we end up one block over, where the market was taking place. The stalls are all open, and most of them are cooking food. In fact, probably all of them are cooking one or two dishes. Large, rickety push carts that look like they were constructed out of scrap plywood, and fashioned with some type of grill or heating method line both sides of the shaded street. Children and motorcycles weave in and out of each other in the middle of the street, parents simply feet from witnessing the scene of their childrens impending doom.... seemingly oblivious. And the street is dark. The sun may be climbing higher in the sky by the moment, but the buildings are still tall enough to provide a good deal of shade; and the shade, along with the dankness of the street give this place a feeling of eerieness; It feels a little to me like either the people who are vending are vending here for the first time and are doing this for me, or that I've done this a million times and I'm just as comfortable with the repetition of the daily routines. One elderly woman, who looks non-threatening enough, is standing behind one of these push carts, and in my memory, she's this tiny thing, slaving away at her cooking apparatus. And her cooking apparatus is the only thing I can call it, because I've never seen anything like it. How to describe it? It was a circle, and it looked similar to a muffin tin, only instead of large cups for about a dozen cupcakes or so, there were countless smaller round dimples. And she was pouring some sort of batter/liquid into each circle, and then allowing the liquid to sit for a minute or two, and then rotating them. I bought a small paper boat with 5 of these half-moon circle things, and they were flaky on the outside, with a smooth creamy texture within. Kind of like the texture in a crepe, yet with some thickness, in a bite size shape. Turns out, after about 2 weeks, I find out that this is called coconut pudding. I can't even tell you how I came to learn this knowledge, I just know that's what it's called. Maybe I saw a similar cooking apparatus on another rickety pushcart with a piece of cardboard serving as a makeshift sign, promoting "cocnut puding". Seriously. That's probably verbatim how it was spelled. The Thai language is not derived from the Roman alphabet, so there have been some concessions and compromises made during the countless translations that have been made over the years. There is no grammar, and most of the signs leave you scratching your head, because you really have to stop and think about what it is they were trying to communicate to you.

I'm bored with this entry, so I got to stop now. I'll write another one soon.

---