Traveling on Luck

We made it back to Bangkok, passports in hand, and have an adorable room near Khao San Road. This is the strip where hippies used to land in the 60s and 70s and the backpackers and party kids have come ever since. During the day it’s a street of primarily cannabis, souvenir and silver shops and bars. By night, the street fills up with vendors and the bars all start pumping out the tunes. As in, pump them out to a beyond hearing loss level. 

Imagine a street full of people selling elephant pants, scorpions on a stick or fried insects (10 baht for a photo), alligator meat cut straight off the skeleton (20 baht for a photo), cannabis products, other grilled meats, leg massages and people trying to drag you into any of the 25 bars blasting competing music in different genres. It’s a lot for the senses to take in. Don’t forget to add in one drunken shirtless bastard playing soccer with a coconut in the middle of the crowd pushing people and smacking them with his flying coconut.

We sought out the quietest of the loud bars for a cocktail and it was still loud enough to make the ears bleed. I ordered a 1litre gin and rum based cocktail that came in a vat that was lit from within. The servers kept coming by to see my progress and making faces at me like “oh isn’t that BIG?”, but it wasn’t much of a challenge to polish off considering the amount of juice and ice involved. I made it out of there without even feeling slightly tipsy. Deafened, but not tipsy.

Interestingly, these street vendors were not down to haggle. If you low ball them, they just sternly point you back to the street without counter offering. The vendors from other markets had no problem with haggling but these folks are surly and not budging. With the prices they were charging it must be expensive to set up on this street.

The food on the surrounding, quieter streets is fantastic! There are authentic Thai vegetarian dishes that are complex, delicious and spicy enough for me. Finally!

We spent a day at the Wat Phra Kaew and Grand Palace complex, where they made K buy elephant pants from them to cover up her 3/4 length capri pants. Other women were wearing skirts shorter than her capris, but whatever. They get to define what’s respectful in their culture. Both sites were gorgeously glittering in the sun and less crowded than Wat Arun had been. Perhaps that was because Bangkok was under a heat warning. 

Part of the Grand Palace was cut off from visitors because someone was lying in state. I went online to try and find out who was lying in state and was unsuccessful, but I did discover there is a news outlet dedicated to reporting the misdoings by and on foreigners and transgender people. It was very crime tabloid-y, with stories like “foreigner steals 2 bottles of alcohol in Phuket” and “transgender person steals motorcycle in Ratchaburi” and “Hong Kong woman has bag snatched while riding a tuk tuk in Bangkok.” 

It was time for a last Thai traditional massage, so we went to the original Wat Po massage school. A tiny butch massaged me so hard I think she was trying to reach through my body and massage my soul. I asked her to dial down the intensity but it was still pretty painful. It will no doubt haunt me during my flight home tomorrow. At least they had nice post-massage cookies for us.

Thailand is really lovely, and the food was delicious once I made it back to Bangkok. The architecture is brilliant, the beaches gorgeous, the temples opulent, the 7-Elevens are terrific and the people are friendly. When it’s good it’s great, but when it’s not, there isn’t a lot of safety net.

The last time I was here the army had just overthrown the elected government and there were warnings about bombs in public places and now, with the war in the Middle East, they are having fuel shortages and gas stations are closing down. Civil servants have been told to work from home and to wear short sleeve shirts to reduce the need for air conditioning. Airport taxis are reduced, saying they cannot run without assurance there will be fuel along the way, and flights are being cancelled for lack of jet fuel. Flights that are still running have gone up in price and they are expecting a big fuel surcharge is coming. Despite not having huge reserves, Thailand continues to export fuel to Laos and Cambodia, as they have very little reserves and are in an even more precarious situation with China stopping exporting oil.

The trip we are just completing might now be impossible to do. We did a lot of long distance driving in cars, minivans and Grabs, took a couple of flights domestically and internationally, relied on tuk tuks, big Chinese cars and cute little EVs that still need charging. Who knows the fate of the slow boats and ferries? We noticed most gas stations already being closed in Laos, which means there would be no way to get to the Elephant Conservation Center. The street food vendors and most restaurants depend on LPG to run their grills. K and I have maintained that luck was with us every step of this trip. It looks like it did hold for us until the last minute and shines a light on how lucky Canada is to have a larger economy with more safeguards and natural resources. If only we had a tropical ocean front environment within the country somewhere.