Sunday, November 28, 2010

ordinarily extraordinary

    I wake up every morning around 6:30-10:00am.. mosey around for an hour or so getting dressed checking my pile of clothes for money I may have left in the pockets.. and off I go.

    yesterday I completed the morning routine getting ready for the day which either means bringing my backpack to prepare for anything the day may have in store for me, or bringing nothing except roughly 3 dollars to see what will happen. .. check facebook, maybe eat a little cereal, keys, cellphone, wallet, and out the door. 

    get to the main road not knowing if I will turn left or right. aaand left sounds good. and the day goes as follows. taking turns going down roads I have never been down until I am lost and then just keep going forward. eventually I found myself somewhere I had been before and go down another road until I find myself lost again... and keep on going.. lots of sights. lots of smells. not all of them the most pleasant, but absolutely the real Thailand. 

    It is behind the scenes of Bangkok. the advanced city with cars everywhere, traffic at a stand still, with all the comforts of a western modern city. But walking a little further past the glint and glamour that grabs the eye and you will see the people. as I walked I saw the simple life. walking past the gardeners and the street cleaners as they ate their lunch and called me over to see if I was hungry and wanted to eat with them.. you don't have to go very far to find the heart of Thailand, but you have to go off the beaten path from all the attractions, malls, bars, and massage parlors to the narrow street markets and restaurants that seem so crammed that you can just barely make it through the hustle bustle of bargaining, and buying.

and how time does fly

highlights of the last month.. where to start.. yeah I am terrible at this blogging thing.. tried to do every week.. haha.

ok so I went up to the mountains once or twice one called Kao Yay or something like that. funny storry how I got there though.. was basically trying to get to know my way around the city because I don't get to do much more than walking which is hard to see much of bangkok because it is huge.. so I asked a friend to show me some places we walked around drove in their little 1980 pink VW Bug yes it was a girl's car.. and did a little exploring. eventually we met up with some of her friends in the city as she had no clue where to bring me, and long story short they invited me up to their family resort/apartment/boutique in the mountains and off we went, 5 of us smashed in the pink 1980VW Bug for the 6hr ride into the mountains where they have worse potholes than in RI.. yeah goodbye herbie. it was nice knowing you.. despite certain doubts, we actually made it to their place alive. A quaint little place semi-secluded in the crisp cool mountain air which was a great relief from the luke-warm exhaust of Bangkok. I was not made for the city.

up in the mountains we picked fruit, painted walls, cleaning the place up for a group that was going to rent it out, and did a little exploring, swimming in the natural streams.. pretending like we spoke italian and rambling random gibberish with a few italian phrases and lots of hand movements..
and of course either they spoke fake Italian or real Thai in which I was lost in both cases although the fake Italian was rather insightful. stayed up there for about three days.

 uh. spent some time with friends around the city here and there leaving the city, and then the most recent 3 week trip "out of bangkok." which deserves it's own post so I will save it till a little later..

don't worry I will remember most of what happend.. I took pictures (:

for now

FIN.