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Bangkok Film Festival
Entry 19 of 20 | show all | print this entry |
Phil was headed to Phi-Phi and Saturday morning we went to a travel agency which doubled as a restaurant and guesthouse, after he had checked out of his room. The girl behind the counter was very bubbly and vivacious but was suffering from a bad cold which had stuffed up her nose and puffed up her eyes. She got on the phone and negotiated for a cheaper price for the Super VIP bus to Krabi. Her voice raised and dropped while she smiled aside to us and wrote notes on her notepad.
Phil was able to leave his backpack there until his bus left mid afternoon. We decided to have breakfast there and discovered that mostly Israelis were staying at this particular place. The restaurant was all kosher too. The Israelis stuck together in a big group. They all looked similar with curly hair tied back with a scarf and adopted Thai fisherman pants.
During our meal, Phil picked up that a guy at the table next to us was French-Canadian. He said this to me ages before really finding out, and when they discovered this, started speaking French. The other guy had spent some time in Sydney and wrote down some places Phil should check out. This was the first French-Canadian Phil had spoken to in a long time.
With the bus ticket purchased, we just hung around killing time, browsing the street stalls and sitting in another cafe sipping lemon shakes. We had a table at a large restaurant and our table was out the front. I attempted to write some more in my journal but it was uncomfortable doing so with Phil watching me, so we spoke about random things and laughed. Phil was staring rather intently at me with his large blue eyes which bulged a little like frog eyes with a sort of innocence. He told me that anything he tried to say to me sounded wrong in English so I told him to speak to me in French. He did so and it was weird as I had no idea what he was saying. I had told him that when my aunt wanted a bit of romance she made my uncle speak to her in French. The fact that he only knew how to count to 10 didn't matter. This amused Phil and probably made him feel at home to tell me what he was thinking with no cause for embarrassment that I knew what he was saying.
"Don't you just feel so lucky that you are here (in Thailand travelling)?" Phil asked me. It caught me a little off guard and I said, "Well I worked hard to save my money so I could be here and I planned it for quite some time". He sounded so grateful and appreciative of the fact that he was able to experience so many new things, places and cultures that I felt a twinge of guilt for being so selfish.
When I met up with Phil in Melbourne I bought him a drink and we chatted. He was so depressive and all he had to say was how no one wanted to talk to him, that he was finding it hard to meet people and that they weren't friendly. His email subject to me was "All alone in Melbourne with no friends". I think it could have been a bit of homesickness and seeing a familiar face made him blurt it all out, but I realised in that short period of time that he was boring and the enjoyable night I had with him in Bangkok was a once off. I had overlooked his pessimism and gloominess in Bangkok as I was so excited about being in a new and different place and that I had managed to meet other people to do things with. I was also going home very soon.
On my last night in Bangkok I decided to go to the cinema and see a movie. I checked the film guide for the Bangkok Film Festival at the EGV Grand cinema, right at the top of the Siam Discovery Centre. There was an interesting film, Butterfly Man, to be shown about an English guy who falls in love with a Thai girl on Koh Samui, that I wanted to see. I caught the bus to the Discovery Centre and enjoyed the adventure of getting to the top floor via numerous escalators at both ends of the building.
I followed the stars on the floor, similar to Hollywood Boulevard, to the ticket box office where I joined the line. Two girls in front of me asked if I wanted to buy a ticket for Creme Glacee as they had one which they didn't need. I said that I wanted to see Butterfly Man to which they replied that it was sold out. Still, I wanted to find out for myself. I approached the ticket seller and he confirmed that Butterfly Man was sold out so I asked him what else was showing. I decided on Creme Glacee as it was close to the same starting time. Before I could purchase my ticket, the two girls who had previously asked me to buy their ticket said something to the ticket seller and pulled me aside. They ended up selling their spare ticket to me for 10013, 20B off the normal selling price.
To kill time before the screening I got myself a meal from the food court - McDonalds no less! It was quite different to my normal Aussie Maccas meal, although I enjoyed reading the tray mat and almost brought it home as a souvenir except that I spilled my Coke on it.
Loitering around some stairs in the cinema lobby were people waiting to see Creme Glacee. I sat on the star carpeted steps too and read the posters for upcoming films, Sweet Home Alabama and the rather scary looking Ghost Ship. When the cinema was ready for us we were ushered through a maze of corridors and cinemas to our allocated seats. Like most cinemas, the seats were red and they were tiered in what Hoyts call `stadium seating'. The chairs were comfortable and high backed. The cinema was exceptionally clean, no stray popcorn pieces on the floor, and the bins were empty. The audience was very quiet. While the previews and ads were showing, a couple came and sat next to me, directed by an usher with a torch. Just before the film was about to begin we were asked to stand or rather I stood when everyone else did and the national anthem was played in honour of the King and footage of him at various public events over the years was shown. After this we resumed our seats and the movie began.
It was ironic that I had spent the past day in Bangkok in the company of a French-Canadian and ended up seeing a French-Canadian film at the Bangkok Film Festival. The film was in French but I was grateful that it was subtitled in English. There were mostly other Westerners at the screening and the cinema was quite empty. The movie was enjoyable, quite funny at times, although most times I felt like the only person in the cinema who had gotten the joke (quite unusual for me!).
At the end of the film we were ushered out a different way and I managed to find my way to the elevator and out onto the street. As it was getting late I wanted to catch a taxi or tuk tuk but it took me at least half an hour to find an empty one. Competition was rather fierce and people walked further up the street in hope of getting a taxi before the rest of the crowd did. I was almost about to give up when a tuk tuk pulled up in front of me and deposited me safely back at Khao San Road.
Despite the throbbing noise of the street in nighttime party mode I fell asleep quickly.
Where I stayed:
Grand Guest House
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