What Do Travellers Do All Day?: #1 - From London to Thailand, Thank Goodness - London, England

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21 Feb 2002

I had grand plans of sending an introductory email about how excited I was about starting my RTW trip, about how everyone was sad to see me go (yeah-right) and how tragic leaving my crappy job was.

I wanted to talk about how the nostalgia of leaving London brought tears to my eyes, but truth be told, besides mild and very short-lived panic attacks – I had little time to think about it – by the time I started traveling it was all a part of history.

And not to mention that I witnessed a suicide in my second-to-last week in London. A 25-year-old Ozzie male decided to make it a day to remember by jumping off the top of the escalators on the London Underground. After I ran over to him (not believing my eyes), I called station staff and left the station in shock. I was only 1 of 2 people to witness it, in a station full of people (believe it or not) and still cannot fathom what he may have been thinking or what his family must now be feeling. In a part of London with the highest buildings, why he would jump there, I guess we'll never know.

So, I was glad to be leaving London after all.

I think it's only gradually dawning on me that I'm here in Thailand... duh! But I'm here now, and I've joined Skippy for a short-term contract. Skippy, as the name suggests. is a dirty Ozzie. That's not his real name, but seeing as he didn't sign up to be cover story on Hello magazine – we aptly renamed him.

When I first made plans to travel I was heading out on my own. All my friends were at different stages and so if I waited for someone to travel with – well it might realistically never happen, right? So I placed a few words in the smalls of a mainly UK-based travellers-abroad website called www.gumtree.com, saying how wonderful I was to travel with and that some lucky privileged person would be welcome to join me. That's when Skippy dropped me a line, and after 5 meetings – to check out his credentials, gauge his mental and emotional stability, personality compatibility and sense of humour – we decided to "commit" in an easy-to-terminate kind of way for the SE Asia leg of the trip, then when he got home we'd meander down separate paths.

Sheep in Bangkok?

Yes – there are sheep in Bangkok: they all go to Kao San Road wearing backpacks and loll around all day! And I've joined the ranks!

Actually it's easy to see why they do. This is a happening place. Sheeploads of young travellers out to drink the 6.5% alc. Chiang beer, risk their bowels on tasty Thai food and get toasty in the heat. To be honest I think it's the cheapest and fastest internet in the world that draws us here, hence the crammed email cafes every 2 meters. Really though, this is a great place, but the air pollution is so bad that I have to stop and "loll" to catch my breath like the rest of the crowd after every exhaustive 10 minutes.

When I landed I expected Bangkok to be more manic, more like Istanbul or Lagos, and it is, but with a more forgotten-about, washed-out second-world feel. It's your favourite t-shirt that's lost its colour but feels like home. I like it.

First off I met up with Skippy, who had left London one hour later and arrived four hours earlier. I felt like I had sleep-deprivation for a week with all the packing, moving and farewells – so I crashed. I began my evening with some beer and satay with Mark (Dutch), Skippy, Tom (Pom – that's Prisoner of Mother England – from Brighton), Mark (Pom – Birmingham) and his girlfriend Sarah (same). We continued in the same fashion till about 2am.

Did you know that the majority of commerce on the streets is illegal? Every few minutes we were all ushered indoors (true sheep-style), chairs whipped from under our arses. Tables magically disappear, and illegal food carts slam at your heels when vendors are tipped that the police are on their way. This obviously is half the charm about the place.

I spent this morning traipsing around the ornate Grande Palace with Skippy (my stranger/travel companion/dirty Ozzie) and Mark. I also had my first ride in a tuk-tuk

Today and after all I'd heard, I was about as nervous as I was for my first bungee jump when walking up to the tuk-tuk and climbing in. Our kamakazi driver offered a drive around the city for only 20 baht, and naturally at that price we gathered he would be stopping along the way at his mates' shops for the equivalent of Middle Eastern "baksheesh," but what the hey.

We wound around cars, zoomed the wrong way towards oncoming traffic, cut off buses and sucked in some serious carbon monoxide fumes – aaaah exhilarating! He stopped at the Standing Buddha, a 3-story gold dude, and he said to go look and take our time.

We ended up traipsing the back streets for almost two hours, through markets selling eel, fish, snails, birds, turtles and what looked like dogs. Rats got underfoot and smells got under nose. We watched this woman club to death, scale and chop a fish in under 5 seconds – I don't think the tourists' gaping mouths and disapproving looks went unnoticed. With looks to be mistaken for daggers we made our way back to where the other tourists were, to find that kamakazi tuk-tuk driver man had abandoned us, probably thinking that we'd done a dirty on him and ducked out the back.

After making our way back – again kamakazi style – to Kao San Road I again decided to loll when I realised my important meeting with BootsnAll. So plans are to (1) loll and (2) loll, but hopefully in a more apt location, so maybe I'll chat to you next from down south. I'm heading to the islands and hopefully to pop my head in at the Full Moon Party in Koh Samui on 26th. But being the prerogative of a traveller, lolling must come first, so don't be surprised if it doesn't happen just as described.


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