My pockets empty, I begin to explore the wasteland of tourists that is Khao San Road at 3:00 in the morning on a Thursday. The bars are still open, and there are still a fair number of
people, which is either an ode to jet lag or one of the saddest phenomena ever.
II see a sign for D&D tailors, but no D&D inn – he must have dropped me off in the wrong fucking place. Whatever. I check in to a place nearby and decide to nap for a few hours while I wait for Josh and Melody to show up. Within 2 minutes of being in my room, I see two different species of cockroaches, how exciting!
I should mention that I’m checking in without luggage; apparently, while I made it to my connection in San Francisco, my luggage was not so fleet-footed, and it will arrive tomorrow.
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In the morning, after a delightful 3 hours of sleep to the pounding bass line of whatever shitty club is below me, I manage to check out and walk around to see if I can’t find the D& D Inn. