Visions of Bangkok 2

December 2009

...Weaving beneath the high walls of Thammasat U., along streets selling Buddhist art and amulets. In front of nearly every amulet stall is a man with a monocle to one eye, examining the quality of the stones. Monks swathed in saffron peruse Buddhist statues carved of wood and stone. And there is of course food: fruits and chicken and fish. I get some chicken fried in garlic, washed down with a whole coconut. The vendors aren't pushy at all, not bothered if you don't buy...

...sunset cocktails at The Oriental. Not the Bamboo Bar made famous in the writing of a generation of scriveners, but out on the patio beside the river. At the next table, a pair of Dubai businessmen have a meeting with a well-dressed, quick-talking Thai woman. This interweaving of the region is foreign to both my American and Japanese selves. It speaks a completely different vocabulary, dialect, language. Southeast Asia and its complexity of linked cultures intrigues...

...another night on the Chao Praya, eating on the patio on the opposite bank of the river. Neon lit dinner boats cruise slowly past, some with bands playing on board, traditional dancers somehow finding balance on one foot. Tugs pulling barges laden with sand represent the economic spectrum's other end, their dark hulking forms blocking any light emitting from the opposite shore. After dinner we go next door to the Patravadi Theater, to watch an eclectic mix of Thai and modern dance and musical styles. The lead performer dresses in the traditional way, but has the look and moves of a butoh dancer...

...an uninspired walk through the Grand Palace, and its attached wat, one chedi looking like a wedding cake, and another chedi a solid piece of gold that makes me think of the equally absurd Asahi Brewery Sperm. Outside again, I look once again through the palace gates, flanked by lethargic looking guards. A far cry from the erect poses of Buckingham Palace. I'd love to see a pair of these Thai guards frolicking barefoot on the grass behind, guns down, playing frisbee...

...Wat Pho massage not quite as good as I remember, but a good review of my own Thai Massage training. (The last time I was here I was lured in by a beautiful young Thai girl, only to be worked on by a pair of hands decades older. Fishing for farang.) Afterward, we walk the wat at night, having it mostly to ourselves. Being alone with the reclining Buddha is a rare treat, and we linger long. A nice consolation to Bangkok's smog is that the light amidst the forest of chedi is as lovely as it gets, though it is impossible to capture on film, despite Hollywood's moniker of 'magic hour'...

...Miki and I join the 'cool' of Khao San Rd., sitting at a cafe table and watching the world. Thai girls in scanty dresses hustle street traffic for business. One of them can't be more than 11 years old, but already looks hardened. In sharp contrast are the hill-tribe women, tottering along and selling their headdresses and noisy wooden frogs. Slick Sikhs grasps hands of passing travelers and greet them with, "You are a lucky man!" Music pulsing, pulsing, less like a heart filled with excitement but more like a cerebrum on the brink of hemorrhage. Backpackers lurch by, the ones with their packs on looking like they just stepped off the moon. Their bags are huge these days, and what's with the rain covers? I hate how the farang always keep these packs on, clustering in small shops and blocking the way. Carts, vendors, punters--everyone--rushing suddenly to the curbside when the cops occasionally pass through...

...riding the river buses up and down. Boats of all sizes. Most pleasurable to the eye are the roly-poly brown ones that plod across like top-heavy turtles. Cops on jet-skis jump their wakes, slalom the clumps of river weeds drifting slowly by. Long-tailed engines like dragonflies. The city's extreme poor are housed in shacks along the banks. The flow of the river counts time in its own unique way...

...Climbing the lego set that is Wat Arum. The lazy alleys behind, monks dozing, children queuing in their boy scout uniforms...

...life in Asia is life lived on the streets. (I've always thought of Kyoto in the same way, that most Asian of Japan's cities.) There seems to be little separation of life and work. The movable feasts of cart and boat. Food displayed in inflated bags...

...Imported personalities such as Ronald McDonald and The Michelin Man 'wai' in front of their respective shops...

...the dainty way that Thai women handle money...
...the birthday bash for the King. They love him here, his photo everywhere, in various poses and at various ages. My favorite is him playing the sax. For his bash, there are fireworks and Xmas lights strung from trees. One street is closed to car traffic, but packed with bodies dancing and singing to some live band, apparently incredibly famous...

...Khao San Rd, Sunday dawn. Twenty-four hour Burger King. Broken bottles down the streets...

On the turntable: Kevin Seconds, "Heaven's Near Wherever You Are"

Visions of Bangkok

December 2009

...the obvious economic power in Sukumvit, where the Thai women look bigger than those lower down the economic ladder, they're taller and curvier like the Asian women further north. Many are doing ablutions around Erawan, to the accompanying music of tradition dancers and musicians. I'm amazed at how young most of the worshippers are, how seamless the fusion of commerce and spirit...

