Day 10 - First Night in Bangkok

Getting to the hostel was interesting.  The train was OK, but after getting off, I suddenly had many friends.  Multiple friendly people came up and asked me where I was going and if I wanted food, drinks, drugs, girls, or other random items.  After repeatedly declining, I found a "taxi" or sorts.  There was no meter, so I asked for the price right as I got in.  He told me 200 baht, triple what the airport translator said to pay.  I offered 100 baht and he pulled over to let me out.  I guess he wasn't worried about finding another passenger.  I offered 150 baht and he grudgingly accepted.  Then while in the car he became super friendly and tried to give me a driving tour of the city.  I guess he wanted a tip?

I am convinced I will die in Bangkok traffic in the next few days.  If there are traffic laws, I don't understand them.  Buses, cars, tuk-tuks, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and other wheeled contraptions compete for space.  It seems to be that the bigger vehicle always has the right of way since the smaller vehicles can fit in gaps and drive on sidewalks.  My taxi just honked and merged into motorcycles who just stayed in the gap between lanes.  Also, pedestrians never have the right of way.  Cross the street at your own peril.  I saw quite a few people playing real life frogger.  The motorcycles are agile enough to avoid you, but the buses seem OK with hitting people.

I think anyone can operate a "taxi".  I saw motorcycles taxis which seemed to be normal people who needed money and were offering rides to anywhere in the city for 40 baht.  I think I will just wait for a taxi with doors or walk.

My hostel is a coffee shop that has beds upstairs.  It is also inhabited by the strangest people I have met so far.  My roommates belong to groups that I have never interacted with before.  One seems to be on a Hindu religious pilgrimmage.  He speaks French for some reason.



The French guru.

I don't have pictures of my other two roommates, because they might kill me.  One is a huge Russian covered in tattoos who wears army fatigues.  The other is the size of a sumo wrestler, looks 18, and is bald.  None speak English.  These guys are completely different travelers.  I have mainly seen European and  Australian travelers in groups with the occasional English-speaking Asian (except Taipei, which was entirely mainland Chinese).  Maybe these aren't even travelers.  The room is less than $10 a night, so maybe they live here.

I left the hostel to get dinner.  Bangkok is a whole new world.  Hong Kong was shiny, new, and cosmopolitan.  Taipei was shiny, but with an underworld.  Bangkok is the underworld.  I had a metered taxi take me to a central area in Bangkok where I found beggars, peddlers, showmen, blind men dancing with karaoke machines, and hordes of prostitutes.

I stopped to look at a German restaurant's menu outside and the female owner came outside, grabbed my arm, and physically pulled me in.  That's not a normal tactic in the USA.  I was too surprised to resist, though I was wish I had.  I like Thai food.  I like German food.  I think they should both stick to their native cooking.  My dinner was basically a hot dog and some badly cooked potatoes floating in mayonnaise.

Gross.

A man dressed as a woman offered me a massage for 200 baht on the way out.  I politely declined, wondering what type of massage this individual had in mind.  I mean, what sort of massage can you get for $7 USD?  I don't want to find out.

I made it back to the hostel after riding in a cab where the driver wanted to take me to some sort of party.  He didn't speak English, but kept saying Tsingtao (a Thai beer) and boom-boom while clapping his hands together.  I just kept saying "hotel" and the address.  It seemed to work eventually and I made it close.  He dropped me off about 1km too far, but he clearly had no idea where the numbers were.  He just knew the street name.

I went right to bed after locking all of my possessions inside my backpack, locking the backpack to the bedpost with a bike cable, and putting my arm through the loop.