Gonna post briefer updates as I’m traveling, and longer posts as I have the time!
Day 6 - July 2: Going to Bangkok
I’m super jaded about cab drivers after visiting Morocco, so I tried Grab, failed 3 times before someone accepted for 345BHT ($11), but was too far away. Ended up getting an official cab which wasn’t sketchy like a lot of my research warned - was metered and ended up being 250.
Checked into my hostel room and killed 4 mosquitos within 20 min of walking in. Going to sleep knowing bugs can get in stresses me out. Ugh. Instead of moisturizer after showering I get to marinate myself in deet every night now I guess. Definitely appreciate not having a shitty climate at home, or having to deal with this in HK
Kind of questioning why am I even going on this trip - how much of this is out of actual interest of these particular locations (maybe for Buddhism and muay thai) vs just wanting cool stories + the practicality of this being a well traveled destination? Or that whole idea of experiential consumerism again.
Day 7 - July 3: Hostel Angst
Just one of MANY beautiful buildings I saw.
Went to the grand palace, wat pho. The temples are pretty damn crazy intricate. There were so many Chinese everywhere though I felt like I was in HK again.
I’m staying at a hostel near Khaosan road, which is a popular backpacker’s area near the party street, out of someone’s recommendation. They had a pub crawl that night which I didn’t want to pay for, but had a few drinks and socialized.
Lots of small talk conversations - where are you from, how long are you staying, where else are you going - which gets tiring after a few times when you have to yell over the music. Met a Congolese girl who was working in Thailand for a bit and talked about Morocco - turns out she lived in Casablanca but didn’t like it because she couldn’t adjust to life with just restrictive gender norms. Also met a Polish dude who has lived in Chengdu for 4 years, owns an underground rap club there, and does freestyle in the local dialect (v impressive). Made in China by 88rising came up and he got real hyped - apparently Chengdu (where 88rising started) is the creative/arts capital of China, with lots of LGBT, artists, musicians, and a free-spirited vibe. Apparently this conflicts with the govt at times, who will shut down their concerts. Why? ‘Because they’re too cool man’!
The unglamorous parts of solo traveling
It’s always hit or miss solo traveling in terms of how your hostel ends up, and whether you meet people you vibe with. In this case, I underestimated how tryhard party it’d be. Lots of fucked up college looking kids. Wasn’t feeling it and literally hid in my bunk for awhile.
Downstairs they’re chanting -
I say mad, you say monkey (the place is called Mad Monkey)
I say let's get, you say fucked up
...I'm too old for this shit. I mean I did this as recently as Barcelona in Feb, which was fun but also how I ended up drinking two whole bottles of wine, getting mugged at 5am, and breaking my wrist though.
There’s a Thai bartender badly mcing, mostly just singing along with Mask Off in accented, off key English now.
The music is literally shaking the ground below me on the second floor... Flashbacks to New Years in Budapest - probably the loneliest moment in my life.
Feeling like a foreigner regardless of where I go
There’s often an initial, subconscious discomfort with showing up to a hostel and seeing zero people that look like me. This is typically dispelled as soon as I begin conversing with people and finding things to connect over (cuz we’re all just one people mannn), but the first thing I notice is the stark whiteness I often find myself in. Regardless of how much more fluent my English is, or how easily I’m able to drive conversations with sufficient motivation or liquor, there’s a sense of foreignness that I’m not used to feeling, having grown up in the Bay Area. Most assume I’m a lost Chinese tourist until I open my mouth.
In HK there was an ease from looking like everybody else, but still a slight apprehension that I'd be pushed beyond my basic Canto at any point. There was one time there where the cashier asked if I wanted a receipt or not, but used a different word than I'm used to, causing me to stare blankly after an otherwise fluent exchange. Needless to say, my mixed identity is definitely something I’m still grappling with.
Eventually I stop moping and decide to check out Khaosan Road myself.
Khaosan Road
Didn’t end up drinking on Khaosan, but I did get this ice cream from this terrifying McDonald’s.
Restaurants/bars with live American music, massage parlors, and ppl offering scorpions, laughing gas, pingpong shows, and tourist knickknacks all blended seamlessly into one street.
Noticed several families, unlike most nightlife areas
Grateful I'm a dude and can walk these areas alone without much harassment, though Thailand doesn’t seem too aggressive. I also have the experience of ignoring people from the days of dodging fliers on Sproul Plaza lol.
Day 8 - July 4: Getting Cultured
wat arun, amulet/flower markets, chinatown, arts and culture center, mbk
- ppl spend all day handmaking these beautiful leis and garlands to sell for 60 cents each. Barely any buyers mid day when I went, but apparently hotels show up at the end of the day with trucks to buy them out
- bkk traffic 'if it's less than 2 miles, just walk' is real. Roads were jammed solid, with even motorbikes struggling to push their way through traffic with maneuveurs that would get you ticketed in SF.
