Sawadee kha!
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2005
1
3
20
Trip End
Apr 13, 2005
Bangkok,
Thailand
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
we ended up spending the evening/night/next morning at his quebecois uncle's place in an outer neighbourhood of the city and were treated to incredible generosity from gabriel and the family. apparently, the uncle used to be the national director of the canadian red cross (once upon a time) and is now running a new furniture business. walking into the property he rents was like walking into a tropical paradise - a huge, beautiful house that blended being inside/outside, surrounded by lots of lush greenery and a pond filled with lilypads.. and filled with beautiful, expensive asian furniture. there is even a museum room of sorts with statues and artifacts dating from the 5th century to the 21st century, the centrepiece of which is this large statue from a cambodian wat, dating from the 11th century. jess asked him about whether it was one of those looted treasures and an interesting conversation ensued..
we were fed dinner and beer, and put up in a beautiful, large, airy room (in a separate building, as in the room was pretty much the only one in the building) and we were told it came from ayuthaya. gabriel mentioned spirits that he was told may roam the room and how he supposedly spotted a woman in the window once.. that got me too freaked out to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. didn't encounter any spirits though! here in thailand, i was told that many people have small shrines or buildings outside their homes for spirits as a way to encourage them to live there rather than in their homes.
it was really nice staying in this paradise but was also interesting and strange to me because of how wealthy it was - the kind of luxury many ex-pats are able to live in. they also have thais working as gardeners, nannies and housekeepers.
gabriel took us to his workplace as well and in the area, we passed by tents that served as temporary(?) homes for burmese workers, as well as a mini shanty town with tin roofs that gabriel thought also housed burmese workers. across the street from the tents was a large, wealthy business. gabriel said that across bangkok, this was a familiar sight - poor mixed with rich in the same neighbourhoods.
i have been finding many thai people we have encountered so far incredibly friendly so i see why the country has been dubbed "the land of smiles" (though obviously also a tourism gimmick). hearing the thai language has also been a bit of a mindfuck for me since it sounds quite a bit like vietnamese, tonally if not the words themselves.. so i hear what sounds like vietnamese but have no idea what is being said.
i'm now sitting in an internet cafe in khao san road, near where we are staying. we decided to avoid the bed bugs and annoying western backpackers of khao san road and are staying in a guesthouse a bit farther away. strolling through khao san though is really crazy - kind of like one big market, catering to western tourists (specifically a certain type of backpacker!) and even though it's not indigenous to the area at all, you can get such services as your hair dreaded on the street. that should give you some idea what the area is like. jessica dubs these kinds of areas "whitey mcwhiteville" (first words out of her mouth when we saw who was at the bangkok airport).
i have lots of photos but will have to put them up another day (maybe tomorrow) since i don't have much time left on here. stay tuned!
