Bangkok 14/02/06

You know how you can tell the difference between civilization and the ass end of nowhere?
Footpaths, sidewalks, pavements, call them what you will Bangkok like developing nations all over the world suffer from severe lack of ambulatory space. The footpaths they do have are death traps waiting to happen, they are made with individual paving stones which were laid down long enough ago for them to now have the appearance of an unmade bed.
The traffic on the streets of Bangkok is insane, the back street we live in is a main thoroughfare for motorbike taxis, they congregate on the corner drinking beer and waiting for their next fare, Thai people of the feminine variety insist on riding these suicide machines side saddle. and of course as there is no footpath wallking the streets especially at night is a mission of the impossible kind (run sound track, cue squirrel).

Still unsure of what to do work wise, offered another job yesterday, down in Songkhla (the lawless south), not sure I want to go hang out in such a place, it's on a beach but the planet doesn't recommend it as a nice beach. in fact there is very little to recommend it, the pay is quite good especially seen as it is out of Bangkok where money goes further. Steve has said he will take me out to the school he wants me to take a job at in Bangkok, and has given me contacts in Phnom pen if I want to go there, but that sounds a bit dodgy on the money front. I 'm still waiting to hear back from the Phuket schools, before I make any decisions, I guess I'll give them to the end of the week.

I remember once years ago, I meet this guy traveling who told me about the rabbit in the moon, I of course thought he was making it up (an American drop bear story). But, you know just last night I finally saw the rabbit in the moon, a huge milk white moon with a rabbit leaping across it, of course I then walked down the road past the whicker baskets of trash that smell like the sewers, with rats the size of cats writhing and boiling within, balance you see, being in Thailand is all about the yin and the yang, beauty rubbing shoulders with squalor, neither soiled or rendered more gentle by proximity a study in opposites.

Tomorrow I am teaching two classes to orphans so I'd better crash.
Later, N.J.