Krung Thep and on and on

Today is February 25th and Erin and I's first day in our site location. We are visiting until Tuesday and at this moment I am writing to you folks from the very government office I should be working in for the next two years. A little on our first trip to the big KT and our journey up north:

Yesterday morning we departed our training town to Bangkok (BKK) early in the morning. Our cohort paid a visit to the PC office in BKK which is a house built and once owned by the Royal Family that has been under lease by the PC since the beginning of PC Thailand. The place was stunning with hand carved wood and teak everything. The office is within a high security compound that also houses a medical unit and a few other buildings. Overall, just about snazzy enough to prompt one to ask for an application for work on the spot. After the short visit to the office, all volunteers were released into the wild for the first time to find their way to the bus station, buy a ticket to their destination, and go visit their host site.

Due to circumstances brought on mainly by my oversight, Erin and I ended up taking separate buses from Krung Thep (Bangkok) yesterday. I left my phone at our place in SingBuri and so was not going to be reachable via cellular, which is a situation the PC would rather avoid. It is a long story why, but ultimately Erin left BKK on a 330 bus, and I left on a 1030 bus. In the meantime, I was able to go back to PC office and pick up a loner phone, and after that, get a brief taste of life in the BKK with another volunteer who spent time in Thailand before. First we hit Kaosan road, which was recommended by several ajaans when I asked them about finding farang food over the last week. A slice of pizza was acquired within minutes of our exiting the taxi. Kaosan is a frenzy of a thoroughfare filled with many farangs of the dirty, hippy, variety, apparently from all over Europe (and the US I would guess) and Thai made world food of all kinds right along side all the Thai favorites. There are "Irish Pubs" that have that title because of one or two Guinness flags and a Guinness handle on the bar tap, you can sit in the Thai heat here and be serenaded by decade old pop-rock. Here I bought an Adidas jacket for 450 B and learned that when bargaining, it is not too much of a low-ball to start at half the asking price. The young man I bought the jacket from, acquiesced in his own victory when I offered him 450B, 100B less than his first price. Following beer Singha Dark and several other snack items and near misses with trucks and motor scooters, Jesse and I headed for the river.

There is a taxi that runs the Chao Phraya river in BKK. We hopped the boat and headed south for several miles in the muddy waters of Thailands main waterway.I captured many images which will be on Picasa soon. At the end of the journey, at stop 0, we went back on land and caught the sky train back north to a business district where massage parlors and coctail bars occupy the street level to see if the night market had started yet. It had not, so we walked around, did some bargaining and experienced the "come in and take a look" that you hear about in every Thai story. Since my main goal in the visit to BKK was to eat some food without rice in the infrastructure, we settled on an Irish pub called O'Reilly's and went in for a couple burgers and nachos. The quality was good and the price excessive, but we came out having gutted up on white cheddar, guacamole and the best bread (kaiser roll) in 8 weeks. The movement in Krung Thep is what was most staggering. from a distance everything looks still, but as with an ant pile, the closer you get the more you see that every single thing is moving, and moving fast. If you're not buying something you're selling something or walking really fast through a tight passageway. Sometimes the passage is bound by walls, but more often motorcycles and people. The temptation of this place is in the air as even in late afternoon every gaze inside the doors of the buildings here was rewarded with shiny stripper poles and black leather, oh, do you want to buy a bag? I make you good deal!

The visit was like being a character in an abstract indie film thriller, never quite knowing what the next turn would bring. Maybe another guy selling nylon sleeves that slide up your arm to make you look heavily tattooed. Maybe another boy with lipstick, and maybe some more nice looking belts.

We got out of downtown around 730 to make sure we were at Mochit station by the time our buses departed at 10 and 1030. There were only a few other volunteers left at the bus station at this hour but we found them handily. After boarding the bus to Sukhothai with a few others who will be stationed "in the neighborhood", I sat awake for the next 6 1/2 hours on a very fast moving bus and arrived to my destination at around 5 AM. Erin called the Nayoke and I had an extended cab pickup waiting for me with a welcome crew of 3 (plus my wife), the Nayoke (or mayor), the driver, and our host sister who is 27. This morning I woke up in a strange place again, with some more of the friendliest people I have ever met.

RED