So lets leave: Bangkok pt. 3

Taylor walked into the room before me and told Jared that my flight had been canceled. He said I was still in Chicago and didn't know if I was coming anymore.

"Yeah, that's why I hear him," he said.

I walked in and Jared grappled me onto his  bed with a moist-Bangkok-man-hug. If that sounded sexual, its because it was. This had just turned into an aggressive hug sesh in a bunk bed and it felt great. We all hadn't seen each other for months now and with everything involved-- the waiting for my semester to finish, getting my ticket, my passport, them traveling and experiencing and working in Australia and meeting people --to not have to talk about planning and the " I cant wait till's" with them for a second and finally talk about what we were going to see today instead… I could feel it in my neck. Like a massage. Like natural Fexeril. Its funny how friendship can do that. How it can just wrap me up in its arms and make me feel okay for a second. Even if its just for a second, those hugs are what generally reassure me I'm loved. I don't tell myself it enough to remember some times and Jared's sweaty hug was a beautiful reminder.

 

He let go of me and they got me up to speed. They gave me a short debriefing and told me we were switching rooms and that I had to pay x amount and so on. Quickly shit got real and I had to start moving again. It wasn't long before I was running up and down flights of stairs with money and key cards, talking about bracelets and packing up and unpacking. I was beginning to realize that travel was going to involve a lot of spurts. Short (or long) sprints between A and B and back to A to C type situations. Because so far I went from a train, to a plane, to another plane, to a taxi, to a hostel, to a room to another room to the bathroom. To the door, to a tuk tuk, to a market to eat which let me sit and finally get settled into Thailand a little. But I knew eventually I'd have to go back to sprinting. Back to the tuk tuk, back to the room, pack, move. Repeat.

They got their shit together, went to the front desk to switch rooms and grab the keys, walked back up the stairs to unpack in our new dorm and after another hour, we finally got to the Thai food hunt.

The street food and environment in Bangkok is super interesting. The smell from the airport that I noticed initially, that was certainly worse. However, the food all looked delicious. The bootleg movies all seemed legit to a percentage quality (" is this 80 percent or 90 ?") and the massage parlors full of half dressed women or half dressed women who used to be men-- those were very real. Not just Hollywood folklore, that shit was real as fuck.  Yelling "sawatdee kaaaaaaaaa" as you walk by. It was a lot to take in.  

After about the second day, I realized I was ridiculously sick. What I thought was random allergies was quickly turning into a bed-ridden bacterial infection of some wicked Thai origin. It was bad. I was coughing shit up and breaking out in a plague rash, clearly brought on by the Bangkok sewage-car-exhaust air. It definitely added that extra umph to the food. I stayed in the hostel for those next couple days, to recoup and try to breathe. But I was in Thailand for the first time, trying to see things outside of the concrete walls and ceiling of my room. Half dead or not, I was going to put on my tourist pants and go see shit. We decided to go check out a river boat tour that took us to a touristy temple. It was interestingly disappointing because the monks had Samsung Galaxies and there was people in costumes taking pictures with people for money and 100,000 other people looking at everything else I wanted to look at. It felt sacrilegious and lame.

I woke up the next morning and saw my infection wasn't fixing itself so I made the choice to

do the only sensible thing a sick westerner would do and took myself to the hospital. Because that made sense. Bangkoks pretty western. I was sure this was a good choice. I found a tuk tuk… scratch that, the tuk tuk found ME and he convinced me to go to the Bangkok Christian Hospital. It might have seemed like it would be comforting to my overt Americanism, with my flip flops and my head phones and lack of skin color-- but it wasn't. God and me got some beef, so if at any point there was going to be a bible involved, I was leaving.

I got to the hospital after being dropped at the tuk tuks sponsor . Apparently, tuk tuk drivers get gas money from business owners for redirecting tourists to their tailor shops. The shop will tell you that you have to buy something; a shirt or a tie. But the tuk tuk gets a stamp on his card regardless. It's a win win; go act like you know about cloth for 3 minutes, find a way to say "oh I'm not buying anything" and then get a 100 baht ride down to 20 and this guy gets some gas tomorrow. Whatever. I didn't care. I knew I'd have to pay a couple thousand Baht for my hospital visit so saved money was good money. 

