Day 17
Left island life behind today. Next stop: lots of little stops, then Bangkok. National Library fever. We are going to be staying on the same block as the National Library. A lot of my hopes and dreams are floating on this Library being cool. I fully expect a map room. Hopefully there are scrolls. In all seriousness, I hope to clear up the fog that is my knowledge of Thai History. By talking to someone most likely, I’m not disillusioned enough to think they will have books in English. I do assume, however, that libraries attract the multilingual. Libraries say a lot about a city. How they’re treated speaks to the respect of history. History repreats, parallels, perpendicts, provokes itself. Especially when ignored, or worse. Worse being: burned, molded, changed (attempts at change anyway), or spited. History sucks. It doesn’t care much for us in the present. But, if we don’t care for it, it can be a right proper bastard.
I started reading Joe Simpson’s harrowing account of his and Simon Yates’s near-death first ascent of the Siula Grande’s West Face. In the Peruvian Andes. I started this book before our six hour bus ride to Bangkok. I finished five hours later. Joe Simpson put me right there with him and Simon for their victory on the summit. Followed quickly by crushing defeats. The undulating account was as inspiring as it was hair-raising and emotional. The book is called, “Touching the Void,” and starts with this quote from “the seven pillars of wisdom,” by T.E. Lawrence, “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” That quote is why I bought the book from a tiny bookstore cafe on Koh Chang. The bus ride was one enthralling book plus an hour and a half.
We are spit out of the bus under towering malls and shops. Hopping the sky train we arrived in Siam Square. Not even a train in the sky could bear us away from the prison of malls. A nice woman on thie sidewalk struck up a conversation with us. She asked if we were leaving, on account of our backpacks. We said arriving and asked if we could find a guesthouse nearby. She mentioned Khao San Road as our only option. A pushy motor-bike taxi tried to scam us. I hadn’t really eaten in around 12 hours so I was prepared to accept. Liz had had a bag of chips for lunch; she didn’t fold so easily and held her ground. We eventually caught a taxi. He even ran the meter. We decided to head to Thewet, a neighborhood just north of Khao San Road. There were ample guesthouses to choose from. Dinner would have been delicious even if it hadn’t been fried rice noodles with vegetables and mushrooms (already delicious without hunger’s spice). The howling void would have gladly accepted old ham and soggy lettuce on burnt toast. My hunger was not discriminatory. Not tonight.
I had expected the second hand smoke that is Bangkok. I knew we would be shoved, scammed, carpet-bagged, and scalawagged. What I truly, blindly, stupidly didn’t see coming, was normal people living normal lives. This was happening literally everywhere we went. Liz and I walked the block after dinner, we were disappointed to find no children for sale and most of the shops closed. Only a gaggle of middle schoolers furiously smoking cigarettes remained on our street.
thecereallife 