Bad Beginnings in Bangkok

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March 23rd 2005
Bangkok, Thailand.

Wow, where to start? The food poisoning must have begun almost two days ago on the plane to Bangkok, because until forty minutes ago I had not eaten anything at all in Thailand, yet I've lost a lot of time into a haze of nausea and confusion, and am only now beginning to get my bearings. Also, should note, the plane ride was excellent service and free drinks and everything(!), BUT hugely hugely uncomfortable seats for trying to sleep, plus was next to a very hairy guy who took up the armchair seats and who's arm hairs drove me nuts. It's so very frustrating, being stuck in a plane with nowhere comfy to sleep and nothing else to do, and just counting down the almost nine hours til arrival.

Anyway, I arrived in Bangkok at 5am, took my time getting my breath, was very relaxed, and then caught a bus straight to my hostel, Big John's. (Note: see pics attached for hostel room, very small. I can touch both walls at once! But only $10/night and has lock and aircon, so everything's groovy with me).

I was too jazzed up to sleep, although had gotten only an hour's sleep on the plane, and so after packing and unpacking and fiddling I went for a walk. I think now that if I had taken the first turn right I would have been okay, but went left and walked and took pics and was enjoying myself for the first hour or so, going into an even less well-built area of the city. l had thought from the internet hostel site that my hostel was a very central, very touristy place (even has an Aussie name, but no Aussie staff so far) but apparently this is more of an industrial area. I was having a quiet kind of touristy fun, although the city smells really bad and the food stalls, which you cannot walk more than ten metres before encountering, made me literally quite nauseous.

I politely fobbed off a lot of stilted offers of transport, as I had read to do, but was becoming more and more nauseaus and freaking out that I would spend the next two weeks drinking bottled water and living off packaged crackers. So when I walked past a guy who called out, in fairly good English, to me, I paused and ended up agreeing to get into his cab which was parked down the street. I had read about the whole tout thing in this place wherein you get into a cab and end up going to everywhere but where you wanted to go, and the taxi driver gets commissions off all the tailors and jewellery-makers and places where you end up buying goods. But he said, just one tailor and then the "big city shopping centre" for only 50bhat ($2) and I thought, well, why not?

But it was soo hot by then and the taxi took forever in traffic jams, and by the time we got there I was quite sick and hot and tired and spent very little time in the empty tailor's before going back to the cab. He was a little cross at that, and said we would now go to the gem gallery, and I didn't understand what he was saying, and he pointed it out on a map, and I said, no, no, very firmly, no, I want big shopping centre. I think that's the trick if you do get into the whole tout thing, to just be very firm and let them know you're serious now and will not buy their stuff. Anyway, so he got very quiet and soon after dropped me off in front of a big building, the "Otop" shopping centre.

I had expected an Asian-style of what's back home, with department stores and such, but what was there was more an inside market version of a shopping centre. Very big, lots of floors, but mostly just Asian small-business style setups of merchandise, which was mainly ready-made clothes, massage corners and touristy goods. I found nothing I wanted and by then was just so very sick. I didn't realise even then that I was sick-sick, I still thought that it was just the smell of the place making me nauseous - Bangkok smells like farts, engine exhaust, the cooking of unfamiliar meats, the rotting of unfamiliar foods, and sometimes of the sickening sweetness of what I think is Asian-style jellies. Even their airconditioners (very pronounced in my little room) smell weird.

But anyway, by then I was definitely sick and very disorientated and nobody in this whole country but that damned taxi driver seemed to understand me. I couldn't find the shopping centre on my map and neither could anybody I spoke to, including tourist desks. Once I found my way out more taxi drivers approached me but there was no way in hell I was doing that again, as I was afraid of ending up even further away. I had the awful feeling that I was very, very far from the hostel. I walked in the direction we'd come for over an hour and stopped a few buses and tried to talk to some people but got nowhere. I was utterly lost.