The Bangkok Christian Hospital is an ant farm. I swear. It's just people rushing around and phones ringing and the constant flow of sickly Thais cover their faces going in and out of the waiting rooms. It was a little over whelming. I approached the reception desk and tried my hardest to describe what was happening. The lady handed me a slip of paper work to fill out and promptly sent me up to the fourth floor to see  a dermatologist. After an hour in a hallway watching televised Muay Thai, the doctor told me I had rosacea , which was super inaccurate. Then he sent me down to the first floor to see a lady who told me I need 5 medications-- who sent me to a pharmacy across the hall and back outside. $65 and an hour and a half later , I was out the door and back at my hostel.

After the whole ordeal, every little bit of what they gave me made me worse. Way worse. That shit made me drowsy with a sour taste on my teeth and I had horrifyingly vivid dreams of my dog being shot in front of me. It was fucking uncool.   

I decided to take the meds hoping they would have some miraculous, super-duper Asian healing power. Like a medical Pokeball and went about my time. Taylor and Jared, I noticed, had a knack for partying most nights which left me sick and lame in the hostel room. There was wifi, which was nice, so I just popped looney pills and watched bits and pieces of streamed movies between buffering on a shitty connection. Can't say it was fun, but being sick just isn't… 

In summary, I will say this about Bangkok: if you like big-sprawl cities, have an iron stomach and a impervious immune system-- this place will probably float your boat. It has food everywhere, people everywhere, anything western and American and backwards like steak restaurants and Subway next to massage parlor and trannys . However, if that's not your cup of tea, I would recommend a very short stay. It's filled with tourists, 7-11s, heckling little women who insist on you watching a Ping pong show at Pink Pussies down Khao San Road, men who follow you with literal sex menus-- promising "bang-bang" and "happy ending" and "something-something". Patience and tolerance is a key here, or else you'll find yourself exploring on you own one day, thinking about life and it's beauties and how you're half way across the world, all the while getting bombarded with relentless sales men for sex, tuk tuk rides, and more sex. They will follow you. They will follow you for a while. And no amount of no-thank-you's gets them to stop.  Neither will "fuck off" or any sort of vulgarity. Despite being gratifying, it still doesn’t shake the fly-to-shit mentality these sales men employ here.

On top of that all, the fucking smell is not okay. I picture that's how the mens rooms in hell smells. But seeing as their sewers are out in the streets, along with stray animals and human shit-- literally, one night, Taylor and I went for a walk and he had to tell me to watch out for a dead rat, followed by a cockroach and last was human poop. With all this going on, the aroma unfortunately makes total sense. 

On a Tim scale of "places to see", I give Bangkok a 6.6 for originality. The loss of points is for the other shit. All the other shit. Blah.

First Step: Bangkok Pt.2

While watching our Toyota hatchback cab twist between other Toyotas and mopeds and large, outlandish billboards exclaiming "experts!" with alluring gestures that made me uncomfortably confused to be looking at a Pepsi ad, I realized my driver had no clue where we were going. He kept saying, 

 "Silom? Ah Silom yes… yes." To which I would reply,  

"No, Lub D Silom. Lub D." This went on for a good 10 minutes before he agreed to drop me off at the one hotel he knew of in Silom. Or at least the only one I could communicate with him to drop me off at. I'm not too sure how it went down really; we were speeding around concrete dividers and women driving motorbikes with babies loosely strapped to their chest and the billboards. Those fucking billboards. With the over stimulus of urban Asian culture mixed with not knowing a lick of Thai,  I figured as long as we were both saying the word "Silom", I'd be okay at whatever hotel it was. Especially if there was A/C. Perfect rationale.

  

The driver pulled up to a Holiday Inn, stopped the car and said, 

 "Here, here."  

Holiday Inn… I gave the building and driver a double take. I had to weigh out trying to tell him that I knew this was the wrong place versus just grabbing my back pack and saying whatever. It seemed a little inevitable so eventually I sided with the latter.  Partly to humor myself but mostly so I didnt bother the driver any more. That outfit alone would completely ruin my day, everyday, if it was necessary for the job. Especially those pants; that couldn't not be hot as fuck.  

After convincing the staff to allow me on the internet without having a room, I tried  to text Jared and Taylor. I didn't buy an international SIM card or data plan or anything before I left; that was far too expensive and complicated to even consider. This was my first attempt at communicating with limited resources and all I had was a phone on Airplane mode with  a wi-fi enabled messaging app, Viber. To my luck, neither of them were online, but Taylor left me a message including a room number which was helpful. If only I knew where the fuck this hostel was, I would be copasetic. I decided to try to ask the receptionists. We exchanged weird looks and hand gestures until I pronounced the words "Lub D" correct (it took a few times). A manager came over, smiled and told me that Lub D was down the street a ways and to the left. 

