The Great Polish Ripoff

Tomorrow I go to Chiang Mai, finally departing this mistake of a city, Bangkok, after 9 days of just trying to land. I spent most of yesterday at the rooftop pool of my pricey (yet still unfriendly, as most are here) hostel, the Rambuttri Inn. I was brooding, but slowly and carefully rediscovering my joyous side.

See, there are two opposite schools of thought regarding bad feelings. A close friend, whom I consider a genius of some sort, advised me before traveling, as my mind was whirling in doubt and trepidation (don't know why,) that I should not rationalize those negatives away. While I was trying to talk myself into discounting my fears, she said I should simply experience them, e.g. suffer through them and not pretend they don't exist. Tackling fearful experiences, she said, is a muscle you can grow. 

Another school is that of Lauren, real name omitted, a French-Canadian I met at the dormitory on Silom. She is traveling to become a spiritual healer, has spent time at a Thai Buddhist monastery somewhere down south, and is extremely forthcoming, as all newly enlightened people are, with pointers on how you're seeing reality incorrectly. She's also cute and friendly, but that's besides the academic point. In a philosophical debate that left a Kiwi listener delighted ("You never hear that sort of conversation in New Zealand",) I got an elephant's dose of New Age learning from Lauren, including but not limited to the ever-popular mention of quantum physics (puh-leeeease) in the context of human reality. Lauren says she is cultivating the ability to see everything positively all the time, and that once you meditate and reach a certain level, you understand that your perceptions are all made-up.

I'd warned her beforehand on the creepy Chinese-looking guy from the top bunk (see Dorm Fauna post.) At one point in our debate, he came in the room and then went out, granting Lauren a first glimpse at his pervasive creepiness. See? I nodded pregnantly. "I think he's a wonderful man," she said, true to her all-or-nothing fiction - which, let's face it, must be maintained at all costs if she wishes to become a professional spiritual. The New Zealander, however, had a different perspective, positioned as he was to see the man's face as he left. "He gave me a creepy look," he said.

To cut a long story short, Lauren seemed to mention sex a whole lot, which led me to believe that as capable as she is in 'deconstructing the fallacy' of negative emotions, she's still human, and can only take so much of her own myths. Also, if everything is positive and nothing is negative, then nothing is positive. But fuck all that. Back to the pool.

As I began swimming yesterday, two Polish guys entered the pool with beers. They were in their early thirties but looked older. I'd noticed that the pool rules forbid alcohol, but thought it some frivolous caution. How wrong I was. One of them was the sensible one, the other a fool. As the day wore on, he drank without cease. At first he was fun, and I could appreciate that, although he was buffoonish, he was bringing people together. But within a few hours, when he still wouldn't stop drinking - - now swigs from a bottle of Jim Beam - - he had become a nuisance. He spoke incessantly of dares, feats of sheer will, and the such. He dove in the pool (another thing on the big sign of no-nos,) kicked through several of the plastic pool gratings around the edge, and finally showed everyone how daring he was by climbing over the parapet and onto the fifth-floor roof. People were scared. He'd stopped being fun. He climbed back, assuring us that he could never have slipped. As I was not drinking, he kept trying to get me to join the 'hilarity,' going so far as to ruffle my hair aggressively. I could see things taking a turn. Then came the crunch. He told me something about a dare, jumping into the pool, and how a real man would do it, and demonstrated how a real man rips his shirt off, by ripping a hole in mine. I, who'd been watching a sunset over the bridge after a fine day and finally feeling that elusive peace I'd so craved, lost that peace. Rather than risk more hilarity, I left. I've got a little hole in my red sleeveless shirt now, but I'm keeping it. 

Today I was at the pool again, then went on a three-hour trip to buy a train ticket. I got to see some of the non-tourist parts, where the Thais seemed a bit nicer. (The rancor of those Thais serving tourists, by the way, has been explained to me by one Somali British girl as linked to the downturn in European economy, and thus in European spending here. Makes sense.) At a restaurant that does cater to tourists beside the railway station, I saw a waitress run after two European blondes with the change cup - she thought they'd forgotten their change, which was in fact a tip. It was refreshing to see such honesty. Around Khao San, where I am,  they'd pocket your fucking heart medication if they could. On the street here, every three feet is a man trying to sell me the vaginas of his impoverished countrywomen. Now they have a laminated card with a sort of poem on what a pussy does in those famous strip shows:

PUSSY SHOOT ARROW   SHOW

PUSSY PLAY PING PONG   SHOW

PUSSY PEEL BANANA   SHOW

and so on, an A5 page-full. Maybe pussy even wrote and laminated that card. I could really imagine myself reading the whole litany with a pair of bongos in a darkly lit jazz club, and ending with "PUSSY OUT, PEACE!"

There was a talkative bum on the bus back to my lodgings, who everyone seemed to avoid. Me too. But as I spoke to a girl from Costa Rica, he seemed to take an interest. He had a bit of English, and welcomed us a few times to "SmileLand," the mythical land of smiles that Thailand is in tourist brochures. There were in fact a few smiles on that bus, but most of all his. I guess you've got to be a derelict here to be nice for no reason. He got off at Sanam Luang park, where I do believe he sleeps.

Here's a tracking shot of a typical Bangkok street I took from the front seat of the bus: