Since I last wrote i’ve been little but a silent sponge, absorbing, listening and observing.
I can’t say i’ve given much thought to how long I plan on staying in South East Asia. I don’t really need to right now. I recently realised that I run on emotion and only react to intuition. All the time i’m happy, this is where i’ll be. Plus, there’s so much world to see and a lot of it is on my doorstep. So, I thought it was about time I started exploring outside of this little, metal, island.
I spent the end of February and the beginning of March in Thailand. I flew into Phuket with a couple of friends and spent 5 days there relaxing and replenishing the energy that Singapore had stolen from me. Flight time was less than 2 hours. I’d never felt so far from home.
Phuket is just simply stunning and, like everywhere, currently under construction. In a few years it’ll just be like every other English tourist destination, but it’s clinging to it’s culture for now.
After 5 days of indulging in massages, fanatastic food and even better wine, i took an overnight bus alone up to Bangkok. The bus took 12 hours with a stop. I paid for a VIP bus to ensure it was comfortable - and it was. Freezing but comfortable.
Stepping off the bus at 5am, bewildered, delirious and clammy, i was greeted by 30 men shouting ‘taxi’ in a variety of accents, none of them familiar. As much as i love long journey’s, there’s something about bus rides that manages to extract all sap from your person and leave you more wilted and useless than usual. Regardless of having 12 hours of thinking time (which i used doing just that) I hadn’t really planned where i’d go from here, so taxi’s requiring a destination weren’t really helpful. I had an address in my back pocket where i’d planned to meet some uni friends about 13 hours later, no phone - just a holdall filled with a few sweaty dresses. I went to the address of the hostel i knew my friends would be checked in at. I’d planned to sleep there for the morning and recharge. I chose to use a taxi stand instead of the strangely eager men outside the bus.
I showed a wonderful, little, old lady the address and asked her if it was far. She barely understood but in broken English (the only words she could say were ‘now’ and ‘road’) she helped me communicate with the taxi driver. Miraculously, I managed to get to exactly where I needed to be.
That hostel was full, so was every other hostel in the area. I tried to rest outside at a hostel which supplied outside bed-things to nap on. They were a little like wooden mattresses, confused with sun loungers. The mosquito attacks conquered my need for sleep. I found a hostel that would store my back for the day for next to nothing. I changed, ate dinner for breakfast, asked local advise of where was open and eventually set off for a local temple.
Dinner for breakfast
The temples are just like you’d expect them to be - lavish, embellished and grand with an amazingly pure aura of spirituality.
Meditation is harder than it sounds. I haven’t been able to meditate since I arrived in Singapore, but i managed it in this beautiful temple just a short walk from the hostel. Maybe it was the serenity, or just being somewhere so enriched with culture, but i felt calm here.
Just one part of the temple
I filled my day exploring Bangkok and eventually met up with the girls late that same night.
Bangkok is one of the strangest places. It is somewhere you could take your parents, partner, children, friends or just go alone. Unbelievably accommodating and welcoming. The people do what they can to get by and that’s enough for them. The city is littered with dust and smiles. I spent 3 days here and managed to see a fair amount of Bangkok.
The best part of the trip for me was visiting the floating market, just outside of Bangkok.
There isn’t that much you’d want to buy, except coconuts and fruit, and you wouldn’t need more than a few hours there. It’s an experience worth doing.
As part of the day trip, you travel by boat through a water village just behind the market itself. We traveled down the river on a ‘motor-boat’ which was loud and undoubtedly a burden for the people settled here, living so simply in these water houses. Tranquil, natural and strikingly beautiful, it was like something out of Pocahontas - something from a childhood fantasy.
When I was younger I had a huge complex about Pocahontas. After discovering I was half Indian, I thought it best I was at one with nature. I saw the willow at the bottom of my garden as a sign that I ought to start living in trees. I remember running away from home when i was about 6 and camping at the bottom of the garden. This lasted around 3 weeks of the summer holiday. I’d only come in for dinner, which i knew was ready because my mum would shout ‘Yasmine! Come in darling, dinner’s ready!’ and ring a bell. That became all very Pavlov. She never really took my rebellion seriously and if anything thought it was helpful that I could amuse myself. I, on the other hand, saw myself as a tribe leader, a Denis the Menace, maybe even a hero. I wrapped my most cherished belongings in a red and white checked tea towel, which i then tied to a stick i found supporting some roses at the bottom of the garden. I was later smacked for robbing those roses of that stick.. and for dirtying the tea towel.
I now find it hard to remember what those most cherished possessions were, but i remember a tatty old action man character - a hand-me-down from my brother which i once got stuck on my lip (a story for another time), some crayons - always useful and plenty of sticks and stones for extra padding. The sticks and stones made me feel more Huckleberry Finn. Back then i’m not sure i knew who Huckleberry Finn was, but now obviously in hind sight I realise I was the epitome of Hucks. I thought these things to be essential to my person and thought them best saved if the house burned down.. which i’d planned it would. I can’t remember why I ‘ran away’, but remember thinking my mum ought to be punished for what she’d done. I’d tell the foxes all about it. I’d float down the pool in rubber dingy, eating my ham sandwiches that my mum had left out and feel like I was Pocahontas. Actually i felt more like she’d copied me and was rather annoyed at the whole Disney animation deal. The point is, that little water village in Bangkok was just like that. Sitting at the front of the boat I couldn’t see anyone else so was free to imagine it was just me and the water, or rather me as a defiant and chubby 6 year old - content and enraged both at the same time.
I’m now back in Sinagpore, working, drinking and not much more. The next stop is Bali. I’ll keep you posted.
X
