More days in Bangkok

Urg!...Oh brother...must be late.
As much as I'm curious, the grimness of an undesired reality decides me against picking up that watch to find the time.
I do clearly remember buying beer from a vendor's cooler and haggling on the price to get a 40 Baht Chang.
"Make that two", and walked the ten paces back to the wet curb that seems moments earlier I had been craning my calves to the impossible not to have to sit on the worst of possibilities of what the 'wetness' was. I don't remember now thinking twice about about it once the conversations went blundering along and after I somehow ended up sitting there.
Nate at the end of his chain, sitting, as I remember on the only dry spot of that curb - still a half a' Chang between his feet as I hand him a frigid and ultra perspiring new one. The heat still thick at somewhere around 4 in the morning and radiating off the pavement. The smells, the smells may be the one of most remarkable things about Bangkok; from the street vendors - on the spot - cook you a Thai dinner carts, to the sweltering sewers.
This throbbing in my head is proof of something, but not for lack of sleep. The hour hand laying somewhere in between, 3 and 4, or 4 and 5, as it seems in vain to even do my continual hour correction. Someday I'll figure out this new watch and get off Malaysian time.
My sanctuary lay 5 ft away in a hot shower and peeling the covers away, the start of another day in Bangkok. And as I look to my feet I see its already starting as a perplexing one. The logistics of this are quite allusive; somewhere in the dead of sleep I apparently put on my swimming trunks over my boxers....hmm, and backwards on that!


And finally the rain comes. I was just wondering yesterday if it ever rained here. The thunder is exploding and the down poring drenching. I'm always glad to see the rain in places like this. It reminds me that even the most squalid and putrid of places can be cleansed - at least a little. I hope it rains and rains...so much so that the awnings over the sides walks and stalls becomes useless. I hope that it soaks and runs down the sidewalks, up the stoops and crashes against the sides of the buildings. Maybe then even that one lady who lives on the street will agree. What will she think when she is startled from that riveting debate she's having with herself as sits Indian style and stares wide eyed and the sidewalk that is her living room. The piles of different foods that have sat spilled in piles around her slowly washing further from her. The bile and puke budging and finally racing after their counterparts. And her blackend skin and tattered cloths becoming heavier with wetness, cool and refreshing. I imagine she might smile, and start ranting something crazy at the Gods, and then maybe something perplexing might hit her as she swivels her head to see herself - a quick flicker of a strange clarity.


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Alright....to speed it up, and get myself to up to speed:


Last night met up with Natey Dread and Jay down in some back alley at some Reggae Bar. Didn't think I was going to make it out but I also didn't know if the circumstances were going to align again to 'kick it wid' da boyz'.

Yesterday I spent most of the day with a small moist wad of toilet paper next to my left nostril, running like a leaky faucet and t.p. running low - it wasn't looking to be a pretty sight. All your classic flu symptons - and I was glad to be back at the guest house about midway through the day. I pulled out "A Thousand Spendid Suns" and spent most of the rest of the day on the mat. Yo came by for spell before she went off with her friends on a river boat dinner cruise and she helped me get to pharmacy for some psueda-fed stuff. (quick observation here: do all french people sound like their pissed off, and constantly arguing with each other?).

Earlier yesterday I made it to the National Museum and boned up on my Thai history - I was determined. I went forward from the Neanderthals and through history to the present, turned around, went back through time and then sped through one more time the other way. I think I have a decent grasp of the whole Rama king stuff now. Then I headed over to the Golden Mount which is basically a giant golden spire that juts up in the center of Bangkok atop of a small man made mountain/hill. Excellent view of the entire city, and quite a special place for the Thai Buddhists considering it houses some of Buddha relics.

Sawet has come and gone today, he didn't take to the whole Veintiane plan of mine, and he instead continued on over to Savannakhet, Laos. I talked to him earlier today and exchanged some vague ideas/plans of maybe meeting up in weeks to come. As for me, as time ticks by it looks less and less like I going to make the bus to Ventiane that leaves in two hours at 7 pm. And having to be out of the country by tomorrow it looks like by last option is going to be to do a visa run over to Cambodia at 7 am. 4 hours to the border - bus drops me off - wait 4 hours for the return bus and be back my 7 pm.