29th
Ones and Twos
I am at an internet cafe in this huge shopping center called MBK in Bangkok. There is another gigantic shopping center - I am talking 7 stories and entire city blocks - called Siam Paragon that is basically the upscale version of MBK for tourists. MBK has a back section on each floor that is basically a flea market (AKA dirt mall) which I just got back from cruising.
I haven’t been able to find cheap (or free) wireless yet so I cannot upload any photos - but they will come in good time.
My first full day here was overwhelming. The heat was killing me the entire night. I woke up at 6am thanks to the time change and had breakfast with my cousin Piti (eggs, rice, and sausage). I took a shower. The thing was, in most Thai houses the bathroom is just one big shower. You sit on the toilet and fill up buckets of water and dump them all over yourself, getting the seat all wet. My first reaction to sitting on a wet toilet seat, even though I knew it was just bath water, was mild nausea.
Piti walked me down to Siam Square, which is right next to where these big shopping centers are. It was about 8am, but it was already 85 degrees out and the humidity was about 100%. Piti had to go back to work; he is an Optician and runs his father’s optical shop. I am not surprised to see McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and 7-11 here. Nor was I surprised to see American movies playing at all the movie theatres. I wasn’t even surprised by the number of foreign tourists around (Hell, huge shopping centers? Isn’t that what tourism is all about?). Despite my lack of surprise, things here were pretty different. People work long days 7 days a week for the most part. University students can all be identified by their uniforms. Thais are shy and reserved but are equally prone to smile and laugh.
I end up walking all day until about 5pm. I took the skytrain to the river and saw a dead rat in the empty parking lot of some park. I went into a Thai Buddhist temple. I saw a monument to some old Chinese junk ship that was lost and memorialized with a concrete copy along the river.
I went back home and met my Uncle Yuit who looks stern until he cracks a smile, whereupon he turns into the nicest looking old man you could ever conjure. We had a simple dinner of rice, spinach, tofu, and vegetables.
I also met my cousin Noo (not sure of the spelling) and she told me I could go to the beach with her friend the next day. I agreed, of course, and it was decided that I would wake up at 6am to make the trip. I watched some Thai TV with my Uncle and went to bed early at about 10am.