I was super grateful for the confident directions and wasted no time to start walking. My backpack, map, and sneakers stood out like any other tourist so as expected, I got asked numerous times where I was going. Each person would nod and send me in the same direction; down the street and to the left. The redundancy didn't bother me much because it was always followed with a smile and a bow.  I hadn't picked up on the warm kindness of Thai's yet, paired with their explicit want to help and direct, even if they didn't have an honest clue what or where I was talking about. They just didn't want to be disagreeable or seem like they couldn't help.

I made it to Lub D and found it surprisingly homey. It was minimal, with a circular bar top that half met the outside and the air conditioned lobby between glass sliding doors. When I walked in,  I noticed a strange, gigantic Styrofoam-clay elephant rear, with a face hole where you'd expect it to be and a stepping stair. I certainly didn't figure out its purpose until I watched people stick their head through and take selfies. For all I knew, it was just the back of an elephant with a blown out ass. And I didn't think much of it. It was pretty silly.   

Lub D had 4 floors with wooden stairs. Concrete walls, steel banisters; it felt like Asian summer camp . There was a girls and boys locker room on each floor and the dorms had ply wood doors with electronic key card locks. On the middle floor, there was a theater room. An air conditioned, cozy little theater room-- filled with bean bag beds, a 40 inch LCD and surround sound. It was far more than I had expected from a hostel that cost $8 a night. All of it. I was impressed.

I searched the floors for the room number Taylor had left me with, 3013. After noticing that all the dorms had only double digits, I contemplated collapsing on top of my bag, falling asleep and just saying fuck it. I dragged myself back down to the third floor and noticed a guy coming up the stairs. Exhausted, I leaned against the wall to get out of his way and then we made eye contact. It was Taylor. It was fucking Taylor. He put his phone down, let out a big sigh and tackled me. It was comforting to see him, even with the bear hug; it just felt good to feel like I arrived. I felt accomplished and proud of myself already. Like I had just traveled 7000 miles and found a needle in a haystack, because I had. It may have taken a little more effort than just a taxi ride but that’s probably normal. Especially without a phone, gps or any technological intervention at all.   I obviously hadn't the slightest idea of what I got myself into but for now, I knew I was at the mythical Lub D Silom. 

Easy is a dumb expectation to have in a new country. Having any expectation in a foreign world is fundamentally just dumb. To think I had a clue of what to pack based on Google; to think I had any idea of what I was going to encounter, with culture and lack of communication and Baht.  The biggest lesson I encountered in the first 48 hours was to dissolve even the most basic of expectations. Letting go and abandoning includes this. It includes releasing yourself like a caged bird and extending your wings for the first time without knowing where the wind will take you, or where you'll end up but trusting that no matter where the destination is,

Its exactly where you're supposed to be.   

I've already had some amazing friends donate to my travel in the past week. Its humbling to see the support I have back home. To see that people believe in me and my writing and my experience enough to put money into bus tickets, food and lodge for me. I've already raised an extra week out here and have no expectations on raising any more but its worth a shot.

First Step: Bangkok Pt. 1

After we left the funeral, every thing was pretty numb. Paralyzed emotion. I was stuck inside of phone calls I couldn't un-answer and moments that replayed like bad TBS shows in the morning that I try to forget existed until forcing myself back to sleep. I hate "All In The Family". I hated that day even more.

Some of us were going back to work while others were going back to family Christmas'. Or at least be present there. Try to be. There wasn't really a going-back-to-any-thing-the-same at that point. We lost a brother. We lost a brother during the holidays. That wasn’t just tragic, it was poetically unfair. And even though the word "unfair" shouldn't exist in 26 year olds vocabulary, it doesn't bother me to call bull shit on that entire situation. The universe was wrong for that. The whole thing.

