Bangkok, a more relaxed few days

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Woke up after a crazy night with Michelle drinking and ogling the guys on stage and we are having a much quieter one today, mainly doing tourist stuff and recovering from beer (why does beer make you feel so shitty the next day, posh vodka didn’t do this?!).
We got an Uber to go and see The Grana palace and The Emerald Buddha Temple, both absolutely stunning places to visit – well except for the millions of tourists. The Grand Palace is a lovely mix of ornately tiled building in the swopping, jagged and curved architecture you would typically expect from Thailand. Their buildings here are quite literally iridescent as they shine and sparkle in the sunlight. The gold coatings gleam and twinkle across the rooftops, domes and edges of these well thought out and constructed buildings within the palace complex. Like I say, the only thing that is a bug here is the throngs of tourists (clearly hypocritical here because I am one of the hive!), however this place is super busy at the moment as hundreds, maybe thousands of Thai people line up in the black outfits to pay their respects to the recently deceased king to whom the Thai people adored, I mean adored! Such a lovely thing to see, so many members of the pubic showing solidarity and respect to their leader. Something you just don’t see in the western world so often – I guess mostly because our leaders are all charlatans and frauds (erm, hello Trump. Hang on, isn’t that a slang word for fart in the UK?). So, we saunter and mill around the people taking pics and then stumble upon the Emerald Buddha temple, a massive inside structure/statue, so ornately adored with intricately designed and constructed elements, upon which an Emerald Buddha site at the top (although, honestly a little bit like the statue of liberty in that its much smaller in reality than on those tourist pics!). Time ticks on and I say good bye to Swiss Michelle as she goes to join her next tour group and part of her journey.

Back to the hostel and catch up on some writing pieces and still feeling the internal tension gained form last night’s hangover and decide that a hair of the dog is probably the best solution to relax. I wonder down the ‘hot boys’ street and end up having a couple of jugs of beer (don’t judge me, it’s cheap here alright! lol), although I forgot to have dinner and the beer has hit home quite quick and quite hard… lol Guess I’ll be stumbling back to the hostel tonight haha.
As I sit here watching the world go by, I realise how many old men are sat here playing to the adoration from the younger Thai boys (I don’t mean illegal young, just very early 20s young). I start to judge in my head and I can see myself thinking bad thoughts about how gross these old men are with younger lads and how desperate the lads must be, because I just can’t see what on earth they would be interested in (bigger wallet and package is all I can guess here). Where is all this coming from, why am I so affected by this, why do I even care, what does it matter to me? This is not very mindful and this is certainly not very nice either. I mean, who cares right?! If both are happy and it’s not hurting anyone then it shouldn’t matter. So why does it bug me so? I start to do my own head in and chug the last bit of my beer as its probably my bed/pass out time.
(Toilet humour paragraph – easily grossed out then skip to the next paragraph lol) Get back to the hostel and need to go to the loo, yes the hose cleaning method is great, however the toilet roll you get in India and Asia is just shit (pun intentional). The stuff here is 2 ply vapour paper and about 2 microns thick…! Two issues here, it’s so thin that if you try to use it and your fingers go right through it (yep, that’s right, right through it and into… well you know!!) and issue number 2, you opt for the cleaner method of hosing the area down, however this stuff is so thin that if anything wet comes into contact with it (fingers, personal area etc.) it disintegrates like when you get cotton candy wet… Lets just say that now you have a wet area and no way of drying this so you end up looking like you did the thing you were trying to avoid in your pants… FFS 1st world problems right… (oops there goes that little 1st world saying – really should investigate what I actually mean when I say 1st world and how I perceive any other way of living… maybe another time!)

Woke up the next morning have a more chilled day today, I get an Uber (my new favourite mode of transport) to Stray Asia (the company I have my hop on hop off tour booked with) because I think I was supposed to attend the welcome meeting yesterday and catch the bus this morning – OOPS! Still I did try to log in and amend dates and it wouldn’t let me. Get to Stray, meet the team and sort out Friday as welcome meeting day and Saturday to commence the next leg of my journey.
Opted for a nice hot walk home with the Skyline and Metro, even gave someone directions en-route – blimey I must be a native now lol (well, assuming that I sent them the right way haha). Chilled out, having a beer catching up on the blog, watched some films on my SurfacePro (laptop if your technophobic). Get a really bad craving for street food BBQ Chicken sticks and remember I am in a city that provides what the heart desires so, I wonder a few hundred meters down my street and grab some stick chicken – Gosh I really love this city, there is amazing BBQ meat treats on most streets and corners. Ok, so, some of them you wouldn’t feed your dog, however some are amazing and only 10 bhat a stick (about 25pence). Loving this city living right now (don’t panic Kelly ((my wonderful work wifey)), I still don’t fancy Equation Bangkok, although Bangkok and Bicester offices has its appeal – you would live like a king here if you retained your UK salary. Sorry Kel I wondered off into a dream I dare not dream there… haha – only joking, no really I am only joking…!)
Decide to change my hostel, this one has no spirit/soul to it, the staff are as helpful as… well, let’s just say they aren’t great and I’m not sure if it’s because here is a fairly big hostel but people aren’t very approachable or reactive when you speak. Hop online and book a new place via Mister B&B. Pay over the odds for it, however I am happy to have a highly reviewed place where people are more social!! Time for bed.

This morning I am having a clothes clear out because this backpack is bloody heavy so I recycle a few items of clothing and get an Uber to the new digs. New hostel seems really nice, much smaller and more intimate than the last one, the team here are much more polite and helpful. Have another nice chilled day in Bangkok because here has a place called ‘the birdcage’ on the roof (basically a roof top garden caged garden where you can go and chill out to watch the city buildings). So, being the new alcoholic I am, I grab a beer, relax and sit up here late afternoon/early evening writing etc. I am really close to the most beautiful and cool building I’ve seen, it’s called The Pixel Tower. A 1070 feet high sky scraper made from a blue coloured glass that has chinks missing out of the building, making the building look pixelated (doh, I guess that’s why it’s called the Pixel tower!!). I could stare at this building for a long time, it’s so different and looks like it has been twisted around like a Rubiks cube in places.
I take some time to be mindful of the moment I lam enjoying as I take stock of this wonderful moment, sat warm on top of my new hostel, relaxing with a beer, watching the sun slink behind the majestic looking glass structures that surround me as I hear the fairly calm sounds of this bustling city encapsulating me. I feel peace in my heart, relaxed and appreciate how fortunate I really are to be able to take this journey. I am silently thanking all the people that made this possible or me and realise that I must be a good person for people to support me on such a long journey, I mean this is 18 months around the world.
Guess I should be social so I go downstairs and sit and chat with the other hostelers and nip out to grab a Subway. On the way back I meet up with Ezra (one of the hostelers) and we go hunting for BBQ chicken sticks. Although they are all closed in this new are at about 10 so we find a random stall but one of the sticks looks like a work and it turns out this is chicken intestine – CHICKEN INTESTINE!!! WTF, bleurgh, I am all open to the weird and wonderful culinary delights Asia has, but CHICKEN INTESTINES!!! So totally grossed out now, and the thought of the chicken equivalent of tripe really turns my guts over… What do you think, would you eat chicken guts on a stick…? or am I just being a fanny? Hang on, I use the term fanny like it’s some weak thing, when actually most fannies take a bloody good pounding (not that I have personal experience of this lol) and even shoot out a baby or few, so I guess this is the last time I use fanny as a term to say I am being weak, next time it will be a term of power lol. After food we go back to the digs and all sit chatting until the early hours of the morning. This, right here in the new hostel is exactly what my expectation was of a hostel. Social, chatty, random and deep/shallow conversations about all kinds of things from feminism to drugs… Strangely even though most people in this place are early 20s I don’t feel old at all, in fact they all say they can’t believe I’m 38 (Clinique works baby – whooooo lol). Time for bed me thinks as its now silly o’clock…