...tuk-tuk scurries across the city. The driver picks up his wife, who bats him about the shoulders or shrieks when he does something reckless, which eggs him on even more. We three in the back share a bond, as we rush between tons of chrome and steel, choking on exhaust fumes...

...the surly staff at The Atlanta. My mother for 2 days, grabbing my wallet and cash when I'm too confused and tired to pay my taxi driver. Lightly slapping my cheek when I can't find my visa. Slapping Miki's hand when she uses the wrong utensils. Late night dip in Thailand's first swimming pool. Sitting in the high red booth, which, like the menu, haven't changed since the hotel opened back in 1952. (The music here is two decades older still.) The hyperbole of the signs around the place, threats and insults softened by the erudition. The desks reserved for writing, and the books penned by former guests. A glimpse of "The Queen," as she's led quietly to her Volvo, her cat ceaselessly yowling in its cage. Her son, the mysterious Charles Henn, being simultaneously nowhere and everywhere. Ah, The Atlanta! Such a reminder of more genteel times...

...a cabbie, all smiles and seemingly without a care, as he leans against his brokedown cab on the highway late at night. An example of 'Mai Pen Rai" optimism vs. the fatalism of "Shoganai"...

...farang circus on Khao San Rd. Slumping, hulking, frowning beasts. No one talks at any of the cafe tables, just looking cool and seeing who comes by. Posers. Khao San on steroids now, spilling into the street itself. A far cry from the week I spent here in 1997, though I did notice the change beginning during another visit in 2003. A different breed of backpacker now, more Asians and Eastern Europeans, the latter unmistakable since they swagger like thugs. A meaner spirit here now, less experience and more consumption (though that may have also been true back in '97). Western girls showing ridiculous amounts of flesh, their nearly visible breasts swinging in tank tops like udders. A cop with his vice grip on a young Thai who's nearly gone limp. Another Thai (friend? foe?) stands nearby yelling at him. A couple of seedy looking foreign guys involved somehow. The whole street looks on, except for the cafe workers who try to ignore it and keep busy. "Something to drink, sir?" Miki and I spend half the day here prepping for our journeys out. We stay at the D&D, but their are no dungeons or dragons to be seen. We are happy with our cheap, quiet room, until returning at night to find we're just below the rooftop bar which pumps bass downward until late. Change rooms the next day, then change hotels the next, moving away from Khao San entirely to a small dark rental house nearby, which has no hot water and loses its electricity after dusk. Many late night massages. Free breakfast on the carp patio, watched over by a cross-eyed cat. Fireworks for the King's birthday, watched from the roof of the D&D, bursting over the city like it's under siege by the red shirts, who'd demonstrated near the Democracy monument earlier in the day. (This political tension hung over our entire trip, with the king lying ill in hospital. Had he died, we planned to flee the country immediately. But the violence held off for a few more months, before erupting in March.) As the explosions rock the city, the Western punters below, oblivious due to the rock-blockin' beats, party on...

On the turntable: X-Ray Spex, "Germfree Adolescents"

Taipei Notes

December 2009

A train took us into Taipei. Unlike in Japan, no one was texting, though a few people had no qualms about talking on their cell phones in soft voices. More than a few phones had really stupid ringtones. We had a brief adventure in trying to exchange dollars, bills of a 1996 vintage being problematic for some reason. The height of this comedy was when we couldn't figure out how to cross the street to a bank in clear view. The drama was compounded in trying to figure out how to deal with the chips used as subway tokens.

We got off the MRT and had a Chinese Pizza and tea, a delicious and cheap lunch. The better part of the afternoon was spent at the National Museum, a place I'd long wanted to visit. We tried to see the exhibits chronologically, zigzagging from room to room as this place has no rhyme or reason in regard to layout. We started our tour slowly, amazed by jade possibly as old as 8000 years. But these and the pottery began to grow tedious after an hour. It was interesting to see their progression through time, and how styles had changed based on things like spiritual and political change, contact with foreign influences, etc. I was also comparing this with chronologically parallel art over in Japan. But I really wanted to see more statues, more paintings, and more spiritual art in general. (I got an inadvertent glimpse of the latter when a young woman stood staring at a blank space behind glass.) The ever-increasing crowds also began to grate, their numbers surprising on a weekday. Unlike the Japanese, who queue and file past, making it easy for me (at 6' 1") to see over their heads, the Chinese cluster like a rugby scrum. At one display, Miki and I found ourselves completely surrounded, and pressed to the glass. The most popular displays were those related to a specific personage, proving that the cult of personality is ever-pervading. I was also surprised by the number of video and interactive exhibits. A shame that people can't seem to relate to a simple static item anymore.

