Roasted nuts and indifference

As mentioned previously, Bangkok is a pretty chaotic place. The sounds are constant and grating, the air so dense with exhaust that it can choke you, the major thoroughfares all teeming with tourists and an endless army of Thais looking to sell them something.

But all you have to do is turn the corner.

Just take a left, or a right, and then another and another, and get lost in a city that's made for it. The sounds of traffic recede, and the sounds of conversation become more clear. There are dogs and cats just roaming the streets. And you walk down a road with no traffic, and see nothing but storefronts. But these aren't the storefronts you are used to.

They are like dioramas of Thai life: one man fixing watches in a dank cove while his wife looks straight out the front of the shop -- at nothing. One family spread around a TV eating strange Thai snacks, while the mother sits at a sewing machine, frowning at the repetition. One short elderly woman, squatting with unnatural ease for her age and cutting her already short stature by half, sits over a pot of coals roasting nuts.

She looks just like Yoda to me. Yoda roasting chestnuts, or whatever kind of nuts these are. I don't even want to think what I look like to her, though it's probably something she's seen before. She just keeps rolling those nuts over with a stick, as if I'm not even there -- and unlike the rest of Bangkok, the only thing she's selling is indifference. Indifference and, eventually, roasted nuts.

Crosswalk: Holy Gridiron

There are no real crosswalks in Bangkok. There are white lines to indicate where people can choose to take their life into their hands, but they are really only guides. Right of way doesn't fall to the pedestrian as it does in the States. You look both ways, just as you were taught as a child, and then you run for your life.

I have found a secret weapon, though, in this precarious battle of man versus machine. Monks. There are monks everywhere in the city, heads shaved and wearing bright saffron robes. The crosswalk benefits of the Buddhist monk are two-fold:

1. Their orange robes make them the equivalent of a Human Traffic Cones -- easily seen by careening taxis and tuk-tuks.

2. Their status as venerable men of the Enlightened One make them nearly unhittable. Much as you don't hit a priest, you don't hit a monk. What horrors must lie in wait for the person that runs over a monk.

So, if the opportunity presents itself, and there is a Buddhist monk somewhere in the vicinity, I come right up alongside him. When he goes, I go. To use a football analogy: he is the Holy Blocking Fullback to my Foreigner Tailback, clearing a safe passage to the sidewalk endzone.

Hey, the Lord Buddha works in mysterious ways.

Words of thunderous pleasantry

I don't speak much Thai at all, but what words I do know I wield like a pleasant, agreeable club. I am greeting and thanking the crap out of these people.

Bangkok. Whoa.

Whoa. Whoawhoawhoa. Whoa.

Groggy from a two-stop redeye, I came into Bangkok and was overrun by the new and the strange.

why is the woman on that billboard wearing a dragonfly suit?..... how many tuk-tuks can one city possibly need?..... is that man petting a dead chicken in his lap?..... are those snakes for sale?...... what purpose does one have for a tray of fried fish heads?.... what in God's name is that smell?.... And that one?..... And that one?....

This is a city like none I've been to so far. I can't walk fast here.... there is too much to see; and the people are as captivating as any of the sights.

Most of my time so far has been spent walking, sitting and taking boat rides down the Chao Phraya River to some of the sights. Buddha is everywhere; from the huge temples to a corner shrine that the locals can stop and pray to on their way to sell fruit or whatever it is they are selling.

I've found a nice pace here; a perfect speed for marveling.

A note on misunderstanding

On a shuttle to the airport, I started talking with a woman and her young son. As they were from Hong Kong, their English was heavily accented--but they were very friendly and engaging. We started discussing my plans to go to Thailand, and they had some strong opinions on what is to be done there.

"You really must go barfing."

"Be careful that you are not barfing after you eat."

"One or two hours of barfing is very healthy for you!"

I misunderstood, you see. The word they were saying was "bathing"... which they pronounced in a very odd way, and was meant as a substitute for "swimming". Sometimes the meaning can get lost in the words.