Live together, die alone

July 5th - 11:50am - Internet Cafe, Khao San Road

Traveling alone is a bit of a double-edged sword for me. On the one hand, it can be lonely and isolating and harder to enjoy things when you don't have anyone to talk to. Its also a bit weird on Khao San road, this spring break-ish style place, to be going solo. On the other hand, you get a lot of freedom to go wherever you would like, have adventures, you get to meet as many people as you can, and if you put yourself out there you have some pretty cool experiences.

The last day and a half has been a chance for me to explore a lot and see if i'm going to make it out here, and its been awesome. I've met about a half dozen people at different times and gone out drinking, tossed a frisbee, had new foods and told stories (mostly I listen while others tell stories). Without going into lots and lots of detail, the people Ive met recently are:

1) A 25 year old peace corps volunteer whose spent almost last 3 years outside the states, and the last 9 months traveling around the world on little more than a couple dollars and 3 pairs of underwear. A really chill guy, some crazzzy stories, and you can check out his blog (a little fellow backpaper pub here) at http://trevorbulgariapeacecorps.blogspot.com.
2) A couple Englishman, one whose spent the last 5 years here and speaks the language fluently. He took us to an Indian restaurant and some hopping bars, and has become engaged (I think) to a cool Thai girl who came out with us.
3) Two Japanese guys who didn't speak English, but were very very cool and also scarily mystical :). One did crazy yoga positions, made some wild humming noises with his mouth and played bongos and the other threw a frisbee with me and messed around with devil sticks.

I'm trying to imagine what parts of yesterday I can write about and you would be interested in... Two of the Brits last night really wanted to check out the sex tourism areas (red light districts) and I figured it would be an educational opportunity second to none. I definitely didn't want to go there alone at some other point. Very very sketchy, lots of naked people of both sexes (and lots of naked people who have been both sexes). And a different sex show is advertised every 10 yards, but you feel like you'd get a disease just sitting down. Those of you who want more detail ask me at some other point, respectable people read this thing.

I spent the majority of yesterday at a park I stumbled onto. It was a peaceful oasis amidst Bangkok's dirt and noise, with lots of families walking around, music playing, and more little kids than at most parks in the states I remember. Most Thai people were tentative at first, but throughout the day a couple would come up to throw the frisbee I carried around, or play soccer with a ball a little guy had. Even though I couldn't speak it was a lot of fun.

A surreal and scary moment happened when a public aerobics class met at the park to dance to music, mostly older women. What was the first song they danced to? Numa Numa, a viral internet song made famous on youtube.com in the states (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UCmo31FNpc). WTF?? Another crazy thing was at 6pm, when the ENTIRE park stopped moving, every person, as we all stood up while the speakers played the 'Salute to the King' song. They take the royal family real serious here.

It was at the park that I met Trevor and the English people (who spent the night educating me about all sorts of random English stuff). We all ended up hanging out, which included dinner, a good number of bars and the hours of 7pm-4am. The fact that I'm awake and blogging is only due to the large number of you I know rely on my wonderful writing for intellectual sustenance. You poor poor souls. I also wanted Burger King (just kidding!).

One interesting thing I thought I'd mention is about the Israeli Chabad I occasionally work in and Israeli travelers themselves. The people in the Chabad are pretty nice, even though I'm the only non-Israeli, non-Hebrew speaker there. However among a couple of the people I've talked to, Israelis do not have a good reputation in terms of politeness as travelers. I've really only had good experiences, but others aren't so happy. Anyone else hear anything?

On my plate for today is meeting back up with Trevor, some some food, and hopefully meeting up with another friend from NU, Tim. Tomorrow is the huge weekend market Bangkok is famous for, and hopefully Monday/Tuesday i'll skip out of Bangkok and head off to who knows where. I'm thinking I'll go directly to the islands in the South, provided I find out it isn't too rainy. Any thoughts? Thanks for reading!