Bangkok Trip Part 3

The Blade Runner-type freeways went by at a furious pace.

"Where you guys from?" the Thai cabbie asked while adjusting one of the crooked Buddhas stuck to the dashboard.

"Laughing-boy, over here, smokes weed in Amsterdam, and I'm from Los Angeles," I answered.

"Ahhh...HOLLY-WOOD! Nice! You live with MOVIE STARS, eh? You RICH guy. MOVIE GUY, eh?" he asked excitedly, clearly anticipating a fat tip.

"No. No. And, no. I don't live with MOVIE STARS. I'm NOT rich. And I'm not a movie guy. I fix cars for a living."

"Liar," the cabbie said under his breath, playfully.

I looked over at Youris.

"Is it THAT obvious that I couldn't possibly be a mechanic?"

"Yes. It is," he replied flatly.

"Oh," said I, surprised.

"Where you guys going today? You guys go to temples, right? See all the Wats near river?" asked the cabbie.

"Yep. The temples. Please drop us off at the boat that takes us to Wat Pho," said Youris.

"You guys have good time so far in Thailand? How you like it here? You move to Thailand, right?" grinned the cabbie in the rear view mirror.

What a cool guy, I thought to myself. It's so powerful to be able to speak English when you live in another part of the world. It's an exceptionally useful skill to have. Based on my limited observation, it seemed like maybe 30 percent of Thai cabbies had at least passable English speaking skills.

I answered his question first bearing in mind 3 things about the Thai people that you should NEVER forget:

1. Always say that Thailand is a beautiful treasure, that the world is lucky to have, when asked a direct question about it. Even if you don't really think so, which is unlikely.

2. NEVER, but NEVER say anything disparaging about the Thai Royal Family. They take this subject matter seriously. If you did so, it would be the equivalent in the United States, of spitting in a person's face.

3. Always act lighthearted and pleasant in stressful situations where you are in some kind of trouble. DO NOT raise your voice or become angry with a Thai person. You have been warned. Actually, this advice would probably serve you well in any country.

"Bangkok is a very nice city. We love the skytrain. We took it across the city and back yesterday!", I said.

"Yes. SKYTRAIN is very clean, very fast!" the cabbie agreed reluctantly, but happy to hear another FARANG, (the Thai word for foreigner), enthusiastic about Thailand.

We finally approached the Pier, where the boats were lining up to take tourists, (and some Thais), to the various temples and food/clothing markets that were accessible via the Mae Nam River. I could see that most of the people in line were huddled together under a large awning that protected them from the fierce, hot sun. That made sense. One of Youris' blackened ears had fallen off during the cab ride and it was on the floor. He picked it up and put it in his backpack for later. Maybe he was planning to eat it for lunch. Who knew how tight his food budget was? And Dutch people are very odd.

The cabbie looked over his shoulder at us.

"You are HERE!" he announced with flair.

Youris and I got out of the cab, and I went over to the driver's side and gave him the agreed upon amount plus and extra 50 baht. I couldn't help it, I liked the guy more than I liked getting a good bargain on everything. I've pretty much always been a good tipper. And since the agreed upon amount was already quite high, the tip made it that much better for our good driver. But...then...there's always the give an inch and people want to take a mile theory....

"Please, sir, tip me 100 baht. You RICH guy. HOLLYWOOD. You can afford it! Please help me, OK?" he pleaded.

"I would like to give you all the money in my wallet, actually. You're a nice guy. But I can't do it. Sorry. Good luck!"

He was coming around to accepting that I wasn't going to cough up any more money, and he was relatively gracious about it...only bothering with a few more attempts to increase the tip.

"OK. You guys have good time!", and he raced off for another fare. Probably at Bangkok airport.

Youris and I refamiliarized ourselves with the sweltering heat. We stood there and held our bags for a minute, just taking in the flurry of people, the pungent smells of street vendor food, and the wide, muddy river next to us. All of this stuff made for an interesting potpourri, completely unique to Bangkok.

Everywhere we looked, deals were being made, goods were being traded, parades of people passed by--their eyes everywhere at once. Tourists were getting taken in by smiling scammers while expats in loose, white clothing stood and smiled at it all--having been in those shoes before, and feeling quite comfortable about everything now.

I saw 2 boats pull up to the pier, and we quickly made our way over to the second one, because the first one was already filling up. Each boat was kind of like an extra-wide longtail boat. About 60 people could fit on each boat.

Youris and I boarded, and got our cameras out at the same time. Everything was REALLY STARTING now! We looked at each other and noticed that we were thinking the same thing...'we're in FREAKING THAILAND, DUDE, NICE TO MEET YOU!'

I was happy to stand because I wanted room to get different camera angles of the events passing us by on the riversides.

We passed opulent and (NOT so) opulent hotels, food markets (right on the piers), souverir stands, and gilded temples.

I was taking pictures like a madman, but the sun was at a tough angle and the awning that covered most of the boat draped down quite far, obscuring the side views to a larger degree than I thought. Plus, the river was very wide, so the interesting buildings and people that were on the banks of the river were too far away to photograph skillfully with a point and shoot camera. Maybe if I'd had a 35-200 zoom, I could have gotten some really good stuff from our water taxi.

I put the camera away and started looking at all the passengers. Most of them seemed subdued. The animated ones were mostly farang. There were some cute couples aboard that may have been honeymooning in Thailand. What a great place for that, I thought to myself...because there's so much to see here, and then you could end the vacation with a tropical island paradise when you'd had enough of the cities and all the constant moving around.

I looked at Youris. He was daydreaming about something. He stared at the river with a faraway look in his eyes.

I also began staring at the water, and fell into a similar reverie. I started thinking about my girlfriend, and what she would be doing at this time back home. I was pretty sure she was asleep. It was right around midnight in California. Then I started thinking about how weird that was. Everyone I knew was a DAY and a couple of hours BEHIND me in time. To them, I was PEERING INTO THE FUTURE!

Before I knew it, the boat pulled up to the dock, and shook a little against it because everyone got up and started moving. As Youris and I stepped onto the little ladder that took us onto the dock, I realized that if you weren't careful, you could fall into the drink fairly easily. Safety regulations weren't QUITE what they are in the States.