"Jack talked Thai real well"

Morning! Bangkok! And I am, most definitely, in love with this place. Allow me to explain...

My plane touched down in the early evening and I hopped a bus to Khao San in the Banglamphu district. Famished, I spotted a falafel stand just as I got off the bus; the patties were made, and fried, on the spot and they put Tempe's Phoenicia Cafe to shame (and that's no easy feat). What more could a fellow ask for?

I knew that I could, very easily, find a cheap place to stay but I was more than pleased to to find myself in an atmosphere of general friendliness, loud music, legions of backpackers, booze flowing like wine, prostitutes, food, and general debauchery. It's like a Thai French Quarter (the New Orleans district, not the band).

I hadn't had a conversation with anyone in four or five days, so I was very happy to make friends with another lone traveler, Denny from England, just as I was finishing my last bite of falafel. I checked into a guesthouse, dropped off my bags, got a drink, and proceeded to soak up the madness that is Khao San - people watching for the most part, as opposed to joining in. I also discovered that my room has a balcony overlooking the street! A rager, indeed!

Khao San is certainly catering to young, western travelers like myself, but it has a sense of charm that is unmatched by other tourist traps. (Ever heard a Thai bar band playing covers of "Johnny B Good," "Losing My Religion" and Santana's "Smooth"?)

When bedtime rolled around, I discovered why my guesthouse is so cheap (besides the lack of A/C and the janky shared bathrooms); it shares a wall with a club that proceeded to bump New Order remixes until late into the evening, which would have been a problem were it not for Denny's supply of extra earplugs.

I was able to get four hours of rest before I awoke, wide eyed and ready to go. After a nice, cold shower, I set out to see what I could find. The first thing I discovered was real Thai iced tea. Holy shit.

Banglamphu is a charming neighborhood; temples, monastaries and military forts are scattered amongst the newer buildings, a nice contrast from the jackhammered way that Hong Kong is laid out. But the greatest asset, so far as I've seen, are the people. Flashing a little smile gets a bigger one in return... in crossing a busy street, a man inferred that I was hesitating because of the reversed lanes, so he held my shoulder and let me know when it was safe to go. Another man stopped me in my tracks, all grins, impressed that I was wearing pants when all the bros are wearing culturally-inappropriate shorts. We talked for a few minutes about where I was from, where I was going, and he gave me a crash course on some basic Thai phrases, and gave me some suggestions of places to visit.

Now I'm at an internet cafe, typing away. I'm going to stay in Bangkok for a day or two, and then hop a plane to the rural (and non-touristy) areas of northern Thailand. Wirless internet isn't the norm here, so I might not have the time to upload pictures for a few days. I should mention that picture-taking by tourists isn't as appropriate as it is in Hong Kong, but I'll see what I can get.

L8er, sk8erzzz.

See for yourself!

Hellz yeah! Picture upload successful!

Before we get to that, I have to tell you about the delicious drink that I'm enjoying... Just when I thought that the day couldn't get any better, a genius on the side of the road starts cracking open fresh coconuts, blending the milk with ice and tossing in fresh boba. Brilliant fatty goodness!

Ok, ok. Onto the pictures. Had I been able to upload them as they were taken, I would have presented them to you in chronological order, walking you through my days. However, since we're playing a game of catch-up, I'm just going to start shooting and let God sort 'em out.

First, this is Teta. She took me to the airport. She is very nice.




Section 1, Hong Kong views from the street...


















Section 2, Man Ho! Apparently, Hong Kong has a lousy track record for the preservation of historical sites. One of the few that has been preserved is the Man Ho Temple, built in the 18th century, now surrounded by high rise apartments and commercial spaces. It serves to worship two gods, Man Cheung and Kwan Yu, the gods of literature and war, respectively.














Section 3, fine art! Since I'm doing Hong Kong on the cheap, the art that I've seen is on the street, not in museums...










Section 4, epic views. The first three are taken from atop Victoria Peak, the fourth is taken from the 43rd floor of the China Bank building, and the last is taken from Kowloon, across the bay.












Section 5, random shit.




