However, the silver lining was each other. The surviving close 12 of us who knew the inside jokes, the favorite sayings and brotherhood; we reunited under loss. Came together like family and embraced one another. Held each other through knee shattering weeps and laughed at anecdotes over dinner.  It was trampolines of valleys and peaks and by the time I headed back to Kalamazoo, my heart was heavy and tired. I needed a bed. I needed a hug. But mostly, I needed to leave…    

The rest of the beginning of my Story is fairly easy to brush through. The tough stuff's been wrote. So because I don’t have the patience to describe these next events in entirety; their affect and how I dealt with them and so on, I'll just do bullet points to save time and hair pulling out. The headaches and such. I…

• Started up my winter semester.
• Flew to LA with Taylor to bring back Jared.
• Drove back during the "snow-pocolpyse", playing amateur weather man and finding snow in Texas.
• Wished Taylor and Jared luck as they left for Australia.
• Met some beautiful poets who inspired me to write again.
• Had my girlfriend leave the country with her ex under the guise she left with her room mate.
• Broke up with said girlfriend.
• Helped teach through local non profits in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.
• Performed.
• Booked my ticket.
• Passed my classes.
• Sold my car.

Most of that is self explanatory. I encountered a lot of good growth opportunities mixed in with poetry and shitty women. That’s an honest summarization of my adult life, actually. The only difference was this time, I had a ticket to Thailand and very few fucks to give towards anything else.  I  was visually antsy to get away. It was a fact. I was ready.

The week before I flew out was long and beautiful. It was filled with Put Up Or Shut Up and The Drunken Retort; with mad love and appreciation at both and in general. From friends and family and every one. There was no shortage of dinners or dog cuddle sessions. It was just good. I kept telling myself that I didn't need much time to pack so it didn't matter putting it off; I was just bringing one bag. I knew by simple Google searches and reasoning what all was necessary to bring. After reading, "If you think you're packing too much, you probably are" enough times, it became second nature to think light. I needed …

• A few pairs of shorts.
• A few shirts.
• Boxers.
• Socks.
• My toothbrush.
• Some ointments and creams the internet scared me into bringing.
• A hat, of course.
• My computer.
• 2 rechargeable batteries.
• A pair of shoes.
• My passport…

And a few other littler things. I basically had my mind set thinking that as long as I didn't forget power cords, I would be completely prepared.

For no reason at all.

Like I had traveled outside of the country before and knew exactly what to bring and when to pack and how. Somewhere along the line of never-leaving-the-United-States, I convinced myself I was a professional and continued on with shenanigans and eating ice cream with poets and balloons until the very last day.

My flight left late Tuesday from O'hare, so my only focus was waking up early, packing, and taking myself to the train station. I hadn't taken the train from Kalamazoo to Chicago before. I normally would catch rides or drive myself. But part of this excursion was minimalizing , budgeting and getting to some foot work. Amtrak was the least of my worries, anyway. I was more interested in my connecting flight in Abu Dhabi. Or the encompassing 24 hours on a plane. Or if there was going to be any infant children sitting near me because, so help me God, if there was… I've been known to get vulgar when I'm woken up annoyingly and might potentially tell a Middle Eastern woman's child to "shut the fuck up". Dangerous things can happen at high altitudes in closed spaces. I will not hold back.

I woke up way later than I should have, blowing my nose and coughing. It was great timing for allergies and being late. I needed to be at the train station by 2 and it was already 11. I accordingly also didn't have one thing packed. I set myself up for rushing because it was clearly the smartest thing to do. You can Google it. However, after I got my hair cut, dropped my dog off, ate while packing and then sped downtown, I made it out the door fearing I had only forgot a few things. Nothing important, I knew that much.  I triple checked that I had my passport and my debit card and my head phones. The rest was now irrelevant and was subsequently chalked to the game of great planning.

From that point, a bunch of traveling ensued. There was a train, subway, plane repetition for 12 hours before I eventually made it onto my destination flight to Bangkok. As I had hoped for, there was a god damn baby that I did tell to "shut the fuck up", but in my defense-- the kid woke me up and I sorta mumbled through a stretch at her. Like a whisper almost. It was reflex. I couldn’t help it… Fuck that kid. Don’t judge me.

I flew into Bangkok and followed the Thai directions with pictures of taxi cabs. Customs was a blank-stare at my passport under a sign saying "International" and a stamping. I didn't get the feeling safety really mattered here, which was super comforting. I made my way to the exit and noticed cab drivers waiting in line for people to get paired up with like a speed date. It was incredibly hot-- upwards 90 degrees, and these fucking guys were wearing black pants and collared shirts. Just all normal and fine with it. But I didn’t worry about the process too much; I just wanted to finish my cigarette, go eat and make up for the sleep that baby aggressively took from me. Before any of that could happen though, I had to figure out my way to "Lub D Silom", where ever that was, through a language barrier. I began asking women at ticket stations about "Lub D Silom", to which I received several pointed fingers in different directions and eventually a driver. I flicked my cigarette, took a deep breath and cringed.  The weather was expectedly humid, but the smell of Bangkok… the smell was something not even Chicago could prepare me for. Or a compost pile. Or actually, I can't even think of anything remotely close to relatable to that smell. That was my first reaction of Thailand -- "It is gorgeous out but… what … the fuck… is that?". I instantly felt the embrace of rotting sewage wrap around my teeth.  With every inhale brought a worse taste in the back of my throat. It seemed the reality of foreign soil was in the air even. I could feel it soaking into my stomach, lungs and pores -- quickly reassuring me that this--

This shit isn't Kansas anymore.

With my American cigarettes, back pack and only route of direction being "Lub D Silom", I found a cab willing to take me for 400 baht. It was a fair price, I thought. Or at least from what Taylor told me. I honestly just didn’t care at that point. My concept of what a baht was or how it converted was limited so I just focused my energy on getting where I needed to go, cost aside. The driver opened my door, got in the right side of the car and shot the car onto the highway at crazy intense speeds.

I was here, I thought. That wasn't as hard as I expected… 

Preface

When I first started to think about how to describe how my journeys been going in detail, a visceral gloating feeling rose in my stomach. Like I shouldn't even write this because, as every one knows and keeps telling me and I keep telling my self, this is probably the most beautiful experience a young 20-something-year-old can decide to do. To buy a one way ticket to South East Asia with a backpack and myself and go. Even though no one likes a show off, I'm going to fucking show off. This trip has been too important to not document. So instead of shying away from that Story, that onion wrapped excursion where 3 friends meet 7,000 miles away from anything that feels remotely "normal" -- I'm just going to tell it. In entirety. Or loose entirety for creative right,

For the sake of writing, for sake of Story. For the sake of us.

Talking about privilege is sort of easy for me. Its been something I've understood as "normal" or at least "aimed towards" most of my life. Even in the low moments, I've had abundances. Of friendship, of food, of transportation. Of basically first world shit. I mean sure, I've lost some things along the way, like a mother and some brain cells and quite a lot of self esteem. But generally, I've had a very gifted life. There's been a harsh truth here and there but most of my hardships have ignited by my own actions while my family, support system and country have always been there to extinguish me. When I don’t have money for rent, my dad lets me live with him. When I don't have money for food, my friends can cover me-- at restaurants, with fresh food. When I don't have clean water, money for groceries, money for school-- I always have something, somewhere to fall back on. The education system, Bridge cards, a fluorinated water supply which, true as it may be, doesn't sound the safest… it is still better than what I had read about. Better than the last story on the 5 o'clock news about tainted drinking water in the third world and death tolls. With our strong teeth and shrunken pineal glands, we still have the privilege to wake up without uncontrollable discharges and stomach leeches. By standard, we have basic sanitation. And that is so basic that--

A lot of days, its easy to be blind to. Blind to all of that. The waking up to amenities and privileges that don't exist everywhere. The swipe cards for government assistance. Laws. The saftey nets that might be unraveling but still catch us when we grab like kids for their parents, America, in Michigan even--depleted of morale and jobs-- life still doesn't miss hospitable for the majority. And as I type these words, this very moment, in the middle of Laos, with bugs on my screen and a long brown hair in my bed, trying to battle off dreaded traveler sickness and heat-- I feel embarrassed. Still. Like some part of me still doesn't want to admit any of that and instead lie and claim to have always been really well cultured, humble and green. I, myself, want to scrutinize that dumb world view and unfortunately, I wore that blind fold. I put it on daily. I would take moments to peek out and appreciate or watch but having to remind myself that I'm blessed didn't always happen. Its oxymoronic in a way. A backwards proverb. There shouldn't have to be a mental note to remind or reflect. It shouldn't take effort to look at. I wanted it shoved in front of me. Pushed like a deer in front semi truck realities that might hurt-- might cripple me at the digestive system and give me E. Coli. But on a certain level, as a privileged American, I felt this was my duty. To take that first real step outside of my self and understand scope. How my microcosm is just that. How my privileges are just that. How life exists outside of comfort. Or at least mine, any way.


They say the first step to breaking a vice is by admitting you have one. Among many other things, my most shitty vice was blind perspective. It was sheltered truths from drug riddles and boredom in city that held too much of me there. 24 years. The only option left was utter abandonment. To the unknown with a backpack and some Klonipin. If not for anything else but to search and experience. To find. And mostly,

To be. To just fucking be.