Back to Bangkok-Dancing Again For the First Time
Trip Start
Dec 09, 2007
1
36
52
Trip End
Jul 07, 2008
Bangkok,
Thailand
Saturday, May 3, 2008
3AM I got into Bangkok at around Midnight from Ko Samui. Looked for a room for about 1/2 hr. allong Ram Buttri Rd. a nice quiter street in the backpacker's hub but away from the debauchery and trash known as Kah San Road. The good places were full and the others were pricey. Settled on a place for 300 B ($10us) that is definitely on the lower rung of accommodations I've had. Feel every spring in the mattress. The bathroom stinks, hoses from open squares cut out of this retrofitted hotel, the bathroom door jams on the toilet seat; it's so tiny. But I do have some company in these cute little baby cockroaches that I get ever so slight remorse from for squashing. The catch and why they can get 300B for the room is air con. and the tv (which I can't get to work) I can really take it or leave it. I usually prefer the fan. I think I'll leave it.
Anyway I didn't feel like going to bed. I had such a horrible time here last time (culture shock, dirty, depressing, lonely) I was curious to stroll the Kah San on a Saturday night to see what revealed to me and how I felt about it. First stop however was for some of the best street food in the world and the only reason I had anything to look forward to in returning here. I got 3 spring rolls for 25B and asked for some fresh basil and bean sprots on the side for an additional 5B. Nice...with late night munchies in hand I strolled backpacker's party alley like an old hat. I wasn't accosted by one tuk tuk or taxi driver about getting "boom boom" or "sexy massage." Like somehow my 2 months traveling Asia had given me a kind of dusty traveled veneer that just told them not to bother. When I was here before with my green self I couldn't make it around a corner without being hit up at least 3 times.
I then was craving a beer to quench my thirst. The street seemed surprisingly quite for a Saturday but i heard various rumblings and drunken yells from some roof top bars so I made my way up to one to then see it packed. Walked in asked for a beer. The bartender pointed to an empty cooler except for a few straggling Corona's, "No beer" he said. It gave the impression that it was almost closing time but anyway I shook my head yes and pointed. He dropped the Corona on the bar top with a lime neatly sitting at the mouth and passed me the bill the female host beside him had written out. It said 190B...I just yelled out "Whoooooey!" He bent over the bar and said, "You get live music and entry free" as if recognizing that this was probably the most expensive beer I'd paid in all of Asia. 190 B is around 7 us dollars!! This was when I could get Heineken anywhere for 50 to 80 even expensive resorts. Hell my relatively nice newly acquired room was even 200B. Well the cap was popped and instead of making a fuss I decided this would be the best Corona of my life and these next songs from these two thai guys singing American rock covers would be the best songs a beer drinking american in Thailand could ever hear. Well it didn't quite match up and the next songs were indeed the last of the night...two to be exact.
So I moved on not quite satisfied to call it a night. Without walking long I was hearing a different drummer, my kind of drummer...a computerized one. Went to the bar called "the club" or rather the club called "the club." Novel I know! Thai people like to party but aren't the cleverist at promoting them. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was a bonified club...massive high cielings with a professional light rig and cool large video screens behind an imposing and well designed semi circle dj booth. It was a big room, but not too big and the bar chairs and tables pressured the crowd just enough to look packed with almost any size group...smart. There was a beer bar off to the side of the dance floor and a full clean and classy looking spirits bar off the dance floor in a chillish area.
I first sat down at the only bar seat I saw available inside the dance space. I asked the european guy standing next to it and liquor filled table if it was cool and he smiled and made some noise of assurance. We made some small talk...a guy from Sweden and he was amused at watching his drunk friend hit on a cute lady boy (in thai: kathoey). He offered me some of his drink which I didn't refuse and then made my way out. But I stopped myself for a rare moment of willful interjection.
What was wrong with dancing? Is all I've been doing at dance clubs on these travels, and with the music and dancing that I love, to come to party to get drunk and lost in the energy of playful friendliness and flirtations? And thus not actually to DANCE. From my sober vantage I'd been paying close attention to this energy at the other bars i went to that night. It was all about building group energy and getting lost in it for the sake of some peripheral high it emanated. At that point, the desired point, all communication and interactions are primal and mostly non-verbal and simple, primitive, and almost always easily forgotten. Well tonight I wanted to impress myself, or I wanted to make an impression on my self. I wanted to engage, instead of passively losing myself in some communal orgy of drugs (yes drinks are drugs) and aimless movements and body language that I would not easily forget.
I was curious to see if I could let go in any way being as sober as I was. Curious to release the mental chatter of, "is anyone watching me? If i move like my body wants will I look crazy? Wow she's hot will she notice me and like me when I stand out with some of my cool loose moves. They're cool cause' they look original, not contrived movements like these guys all doing variations of a robot. Is anyone looking? What are the locals thinking? Can they tell I'm sober and not in their world? I'm an outsider. Patrick, close your eyes."
I was curious too, to see if my body could be fresh and new and create something that it hadn't before. I found a little nook and moved. I was inspired by parts of the movie, "stomp the yard" i'd seen earlier that day on hip hop dancing. I had a few short moments of release and confidence grew in me instantaneously. But not because of my movements it was because for the first time in a long time I had done something off the grid. I had intentionally challenged myself, stood to it, and was being rewarded by it. I was changed and growing instead of repeating and dieing.
So I took it too the next level and went straight into the middle of the floor. The vibe grew in me and I almost forgot about the big gashes on my foot I'd gotten from the reef in the southern islands. I could barely walk this morning and now I was moving my body and "stomping" my feet in degrees, strength, and forms that I'd only seen in movies! It was short, though deep and profound...very short. Didn't take long for my moments to be shattered by drunken elbows to the head or beer splashes to my leg or whatever. But I'd done my duty to myself and was off just when I heard it... "Yes We can." My hair rose right along with my spirit. It was a song I downloaded from beatport just yesterday.
It had been half a year since I'd listened to any new dance music to download and I went on searching for the ubiquitously famous global dance phenomenon called "put your hands up for detroit" (I loved the song and had so many good memories from liz to the canadian boys with it... that is the first 20 times) and I'd heard these positive lyrics emanating from a simple but produced and funky uplifting house track. It didn't take me long to recognize Barack Obama's voice which initially turned me off due to any politicalization of a positive message. None the less the power of the speech and how well the music complimented it, and that I have to be the ultimate collector of positive dance music, compelled me to download it. I don't spend money on music easily, especially when I can make my own.
And here it was the track that had set me on fire a day ago that I'd never heard before was now being played as the closing track in this random club called "the club" in backpackers alley party central Bangkok thailand half way around the world from the place these words were said for and then spoken by possibly the next president that very place, my home land.
