Homeless By Choice

Saturday

Sorry, I have been slipping again. I took the overnight train from Vientiane, Laos to Bangkok and arrived yesterday morning. Although I had paid the premium for a lower berth when I traded my ticket from the agency for the boarding ticket from the train company I was issued an upper bunk.  What was indicated on my original purchase I will never know as it was retained by the train company. The sleeper car was of a style that I had never seen before.  The bunks lined both sides of the train.

I was quickly offered a tuk tuk ride to Patpong for 300 baht.  I laughed and offered 100, the driver accepted 150, that’s about five bucks.  This is a small part of town, with convenient shopping, plenty of food and access to overhead and underground trains.  It is also possible to be about as debauched here as any place in Thailand excepting Kho Phanang. At a coffee shop I used the WIFI and quickly located a prospective hotel which was but a few hundred meters away.  Another hotel in which it was over 50% cheaper to book through Agoda.com.  Yet another time I booked on my phone while standing at the reception desk.  I deposited my bags, showered, changed and walked around went to a snake farm which had very few live asiatic serpents, most of them were ill preserved in large plastic cylinders and look nothing like they do in life.  My first trip to Bangkok I went to a snake farm and saw people picking up cobra after cobra with their bare hands, kissing them on the head and putting scores of them in small cages, hopefully just holding pens, that were easily opened by tourists as they were simply secured with a hook and eye.  Times change, maybe that farm still exists, I don’t know.

Sunday

So many things I have failed to see in Bangkok, despite the number of times I have been here.   I thought I would check out the Human Body Museum and headed out on foot.  While ambling down a street I came across a shop display of vintage cameras and went inside to look.  I would really like and 18-200 or 18-300 lens so I can dispose of my 18-70 and 70-200 lenses.  I just have too much stuff.  That’s about $700 in lenses that would go on eBay (yeah right, I am going to ship them to the states, have somebody list them, sell them and ship them) and another $500 to $1,200 for a lens for my SLR.  If I had it to do all over I wouldn’t have the thing with me, my little compact one that I broke in Vietnam. The store opened into a mall.  I fell upon clothing and bought five shirts, same design just different colors.  I am not much of a shopper.  Then I bought four pair of shorts that befit city life, light patterned cotton shorts.  I had some seriously heavy denim shorts that make for good jungle attire but really make one look out of place in the city.

Next up, get a SIM for my phone, for some reason the SIM I bought just a few weeks ago wouldn’t work on the network.  The fourth floor of the mall was pretty much dedicated to phones and accessories.  I’ll keep it short, some random guy brought me to a place that sold SIMS then went off and bought me a credit for my prepay phone.

My $285 Koss ear buds that I had for ten years finally gave up the ghost.  The connector was very corroded and finally the earpiece snapped off. I picked up a pair of Dr. Dre ear buds.  I had read about them and was glad that I didn’t just buy some random buds of the quality that comes with phones.

My Oakley glasses got crushed in their case while I was wearing the case on my belt in Laos.  I happened upon a pair of sunglasses, ostensibly polarized, that have video camera installed for about $50.

At left is a picture of me wearing the sunglasses, pressing the button that took the picture.

I continued on and eventually found the museum, which was closed on account of Buddhist All Saints day.

In the evening I roamed the streets nearby. This is the red light district.  Men everywhere would thrust well worn, crinkled, plastic laminated pictures in my face and ask if I wanted a “good girl”.  I don’t think “good girls” are rented by the hour.  Walking down the street I got tired of walking around people who blocked the sidewalk and tried to direct me into their sleazy establishments and just continued walking, staring them in the eye with a “Really, are you going to fuck with me?” look. Guy after guy would approach me trying to direct me to various bars.  I would ignore them and they would run ahead of me, trying to anticipate where I was going in order pretend that they were steering business to these establishments.  I would duck into some place behind them just to screw with them.  I have been to San Francisco, girls shooting ping pong balls out of their vaginas is pretty mild, comparatively.  I guess I have seen too much stuff in my life, amazing me is pretty difficult.

Shirts   1,100 baht
Pants and swim suit 1,250 baht
SIM 100 baht
1 Month 3G or 1GB 250 baht
Recording sunglasses 1,500 baht