Bangkok has been much the usual. I caught the train to Hua Lamphong as I thought it would be nice to stay in China town this time, it was mid-day and hot and I didn't really know where the guesthouse was I was looking for so I ended up walking to the Chao Phraya and catching the boat to Phra Athit again, it's not so bad staying here as long as you avoid the Khao San and don't let drunk guys carry you across flooded soi's after a thunder storm.
Early in the morning I came across a boulevard of broken dreams. A klong where all these people lived along it's edges drinking at 7am (cans of beer through straws), It's funny how you can just run across these little pockets of people who evaporate with the sunrise, where do they go? I have noticed that all the beggars in Bangkok seem to congregate in Chinatown.
Today I went to check out the school I am going to teach in, it is like a Disney castle (just like I had been told it is) but it really looks kinda fake, even from a distance, it is beautifully presented with pictures of Nemo and Mickey and Minnie and other children's cartoon characters all over the place. It has two big swimming pools (complete with penguins and fake Ice?) Art rooms, Music rooms and a gym. Our language school area is still being built which could add to the chaos at the start of the year, or it could be happily ever after in this magic kingdom.
After Steve took me to look at houses and they appropriately looked like gingerbread cottages, or the houses in the Truman show or something, anyway I will look at a few more yet I am sure.
Then I went back to China town, I really like that part of town it is so crazy and cluttered but the pollution is bad, bad, bad. I saw a guy sleeping in a basket which was pretty weird.
As I was walking back to my guesthouse this storm blew up and I watched as thunder and lightening crackled all around, really close some of it! Sheets of corrugated iron getting torn from roofs and guttering thrown into the traffic in the streets, and it rained! I took shelter in an ice cream shop which was just opening as it all started and I sat there eating strawberry sundaes with the girl who ran the shop while wondering if our roof would stay on. It did, the opposite side of the road seemed to be where all the action was. You know when a storm is really bad by the amount of cockroaches that come scrambling up out of the sewers and trying to get into the shops, eurgggh.
The mechanics across the road kept fishing their belongings out of the gutter as they were being washed out of their shop and attempting to float off down the road. (Luckily being a mechanics shop most of their stuff was too heavy to float, then half an hour later the sun came up and I carried on toward my guest house, some streets were clear but others were flooded and navigating home took some doing, twice turning down offers to be carried across flooded streets, ahh the age of chivalry is not quite dead yet.
There is an election on sunday (today is Thursday), there has been a huge amount of protesting and anti-Thaksin (the prime minister) rallies, I plan to be out of town to avoid the riots when he gets back in, in fact this election may take a long time to be resolved so Thailand may be heading back into some political dire straits, I wonder if the King will have to step in and sort it out again, it seems every time I come here something like this happens I think I was here for both the political/economic crisis in 1997 and for the political protest and unrest in 1992 where some demonstrators were shot. So stay tuned, though I'm sure it's all over your tv news anyway.
Till next time.
N.J.
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