Whew! I'm glad to be caught up. It's my last night in Hong Kong, not quite sure what to do. The nightlife here seems exciting but I feel like a total loser going into busy places alone. There are surprisingly few young tourists so my opportunities for fleeting friends are slim to none.

No worries, though! I'm off to Thailand tomorrow for five or six days before I arrive in India for two months. I'm not sure what kind of access I'll have to the internet while I'm in Thailand, so it might be a few days before my next blog. Thanks for reading.

xoxo

Look around

Well, I took a lot of pictures today. I bought a new memory stick adapter card and was very excited to write this blog and upload the pictures to share with you. Yeah, you can probably guess where this is going. Lo and behold, it's not the right size, AGAIN! I'm going to try my luck with a USB cable, so we'll see how that goes.

I'm so sorry. I'm a bad person, and an even worse blogger.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words... but instead of boring you with 15,000 words in lieu of the pictures that I would have posted, I'll just tell you, in brief, that I explored the city today. This place is big, tall, screaming, modern, and full of juxtapositions. Aspects of it are as western as beer pong and cargo shorts. Apparently, this is the trend in China's “special economic zones” where capitalism is allowed to run rampant. (Of course, I've never been here before, so what the hell do I know?) The influence from 150 years of English rule is, still, very apparent... there's King's Road, Queen's Road, St John's Cathedral, and a tea museum located in an old colonial building. When it's safe to use the crosswalks, the Casio mandolin sound blares from tiny speakers.

I slept hard for almost ten hours last night, during which I had no less than two really intense dreams. One of the dreams found me at a friend's house in Tempe with tons of Tempeople. (It was James Fella's house, for those of you that know him.) The dream became lucid and I was running around like a moron, telling everyone that I wasn't really in Tempe, but that I was asleep and dreaming in Hong Kong.

Now I'm just rambling, talking about stupid dreams. Riveting, I'm sure.

I promise that this will get a lot more interesting when I can upload a damn picture or two.

As for now, I'm going to check out the nightlife as I am, apparently, staying in a trendy part of town.

Love you.

Time-travel

Touchdown in Hong Kong after a very, very long "day." Why put "day" in quotation marks, you ask? Because, at this point, several compounding factors have terribly skewed my concept of what a "day" actually is. I have a habit of staying up all night on the eve of a long trip, so I got one hour of sleep before Teta took me to the airport on Wednesday morning. I connected in San Francisco, my 13.5 hour flight left the Bay at 1:30PM and arrived in Hong Kong at 6:30PM the next calendar day. (That would be today, for me... tomorrow, for you.)

Such a source of bewilderment, that darned International Date Line. A whole calendar day, gone! Poof! Forever! Never to be had again! I feel robbed. I demand a credit-day to redeem at a time of my choosing.

The poor girl sitting next to me on the flight, germ face-mask and all... every time I coughed she would recoil in horror in an attempt to avoid contracting any diseases that I might be carrying.

Sorry. I digress.

So, I get into Hong Kong without a plan of attack... you know, no reservations or anything. I hopped on a bus to get into the city and realized that maybe, just maybe, it would have been advantageous to make plans for sleeping accommodations. I exited the bus at a random stop after seeing the name of a hostel that I recognized from my Lonely Planet guide book only to discover that this particular establishment was not a hostel at all, but a horse-betting business. At that point, I'm left to wander a random area of Hong Kong with no earthly idea where I am or where I should go. After wandering around in the rain for three quarters of an hour (yes, it was raining), I happened upon a train station. Phew!

I got my act together, looked through my guide book, found an area of town with a few cheap guesthouses, jumped on the train, found one of the said guesthouses, checked in, and that brings us to the present.

Oh, yeah. I snapped a couple of pictures with my camera, but I bungled that one, too. Instead of taking the USB cable to transfer pictures to my computer, I took the memory-stick-adapter-thingee (hooray for saving space!) only to realize that it doesn't fit my new computer. So until I buy the correct apparatus, I'm limited to my webcam. So, here are two pictures depicting my little room and the Hong Kong hundred-dollar-bill, which is quite epic when compared to the mundane pictures of dead white dudes on US dollars. Why settle for a lowly human when you can have a fierce-ass lion?