Wake up at half eleven and most people here are still asleep, the lights are off so I quietly get ready and go for breakfast/lunch with Ezra. Return back and someone recommends a place called The Babylon, this is a hotel with pool, gym, sauna etc. and it happens to be gay so I’m up for a chill out and dip because it’s about 33 degrees here… Well, I wonder to the place and spend 200Bhat to get in, arrive at my locker to discover that it has a condom and lube in it! Erm, hang-on a minute, what kind of place is this… hmmm, what have I got myself into?! Swimming shorts on, wrap a towel around, grab my book and wonder out to the pool. Ever get the feeling your like meat on a stick and everyone around you is hungry? Well, as I sit down to relax by the pool, this is how I feel… #Awkward as all these granddad age men letch around the poolside and yes, I mean letch not lounge – so after 10 awkward minutes of trying to read my book on kadampa buddha teachings I can’t take it anymore and disappear. I guess I should have connected the gay and sauna elements to this story together but daft me just focussed on the gym and pool elements and not the fact it was a gay sauna/knocking shop! Still, at the very least it has crystallised in my mind that I am not a cruisy gay guy that needs to frequent sauna establishments in order to get off (not that there is anything wrong with them, I’m not judging, it’s just not my bag!)

Feeling quite tense today, for no particular reason, just some days I lock up like a fire retarded safe and struggle to relax. These days are a fight to push yourself into the world around you and just be, but I refuse to let my body get the better of me. I have a very good friend that suffers from Cerebral Palsy and she never lets it get her down (well I’m sure she has bad days too) so I will not give in to my body… I should really meditate on the tension and work out why some days I just feel up tight, but for now I will just accept it for what it is…
I make a new friend on my social apps and go out for dinner with my new Thai friend. We went out via a free river boat to a place called Asiatique. Essentially just a place of shops and restaurants. We wonder around, have dinner/drinks and then end up in a bar called Club 47. Club 47 is cool, it’s a skyscraper rooftop bar where you sit outside having a cocktail. This place really is lovely at night time as you look around your scenery of brightly lit buildings that all seem to reach skywards as if the ground is somehow stretching upwards into a star lit canopy. Enjoy a few drinks and then go back to my new friends home because the trains close at around midnight. I enjoy a cuddle as I make my first Thai friend and drift off to sleep without a care in the world now, see what started as a tense locked body, ended up doing 180 degrees to the most relaxed it can be – although vodka and a cuddle will do that to anyone lol.

I got dropped off at the train station in the morning with no hangover and feeling good, I think vodka is the key to a better next day when drinking… or is it because I spent the night with someone and recharged or, is it that just some days you just have to accept the ebb and flow of up and down moments… Meh, who knows. All I know is I feel good and I’m riding it out.
Ride the metro back like a native Londoner, not taking attention to anyone/anything around me as I go autopilot to my home destination. I actually quite like this public transport thing now…
Found out that the word porn in Thai means something completely different, here it means blessing. I chuckle to myself because that means a porn star job title would probably mean something like a preacher because it would mean blessing star and the only blessing star I know is a priest.. haha – I have such a childish sense of humour…
Back to the hostel and then I find a Fitness first gym and wonder down to do some cardio, got there and paid a ridiculous amount of money to get sweaty in air con, when I could have just walked up the road a few times to get that hot… Still I got to get over an hours workout in whilst adorning the Pixel tower some more… On the way back home I feel wonderful as I enjoy the simple pleasures of life, an iced coffee (although as my aunty pointed out, there is nothing simple about a 'low fat, iced, decaffeinated latte with a sugar free vanilla shot' lol), walking home in my shorts enjoying the bustle of this vibrant city and feel the warm breeze against my skin.
Grab the sky Metro into town as I have been recommended a shopping centre called Terminal 21 because they have great shops and on floor 5 a really great food court. I was not let down either, I arrive at the food court and its basically counter after counter after counter of mini food prep areas. You charge a card and take a ray around to each individual shop counter, order whatever meal item and move onto the next… So cool and only 33 Bhat for a meal (that’s less than 50p!). I of course pig out and have now added all the calories back on that I burned off earlier… oops lol.
Now off into town to meet my new travel family for the next leg of my journey. I meet four lovely young ladies whom are all 18 and 19 (FFS as if I don’t feel old enough already but now I am traveling with spring chickens… lol). Anyway they are all lovely as we get to know each other over dinner and a cocktail with our new tour guide. Back to the ranch for an early night because tomorrow we leave for Ayutthaya.

Goodnight Bangkok, I will miss you. However, no worries my friend because I will be back here twice more until the journey is completed

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