I pre-landed in Bangkok at 5 AM. In the on-arrival visa line, a friendly attendant helped me skip the line and processed my visa faster. The airport was far out of the city and having decided that I would take public transport, I climbed into an about-to-crumble bus to go into the city. In the three-hour-long bus ride, as long as the flight from Bengaluru to Bangkok, a lady passenger helped to hold my bag and told me that I was beautiful as I managed to not-faint in the crowded aisle.
The bus crawled a kilometer in almost an hour. She kept buying dumplings for him from the street while I craved and my stomach growled. Tired, hungry, and lonely, I went down for food and ate a mediocre Pad Thai. Having grabbed a few cold water bottles from the fridge downstairs, I climbed back up again. Sudden rudeness and a hint of racism coupled with sleep deprivation and loneliness made me sleep for almost 5 hours.
I had ended my year-long relationship. I was going to South America after this southeast Asia trip. I had packed and parcelled and sold my settled life in Bangalore to do something against the wills and wits of everyone who mattered. I had decided to do all of this without leaving any string of stability attached.
I woke up and made myself leave the hotel room by 6 PM and roamed around eating grilled-chicken steak on bamboo sticks, Thai mango, and spicy minced-chicken with rice and mussels in the famous Khao-San road and its connecting streets. Colorful food, glass lamps, artifacts, bright flower-print clothes, tourists, and painters painting elephants flooded the streets and the road.
As I settled on a streetside restaurant for a beer, a Thai lady dressed in a traditional Thai attire approached me to sell a plastic frog that croaked when she caressed it with a stick. I ended up having a delicious dinner with another traveler from England. That was the best sweet chili fish I have had in my life. We hung out eating and roaming around. From the top of a streetside restaurant, we watched locals and tourists drunk on the popular Khao-San-proprietary alcohol buckets, as they danced, hugged, shopped, and gorged on delicious street food while still sipping from the plastic mini-buckets.