- chinatown even denser, with more street food, but still familiar jam of restaurants, grocers, cheap markets, except every sign is thai/chinese instead of eng/chinese. didnt get to explore it much bc i got stuck in a storm and went to indoor places instead
Bangkok Arts and Culture Center
This was a cool area to relax a bit. On display included architecture final projects modeling things from climate change adapted buildings, community malls, to homeless housing, as well as abstract art pieces and weird fan flash videos of some Gundam bootleg.
One of the reasons I love wandering areas is because you can stumble across things you weren’t expecting. I noticed a crowd forming at the arts center and checked it out - turns out there was an interpretive dance performance themed on bridging cultural barriers, hosted by the Goethe Institut and a few other organizations. It explored the motifs of gender norms, greed, and divisiveness, through labels of language, nationality, and wealth, all without speaking. The silence broke at the end when everyone started speaking in their native tongue to convey the unintelligible chaos that can arise when you smash different cultures together. It was cool to see this collab between people from 4 Asian countries, a South American director, and a German organization - all for free! You wont find shit like this in SF.
- Had bougie drinks with a work friend at a rooftop bar on the more developed side of town. Felt like a completely diff city, reminds of the drastically diff travel lives I live when work vs personal (esp solo) traveling
Day 9 - July 5: Finding Comfort in Change and Stillness
Yaowarat night market
Went to golden buddha temple, chinatown night markets, friendzone cafe, norn yaowarat
Felt kinda shitty about my experience thus far, decided to move hostels - lots of indecisiveness as a result of wanting to overoptimize (best location, rating, ability to socialize, etc) which often leads me to read reviews for like 2 hours and still not decide. Very happy with the place i got tho - there's no other solo travelers afaik but way cleaner, and nicer rooms.
The rigor of walking thru the entire city and plowing thru tourist sight after sight has been taking its toll - I need to shift away from the whole 'checklist' mindset of crossing as many locations as possible, and feeling fomo and regret if I didn’t get to all the 'must see events'. Hung out at a cafe (mostly for its name cuz friendzone lol) and at the hostel for awhile.
Chinatown Yaowarat nightmarket
About as chaotic as taiwan/hk ones, except in this case it's split on two sides of a main road with tons of traffic surging through
Broad mix of chinese and thai dishes and desserts
Had some dank pad thai and a giant mango smoothie for 2 bucks. So good
Tinder date with ‘G’
Australian working in legal services for a merged company between an Aus and Chinese company in Singapore, mostly on belt and road development projects in SEA. Interesting take on the political implications of accepting Chinese investment money, and on Australian expats vs comfort of staying in country. Works crazy Asian work hours like everyone else. Checked out some cool bougie cocktail bars.
Day 10 - July 6: A Local Perspective
Friggin beautiful
Ate some food, checked out some museums, and went on a date with ‘F’, a Thai local born and raised in the area. Really fun and genuine personality - got some dessert toast (different from the HK style) and ‘butterfly pea’ drink, checked out a nice temple with a great sunset view, took some photos, and got dinner. She did exchange in high school and lived in Delaware, and explored a bit around the States with her host family. Talked about the differences of tones in Thai vs Chinese, job searching in Thailand leveraging her English skills, conservative Asian family upbringings. Some random tidbits:
When at the temple, there was a sign that said ‘Way up’ to the roof view of the stupa - F mentioned that in Thai it was more like ‘ascend towards heaven’, which was much more poetic given the spiritual context. Finding out things that are lost in translation is always awesome.
I had no idea wtf butterfly pea was. Apparently it’s a flower, also used as an ointment to promote hair growth.
There are 44 letters in the Thai alphabet, with 5 tones. I found out she was taking Mandarin class (which has 4) but it’s still difficult because the tonation and pitch don’t match up. Cantonese has 6 or more, depending on who you ask, but comes natively to me so it was hard to visualize academically until someone showed me this site.
When I asked her about the role of Buddhism in education, she told me she had to memorize all the Buddhist chants, which you hear monks reciting in temples, in primary school. She also had to practice meditation for 30 minutes at a time (while professing she couldn’t deal with more than 10 before getting sleepy). Her school taught most classes in English, so she had to learn the chants in English too.
She watches a reality show about talking to dead people. I initially laughed thinking this was junk tv/fake but she said she cries every episode 1. because she's sensitive but also 2. because it brings closure to families that want to speak to a lost relative, and makes her appreciate people in her life more and treat others kindly. V wholesome.
Her English teacher was Thai, a non-native speaker, so it wasn’t until she did exchange that she learned proper emphasis for a lot of words. Despite being non-tonal, there isn’t really any way to know how a word is stressed (like history being on the first syllable HI-stor-ee, instead of hi-stor-EE) unless you hear it pronounced correctly. Also called out how randomly knowledge is nall-edge instead of know-ledge. I guess all those unemployed humanities students who come teach in Asia actually do have a lot of impact.
