Arrivals and departures are funny things, altering, opening and closing bits of our universe as we traverse through them. Bangkok doesn't feel like an arrival to me. For me, being in Bangkok, waking up in Bangkok, it is as if I have returned home. It is so much more than simply saying "I like it here," or "I have stood here, on this ground, and observed this place before." Being in Bangkok is like being home again.
This afternoon someone was telling me how difficult today, their first ever day in Bangkok, had been. Everything that this person related to me about this city was, of course, true. And not only true from her perspective, but true in experience; the noise, the heat, the constant buzz of this place. I could add more; the sometimes maddening labryinth of streets and alleys, the uselessness of an address, waiting for scooters to brush past you on even the narrowest of walkways. Piles of garbage and piles of dogshit.
My love for this place has, as some of it very real compents, all of those things that can send people packing a day after arrival. As I walked to dinner in Chinatown, the smells and sounds and pulse of Bangkok came alive again as the sun set, the rain stopped, and the night began. People spilled into the streets as the sidewalks morphed into a hodge-podge of makeshift noodle stalls, soup stands and roti carts. Traffic slowed, squeezed and fell to the fits and starts of a slow motion rhumba of steel. The night was full of the smells of foods, spices, hot oils, decay, sweat, and exhaust. The whole neighborhood took on a presence, like one giant organism on its way to becoming a monster in an old Japanese Godzilla movie.
Yet, at the same time, people are smiling and laughing over meals while teetering on rickety plastic stools, tending to kids, or circled up in front of a closed shop front with drinks and food. Traffic moves by, ofter too close, sometimes to fast, but almost always without harm. The whole thing shakes and vibrates and trembles, but does not quite rise up to become a cardboard city stomping demon.
Tomorrow I fly south to Hat Yai. I get to fly out of the old airport, where I have not been before. I will see new parts of Thailand and have new adventures. It will all be uncharted territory for me. And Bangkok will still be here, calling me home every time I am crazy enough to answer.
This afternoon someone was telling me how difficult today, their first ever day in Bangkok, had been. Everything that this person related to me about this city was, of course, true. And not only true from her perspective, but true in experience; the noise, the heat, the constant buzz of this place. I could add more; the sometimes maddening labryinth of streets and alleys, the uselessness of an address, waiting for scooters to brush past you on even the narrowest of walkways. Piles of garbage and piles of dogshit.
My love for this place has, as some of it very real compents, all of those things that can send people packing a day after arrival. As I walked to dinner in Chinatown, the smells and sounds and pulse of Bangkok came alive again as the sun set, the rain stopped, and the night began. People spilled into the streets as the sidewalks morphed into a hodge-podge of makeshift noodle stalls, soup stands and roti carts. Traffic slowed, squeezed and fell to the fits and starts of a slow motion rhumba of steel. The night was full of the smells of foods, spices, hot oils, decay, sweat, and exhaust. The whole neighborhood took on a presence, like one giant organism on its way to becoming a monster in an old Japanese Godzilla movie.
Yet, at the same time, people are smiling and laughing over meals while teetering on rickety plastic stools, tending to kids, or circled up in front of a closed shop front with drinks and food. Traffic moves by, ofter too close, sometimes to fast, but almost always without harm. The whole thing shakes and vibrates and trembles, but does not quite rise up to become a cardboard city stomping demon.
Tomorrow I fly south to Hat Yai. I get to fly out of the old airport, where I have not been before. I will see new parts of Thailand and have new adventures. It will all be uncharted territory for me. And Bangkok will still be here, calling me home every time I am crazy enough to answer.
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