Dorm Fauna: The People You Meet

I'm in a 10-bed dormitory part of a place called HQ Hostel, at the very tourist heart of Bangkok. It's a novel concept: a boutique dorm. The design is inspired, the lounge a godsend, the mattress painfully hard, the WiFi spotty, and the receptionists uselessly helpful - always happy to oblige you with vague general information you can get online.

The central location, the AC throughout, and the budget were considerations in favor of a dorm (rather than a shabbier private room out on some bus line,) but so was company. From previous trips, I recall meeting nice people in dorms, and my friend Michali's choice of one on a recent trip to Italy inspired me to do likewise.

It was off to a weak start, though, the sort that can be quite dispiriting at the beginning of a trip. The folks I see in the lounge, especially the women travelers, have been a rather sullen and standoffish lot so far, perhaps soaking up the defensiveness inherent to this big city. But I expected more of the dorm. On my first night there, I met a phlegmatic Malaysian guy in his twenties with a spiky hairdo and flat affect. If sociability can be measured by one's responsiveness to and initiation of conversation with strangers, this kid was smack dab in the middle of the spectrum: he will cooperate (well, just barely,) but not initiate. Most healthy people are to the right of him. I of course am on the far right.

Here's the rough graph:

ANTISOCIAL....(-initiate)(-cooperate)....(-initiate)(+cooperate)....(+initiate)(+cooperate)....AWESOME

The rake-thin, mop-haired, older Asian man in the top bunk nearby, however, is way, way on the left side of the spectrum. He will neither initiate nor cooperate. I'd only seen him coming and going, tense, shifty-eyed, and angrily silent. Being the friendly man I am, I asked him: "Where are you from?" as he climbed down. Not  looking at me, he muttered with annoyance, "I, uh..." then he groaned and huffed off.

"Oh-kay..." I said to the Malaysian kid.

"Why don't you just let him be?" the Malaysian employed an English idiom, as if I'd been pestering the creepy older guy for weeks now, and as if this wasn't a fucking dormitory. Like I'm the asshole. I decided that (A) I don't like this Malaysian kid, and (B) the creepy older guy is probably involved in something untoward. Maybe he's on the run from the law in his country (which is...?) Maybe he's in Bangkok to fuck children. Maybe both. Maybe he's just insane.

Insane happens, and definitely when you travel. You meet quite a few unhinged people. Last night was horribly sleepless. I got up in the middle of the night, hungry. As I passed the lounge on the way out, there was a chubby-ish English lady in a plaid skirt and straight red hair at the public computer, talking to someone in English. On Skype, I assumed. I returned from 7-11 with a microwaved thing of rice and chicken, and set to eat it in the lounge. Then I saw that the woman at the computer is in fact a man, short, squat, and ugly. He had on spiked heels, and an "I heart Bangkok" t-shirt several sizes too small. And a wig. And he was talking to himself. I tried eating in peace - I thought of meditating in the lounge - but it was too disturbing. He was hidden by a support beam, and it took me a minute to realize there were not several people there, because he employed several distinct voices, and breathed loudly through his nostrils in all the spaces between words. When I heard him mutter something about "...stab him through his fucking heart..." I decided to gobble the rice quick and get the hell out.

"Do you want to use the computer?" he asked me. I got a look at his face. Mannish, crazed, not old, with one wandering eye. A cross-dressing Marty Feldman without an audience. I doubted whether I'd fall asleep after that, and indeed I did not. I also thumbed the lock on the dorm door. He wasn't staying in that room anyway, but just in case he wanted to do some late-night through-fucking-heart-stabbing.

But I've met some nice people finally. One is a smart young Chinese girl with surprisingly realistic views of her country's politics, and the other is a smiley deaf Korean seafood cook with whom I communicated using pantomime and a notebook. Lucky bastard doesn't have to hear all the snoring that goes on. I can't say I've been enjoying myself very much so far. In fact, I've toyed with various radical reschedulings (including tossing the whole thing out and going home,) but I'll wait and see what the days bring.