We'd expected to spend most of the day at the museum, but after a few hours, our brains were full. We did, however, save room for leftovers. The nearby aboriginal museum was intriguing, but had a sad lack of English explanation. I was impressed by the spirit poles, a pot with 2 intertwining serpents, and weapons used to subdue evil spirits.

We went back across town to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial. The large building was at the end of a huge open plaza, and his figure, seated in his chair atop a high flight of steps. was reminiscent of Mr. Lincoln. On the veranda of the equally massive National Theater, some students were practicing acrobatic routines. Out on the tiles, people queued up to have their photo taken with a dog. While observing all this, I loved this feeling of incongruity, that lack of understanding that I've long lost in Japan. It is always fun to hear of things mysterious to visitors to Japan, and today I could rekindle that sense of wonder. How easy to it to accept that which you don't understand.

In the Memorial itself, we caught the tail end of the odd performance known as the changing of the guard. Five men took turns high-stepping and suddenly freezing into strange poses, like an bizarre game of freeze-tag. I suppose they needed the exercise after standing still at attention for so long. I find these displays have an equal dose of the comic and the horrifying. I had a similar reaction to the propaganda downstairs, pictures of scenes from the generalissimo's life, his writing, his cars, and the mock-up of his office. There was a strong emphasis on his awards, international recognition, and photos with other heads of state. It was like the unpopular kid who tries so hard to be accepted by the big boys. I got into a conversation with an 80 year-old mainlander from Fukien, though unfortunately I didn't ask his opinion on all this. But I didn't need to ask the opinion of another man of similar age, who when entering the hall, removed his cap and bowed deeply to the bust of General Chiang.

It was growing dark as Miki and I walked the streets now crowded with traffic, past a couple of the old city gates. The phallic 101 building continually lurked over our shoulders, proving that the government's craving for international acceptance didn't end with ole' Chiang Kai Shek. We stumbled across an alley now renovated to look as it did before the occupying Japanese bypassed it with the broader avenue beside. The buildings flanking the alley were empty but for a few small displays amidst brick and beam. I can see cafes and restaurants here in a few years.

Nearby was Longshan temple, completely abustle. People of all ages were chanting, kneeling in prayer, or holding joss sticks at 45 degree angles from their foreheads. We eavesdropped on a Japanese tour in order to hear about the figures to whom the Taiwanese were bowing. Our timing was perfect as the guide quickly ran through the names, then said suddenly, "OK. Let's eat!" to the obvious relief of the tour. We had no idea if all the activity here was a festival, or simply an average night, but you'd think it was Christmas by all the numbers here. One young man in a dress shirt and tie was sitting full lotus and chanting, one hand raised vertically to his chest. An old woman came over, and with obvious displeasure, did some weird mojo in his direction.

We walked a couple of blocks over to Snake Alley, the only other place I knew about in Taipei. It was a let down. Rather than a market awash with rampant and dangerous serpents, there were only a couple of dismal and near-empty shops, though one of them did host a lovely albino python. Nearly as interesting were the few shops with sexual paraphernalia, plus a few pitiful hookers lurking down alleys. All the food on display around here stimulated a different desire in Miki, who bought a phallic cob of corn to eat on the way to the train station...

...our last morning in Taiwan was spent slowly, over tea. Got to Taipei around noon, dropped the bags, and went up to a couple of temples. The Confucian Temple was newly restored last year, a bright blue, with lovely walled gardens and ponds. The Taoist counterpart nearby was all red and brick, looking older, but vibrant. The Confucian Temple was more a museum, yet the gardens offered a quiet escape from the city. From atop the Taoist temple's 4th floor, we could see Yangmingshan to the north, the stacked up Chinese-take out boxes of the 101 building to the south. There were so many things here that we hadn't seen, post pilgrimage fatigue catching up with us, and a few quiet days were more fitting to our mood than rushing around a busy city. We'd be back.

The neighborhood around the temples was very intriguing, but we'd have to wait for that next visit. A nearby Rinzai Temple was a garish yellow against the hills. The soccer stadium next door was in the midst of being torn down, looking like a Roman ruin. With the Asian Games being held here next summer (2010), this whole area will have a different look the next time I'm here. At the airport, we checked into the mysterious Air Asia, a steal at a mere 50 dollar ticket from Taipei to Bangkok. They said nothing about my bag being 2 kg overweight. As we boarded our flight, I hoped that they wouldn't be as lax about things such as the number of bolts on the plane's fuselage...


On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "Santa Fe Downs, 10-17-82."