Exhausted and homesick and panicking and hating the whole country and having not yet seen a single Westerner, I freaked out and gave in, finally flagging down a taxi. He didn't seem to understand me or to know where Sukhumvit Rd was, (I had a little card from the hostel with directions on it) and so that was awful, sitting there as he drove around in unfamiliar streets and wondering how long it would take and how much. But he surprised me by going "oh!" after a while and then we seemed to do a U-turn and off we went and finally, finally, I was back at the hostel. I was properly grateful. (Note: you must be very polite in this country, much head bowing('wais') and "kop kun ka"s(meaning thank you), even if they are frustrating you. Do not be rude. If you cannot understand them, it's your own fault for not speaking Thai, not theirs for not speaking English. My mistake was ending up in non-touristy areas, I am now assured that there are many areas where English is well spoken).

Anyway, that was all awful, but mostly now I think it was just the disorientation and being sick. There was a while, during that last walking, where I was so ill I just wept and gave in to the homesickness and if I could have found a phone that worked or a familiar travel agency, I would have been straight out of here, regardless of the cost. It was like an alien planet. The further I walked, the worse I felt, the more convinced I was that the entire traveling thing was a bust and I had to go immediately home. Europe be damned; it would be just as bad.

But then I got back, (had lost the damn key so that was another drama before I could get into my room), and basically bawled my eyes out and fell asleep. I woke up briefly and my skin was all clammy, my reflection in the huge mirror was pasty with a creepy grey tinge, and that's when I realised that it wasn't just the city's smell; I was actually sick. But it didn't matter by then and I fell asleep again with familiar music playing on my Mp3 and missing home like hell.

When I woke up it felt like I'd only taken a nap, maybe an hour or so, and I was still sick, far from refreshed. I went out to get a drink (have been drinking familiar bottled stuff non-stop, but my lips are all chapped and red) and was amazed when I discovered that it was eight o'clock (even then I thought PM, not AM, which was still several hours later). The sky was as bright as daylight! (apart from the continuous grey fog). And that irritated me, too. Even the sky was different.

By then I'd given up on any shopping or anything at all, really, and went up and down the streets trying to get the phone card to work so I could call home and hear my mother's voice. There is 7-Eleven every twenty metres or so here, and while that annoyed me at first - this dominance of America even here - I was soon grateful for it. But the staff in many of them didn't speak enough English for me, either, so I got nowhere trying to get the stupid card to work. More frustration, more homesickness, more crying.

As luck would have it, however, I finally spotted a Western woman, Brooke, and pretty much rushed at her with gratitude and relief. She was really nice, and she and her boyfriend Scott are absolutely lovely, very helpful, very nice people, and they sorted me out about how this is actually not all that great an area and showed me all the places to go to find people and so forth. They've been all over Asia for the last 11 months and are about to go home, so they've got it sussed. We are meeting up again tonight for dinner and a movie; I am ever so grateful that they are so nice and to have found other Aussies in this place. I had begun to think they were all in Phuket.

That's when I discovered it was mid-morning, and I'd slept for something like 16 hours straight. The intense daylight at "10 at night" suddenly made more sense.

Anyway, by then the sickness was almost gone and after 26hours of not eating I finally had a bite of lunch at the hostel restaurant. And now that I've got my bearings and know that I'm not all alone in a foreign-speaking bug-eating country, I've lost that awful panicky horror. Also finally worked out the phone system and called home; Ma's voice was heaven.

And so now I am okay, and breathing normally again, and may even last the next few months after all. But I do not think I will stay a year in Europe; a year is too too much.

What a wimp, huh? I can only say, as excuse, that it was the sickness of a belly bug that brought out the worst, the weakest, in me. And now I will be fine.

Well, thats it for now. You get a free half hour internet session with the room if you use before 12pm, which I why I sat down and wrote it all now. I will update with hopefully good news soon. I am shakily confident that everything will be fine from here on in.

Well, I warned y'all that I would be horribly frank and truthful. I only hope that you do not think less of me now.

So, now I'm going to go and have a shower (been 48 hrs, eeuw) and check out my new understanding of Bangkok. Fingers crossed.

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Photos

Teenie Tiny Thonglor Room
Small - but Cheap! I may well be claustrophobic after this experience...