Three nights in Bangkok - was that the name of a song?

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Day 1. Arrive Bangkok, check into the hotel and upgrade to a better room as the basic is just that. Walk to the Bumrungrad Hospital (is it a hospital or a 5 star hotel?) and get the suspicious looking mole on my arm looked at. Next thing I know I am laying on a bed being very gently whittled and then sewn up with 5 miniature stitches, too keep me looking beautiful she says.



Day 2. Back to Bumrungrad Hospital to the dental department this time to get the tooth that has been paining me for the last 3 months seen to. I think it is one tooth, she thinks it is another. Puts cold water on the one she thinks is the problem then has to get me off the ceiling with a scraper. Double pain, tears running down my face. Yes, she was right!



Day 3. Yes, back to Bumrungrad Hospital again to the EXTRACTION dentist!!!!! When I ask, will I feel anything he said yes, but no pain. He was almost right. Novocain, tug, more Novocain, tug, more Novocain - please, tug, tug, out.





Thoughts while sipping a morning iced Americano and watching the world go by


I think I have lost all sense of discernment.

I cannot tell who are prostitutes and who are not. Well not quite true. The ones standing in small groups along Sukhamvit Road, skirts so short and tight you can tell if they waxed recently are obviously prostitutes. They are beautiful in a hard way, with flinty eyes darting everywhere looking for an opportunity but revealing nothing.

But what about the women with shopping bags and those tugging along small children, sitting in coffee shops sipping cappuccinos? They dress and look the same! It is like I have come to a land were all the women are the exact opposite to Indian women who are demure, show little skin and are shy. I am no prude as those who know me would testify but this I don’t find appealing at all, in fact it’s demeaning.

However there are many that would disagree with me and that can be seen by the number of over weight, middle aged men who obviously find them irresistible. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be willing to pay for someone’s affection. Do they actually fool themselves for a while that these women or girls really, actually like them? Do they suspend all sense reality?

Perhaps this is what happens to a cosmopolitan city over a period of ten years or more, it’s been that long since I were last here.

Perhaps the Thai’s are becoming more westernized, more self centered, more egocentric, more suspicious of people.

Perhaps consumerism is taking over from Buddhism.

Perhaps it is just the contrast between women in India and Sri Lanka and women here.

Perhaps I have changed and see things differently than before, well that’s not a perhaps but a certainty.

In Bangkok I don’t find the land of smiles that Thailand has supposed to be, I hope it is just here in busy Bangkok and not everywhere. Time to move on and find out.

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Comments

[sue DeLeo]

I feel for you.I remember these feleings so strongly after coming from that ancient and beautiful Burma with its patient people and 200year old ways. Thrust into that ugliness of the Emerald Palace millions of busloads of tourists, then the shopping malls and the padpong. My senses were abused and I felt a great loss. I didn't find it much better,travelling north except around Chaing Mai and then it was the time riding the elephants through the jungle peacefully and in the quiet until we got back to the park where the tourists were making too much noise. Have never really come to terms therefore with Thailand,sadly. Perhaps if I d gone there first I wouldn't have found it so confronting. They say Krabi is nicer.....still you'll have fun...Do sympathise about teeth. Have just started a root canal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Suexxxxxxxx