Bangkok, Thailand – February 14, 2000
I went out for my breakfast in the morning and immediately ran into the Swiss fellow from the group. He was so cheerful that I wanted to scream. A Thai woman laughed at my black humor after the fellow walked away and my eyes involuntarily rolled.
Wendy escorted us to Banglamphu Pier, where a longboat picked up our group and took us on a “khlong” tour through Thonburi. I had been through several khlongs lately but hadn’t been across the river to Thonburi, the old capital of Bangkok. The houses lining the canals were on stilts, in the Thai tradition, but they were a good deal more upscale than the houses I’d been seeing along the transport canals.
We were dropped off at Wat Po, a magnificent, large Buddhist temple complex – the royal one, in fact. The primary sight there is the gold-inlaid reclining Buddha. There are four common poses for the Buddha – the reclining Buddha is the Buddha at the moment of his ascent into nirvana. They call it reclining, I call it dead. Whatever.
A local guide gave us a tour for an hour and then dropped us at the Wat Po massage school. For 120 baht, or $3.24, I could get a half-hour Thai massage. Skeptical, I inquired with my co-travelers.
Four of them had gotten the Wat Po massage yesterday. They were the British couple, their daughter Anne and her friend Rebecca. The couple and Anne had liked it but Rebecca had not. They all told me that it was pressure point stuff, not gooey rubbing your muscles. And you did it fully clothed. None of the other tourists in our group were interested.
But when in Thailand…
I forked over my $3.24 and a Thai woman took me to a cot in between two others. Each person was attended by their own “masseuse.”
The masseuse proceeded to poke me all over. She’d choose a pressure point and then using the full weight of her body, she’s press it and rub.
Actually, it felt pretty good. She cracked everything that would crack and squashed my limbs around in ways that I didn’t know they would squash. She used her feet to hold my legs in place and used her hands to massage. She had me turn over and crawled around on my back, even using the weight of her body to drag me up and backwards. It costs me $75 to have my chiropractor crack my back and neck but it is less disconcerting when she does it because she uses a table, not the full weight of her own body and the laws of physics.
I felt pretty good afterwards. When you get your neck and back cracked, it releases some kind of endorphin rush. I walked on air towards the Wat Po exit.
Then I saw a sign, “fortune tellers.”
What the hell.
I chose a little old Thai man with a thin, long moustache and John Lennon spectacles. He had an interpreter along to explain to me my future in English.
I wrote my birthdate on a pad of paper – April 22, 1966.
The man didn’t look at me. He just looked at little book in front of him and then he proceeded to furiously scrawl away, creating pages and pages of numbers and charts.
He then proceeded to examine my palm thoroughly, using a magnifying glass.
Most of it was good news: I am going to be famous in my own country (as what? He wasn’t sure). Money is not a problem for me and I have invested well in property. I am going to be so comfortable that I won’t have to work past 50. I will have four men in my life and will start up with one when I’m 34. I must choose wisely and will marry one of them when I’m 36. He warned me not to marry the slim, handsome white fellow. Instead, I should opt for either the short, stocky dark one or the tall, slim not-so-handsome white one or the short, fat one. If I don’t “use birth control,” I’ll have two babies. That’s up to me, apparently.
He said that I was born on a Friday in the year of the Horse (perhaps my mom can confirm the Friday part). My destiny is to be happy, wealthy, famous, powerful and to live into my 80′s.
According to my palm, I like to travel and am successful in work. Good communicator, good imagination, and am a good singer(??).
The charts documented my progress through the years. He told me that from 30-33, I was unhappy and working too much, but that at 34 I was going to have a banner year, get rich, have a job change and meet the love(s) of my life.
I better get ready. And I better be careful when I’m 43 because apparently I’m going to have a car accident that year.
I thanked the man for the nice fortune and he threw in a freebie – I’m a “nice lady.”
My next excursion was to a bank to turn all of my traveler’s checks and baht into US dollars for Vietnam. It gets very difficult to get currency after Bangkok, and US dollars really are the currency of the world. Damn lucky for me, I figure.
I had one more stop to make before heading to the group meeting point and onto the overnight train for Northern Thailand – McDonald’s. I’d been meaning to
try their “hot pineapple pie” for days and was cutting it close!! The pie was tasty, but without the cinnamon flavor, like in the apple pie, it is too sweet for me. I hope to have an opportunity to try the others – taro flavor and corn pie – before I leave Southeast Asia.
Back at the hotel, Wendy loaded us all into taxis and sent us to the train station. She lingered behind, waiting to receive our passports, which had been at the Laotian embassy all day getting visas. She met us in front of Dunkin Donuts at the station, alone and without Kate the trainee, but at least she had our passports.
“What happened to Kate?” I asked Wendy.
“She resigned this morning! She wanted to quit because she was tired and didn’t want to do a bad trip.”
Well, then there’s one less of us. That’s 13 – Wendy and twelve of us.
Our overnight train was a sleeper train. Initially, we all had seats but at around 9pm the seats converted into bunks. One of our other passengers horrified me (and doubtless others) by atttempting four times (!) to get the female train attendant into his bunk. How embarrassing.
