bangkok

bangkok...
i forgot how much i like a big city sometimes, what different worlds it can encompass amidst the blue cloudy exhaust and hazy skies as far as the eye can see, the grunting revving motors of tuk-tuks, the lines of taxis and traffic day and night, crossing five lane streets by just starting to walk out across each lane you can, knowing you'll make it across just fine because everyone crosses the street this way.

today we walked to breakfast through some smaller back streets, saw a woman selling durian for 40 baht a piece (a good deal, boy i'm a hawk for that durian, you can smell it a block away!) and had breakfast, then we took a cab to the sky train and took the sky train to the weekend market. (it's so fun to ride the sky train, by the way, soaring above all that traffic and getting a bird's eye view of the city). the weekend market happens in the north of bangkok every saturday and sunday and it is HUGE. we didn't even see half of it, and we wandered in little narrow paths for hours, looking at clothes of all kinds, sunglasses, bags, shoes new and used, drinking pepsi out of a glass bottle (suddenly i'm so attracted to pepsi or coca cola or sprite out of glass bottles, and i never drink pop, but it's so good!) and coconut out of a fresh coconut shell, and the best phad thai i've ever had at a little thai food stall. this market is unbelievable. soooo large. i didn't even buy anything! too much to choose from, suprised me! carson bought a nice hat and we just soaked in the culture and atmosphere of it all. after about 5 hours we took the sky train to siam square, which is the more busy upscale shopping district, like times square of NYC maybe, with large 6 story shopping centers that we wandered into and felt like we were back in the US. the ground floor of the one we chose had an enormous food court and a gourmet grocery store, kindof like whole foods, with foods from all over the world and one of the best, most fresh salad bars i've ever seen. we loaded up on butter leaf and red oak lettuce leaves, roasted pumpkin, olive oil and balsamic, brown rice, and little vegetarian rice paper rolls and sat by a large fish tank in the food court. later we splurged on imported home foods, with salt and pepper kettle chips from oregon (love those kettle chips!), dark chocolate from switzerland, chunky, real peanut butter, and delicious home-baked style walker's short bread cookies from scotland, a carson favorite! carson also bought a .80 oreo cookie blizzard from a dairy queen in the food court. i had a bite...you know, things like oreos and pepsi, it doesn't matter how many years it's been since you've had them, they taste exactly the same!

i felt so sedated and happy from these comfort foods...chocolate dipped in peanut butter....mmmm! we walked upstairs to the posh, beautiful, state of the art theater complex on the fifth floor and actually saw a movie! i don't know when i last saw a movie on the big screen...before the movie started, we all stood as the thai national anthem played and the screen showed images of the king throughout his life. i love seeing the king's picture everywhere. we watched "charlie wilson's war" with tom hanks and julia roberts and philip seymour hoffman, a good movie. it was just so refreshing for us to eat these foods and go to a movie, etc, after doing nothing of the sort here for over two months, and being in europe before that...

we found out that we can't change our airplane ticket like we'd hoped, so we'll still be coming back the same day that we posted earlier, in mid april. it's been a pleasant surprise to enjoy bangkok as much as we have this time around; last time, we were so jet lagged and culture shocked and overwhelmed that it felt so good to leave. i have so many thoughts and images in my head right now, i'm just going to do a little freewrite of what my eyes have seen the past few days....
fruit carts with artistically cut pineapples, put into bags to eat with a stick...walking by a thai bakery just as hundreds? of loaves come out of the oven fresh, steaming, buying a loaf of butter bread and eating the whole loaf in big bites as we walk down the street...thai kids getting out of school and flooding mcdonalds and the food carts, white shirts and blue skirts, all the same chin length black haired bob haircut, chatting with friends...yes that blue exhaust smoke filtering up into the sky, into my lungs, illuminated by headlights at night....the democracy monument aglow at night, four corners and a center, golden, pictures of the king in yellow, his sister honored on corners and intersections, a woman bending her hands in prayer as she passes to honor her memory....fruit shakes at midnight on the street, coconut pineapple guava mango blended fresh for us...temples interspersed, the sacred and the ordinary, golden towering, gray concrete, monks in saffron robes walking with shaved heads and sandals, putting my hands in prayer to say thank you to our cashier at the grocery store, kap khun kaaah we say to each other in prayer, normal here to put hands in front of the heart like this and look each other in the eyes and smile...markets everywhere, clothes for sale, food carts on every street, noodle soups smelling of spices, som tam carts with shredded green papaya, tomato, and spices, dried shrimp and grilled squids on a stick, dried squid with it's pungent smell lingering down the block, fried grasshoppers and worms that i won't try, phad thai and noodle dishes cooked fresh, roasted peanuts blackened on the edge, chili sauce and peppers, mango and sticky rice, drinking fresh coconuts and scooping the flesh out with a little silver spoon, hip clothes and hipper haircuts at the market and siam square, talking with a thai man about a japanese pancake in a gourmet market and explaining just exactly where washington/oregon are in the US...reading harry potter together (him #5, me #6) in our little guesthouse room just big enough for a bed and a little floor space but so comfortable and cozy and dark in the day, blinds drawn onto a hallway, could be day or night, slight incense smell, little wooden elephant stools leading the way out onto the street, busy and walked by many, a transition point, a meeting point, new arrivals with touseled hair and bleary eyes, large backpacks, people leaving to somewhere else, leaving for home, leaving for the next place, taking it all in, whatever there is to take in, eyes open. so much. i want to write more but i have three minutes left on this computer. more, again soon!
mel