Thailand: Bangkok Bum

So I've been here in Bangkok now since Sunday night and have basically done a whole lot of nothing...or at least, that's what it feels like.

An inordinate amount of my time here thus far has been spent in this internet center, catching up on old e-mails, uploading photos and chatting with various folks when they come on MSN Messenger. Somebody come kick my butt, please.

The positive side of this sitting in this internet center (which is located downstairs in the hostel where I am staying) is that I've become friends with Reang, the woman who runs the center (as well as does travel agent stuff)...or rather, she was kind enough to add me to her circle of friends which includes a constantly shifting set of random travelers like me who pass through her office.

Through Reang, I've met an interesting set of folks - a chiropractor from the Kyoto area down here studying Thai massage; a young film-maker who is putting together a documentary on the terrible conflict in southern Thailand; a ski instructor from Colorado and then of course a number of Reang's friends from her university days whom I met last night when I was unfortunately a bit too "happy" off of the spirits they kept pouring for me to really keep track of who was who. I felt kind of bad because Reang and her other Thai friends wouldn't allow us to pay for anything, though we watched them dishing out quite a bit of money for drinks at the club last night.

**Khao San: Trust in Others, But Watch Your Back**

Here near the traveler's ghetto of the infamous Khao San Road, you can barely walk a few feet without a taxi driver or tuk tuk driver or somebody coming up and saying "My friend, my friend, where you going? Where you from?" as they attempt to hook you and sell some service or product to you at inflated "farang" (foreigner) prices. It is easy to get irritated and maybe even angry (especially if you've already gone through being scammed out of some dough), but I figure that these folks are just trying to make a living. As long as you know that somebody is trying to scam or sell you something, it doesn't hurt to reciprocate "friendliness" in kind with a proper greeting and if you're not in a hurry, a bit of conversation. Some of these local "entrepeneurs" I find myself passing on a regular basis and the "My friend. My friend"s have been replaced by pleasant greetings and well wishes for the day.

**Travel Buddies and a Night at Muay Thai Matches**

When you are traveling alone on the backpacking circuit, you are constantly meeting up with new people. Sometimes, if you find you are headed in the same direction and hit it off reasonably well, you become temporary travel partners. For instance, in KK I became travel partners with an older Japanese woman I met in Kota Kinabalu (KK) who ended up traveling with me to climb Mt. Kinabalu, then onwards to the Orang-utan Rehabilitation Center in Sepilok, out to Uncle Tan's jungle camp on the Kinabatangan River and finally back to KK where we parted ways.

On the plane ride from Kota Kinabalu to Bangkok, I ended up making friends with a guy from England, Ed, who was also visiting Thailand for the first time. We both quickly got the sense that the other could be trusted (must have been the mixed Asian heritage thing we both had going) and agreed to go in together with two other folks from the plane ride on a cab from the airport to the Khao San Area and to split the cost on a twin room in a hostel.

On our first full day in Bangkok, Ed proposed we go out and check out the nearby Grand Imperial Palace and Wat Pho (which houses the famous reclining Buddha). Instead, I ended up sending Ed off on his own as spent the day sleeping off exhaustion I had accumulated in Borneo.

Our joint sight-seeing ventures ended up being limited to a trip out to Lumpinee Stadium for a night of Muay Thai kickboxing matches. I've been looking forward to seeing Muay Thai live ever since watching that off-the-hook crazy action movie Ong-Bak. Getting in turned out to be rather expensive --- there was a special foreigner price that was four times the rate for locals (1000bb (cheapest seats) as opposed to 250bb...for perspective, I am paying 150bb a night for my single room right now and an average meal costs about 35 to 50bb; US$1 is roughly 40bb) -- but Ed and I reasoned that we may not get the chance to do this again.

We sat in the cheap seats which turned out to be cool. We were close enough to the ring that we could still hear the smack of flesh hitting flesh quite clearly and see sweat and spittle flying when blows connected. The cheapseats were also where all the hardcore local regulars were, standing and shouting and waving to arrange bets with each other...and man were they into the action. Each solid blow that connected (especially knees) were accompanied by collective "Oooo!"s (as in "Oooo! That's gotta hurt!") from everyone in the stands.

There were all in all 10 matches with the main event being a match with the 135 division champion defending his belt. The speed, grace and above all, resilience of the fighters was incredible. I'm pretty sure that if any of their kicks, punches, knees or elbows were to land on me, I would be on my back foaming at the mouth and in convulsions. Actually, there were a couple of knockouts in the night. Both of them happened so quickly, I didn't actually see what blows led to them, but I did see the results. Hearing that crack and watching a man suddenly crumple to the ground a slickened limp bundle of meat wasn't quite my cup of tea.

**Japanese Eeyore**

To reach Lumpinee, Ed and I hopped on the number 47 bus and grabbed seats towards the back. I ended up sitting next to a man and woman visiting from Japan. I struck up a conversation with the two of them and figured out that they were also temporary travel buddies. There was a brightness in the woman's eyes and the way that she smiled that told me she was living life with joy and an eagerness to know the world. Her partner, on the other hand, was an odd contrast...dark, closed and pessimistic. At first I figured it was because maybe he thought I was out to con them or something. But after conversing with them for awhile, I figured out it was probably just the way he was. He was at the tail-end of backpacking through SE Asia and seemed gloomy about prospects for himself upon returning to Japan.
"Backpacking is all fine and good while you're doing it, but then you have to return to the harshness of reality," he said gravely as I inquired about his travels.
"Surely it won't be that bad. You'll find something," I offered.
"Maybe things work out for you Americans and Europeans, but we Japanese can't just go running off and doing things like this. We ruin all our prospects for the future," he responded. Indeed, I agree that it is probably significantly more difficult for people in Japan to "drop out" of society to wander the world and then slip back in. But this guy's pessimism made me wonder why in the heck he had come out on the road in the first place.

The inspiration for me to go on this backpacking journey actually came in part from a very close friend of mine who backpacked through SE Asia and India for about 9 months. He happens to be Japanese. When he quit his job, he set off to travel with no solid plans as to what "sensible" thing he would do on his return. And when he returned to Japan, there were many who worried (including myself) whether he would be to find anything in Japanese working society above hopping from one temp job to another. But he remained outwardly positive and just recently had a great job which will utilize his travel experiences almost drop into his lap.

I'd like to think that his example shows that if you follow your heart and stay positive, you will eventually run into a number of opportunities. From there, it is only a matter of noticing and seizing them. You can be comfortable and do what is "sensible." But if the "sensible" thing you are doing isn't in alignment with what your heart is telling you to do, then you are cutting yourself off from life presenting you with those opportunities that are both "sensible" and what you want to do.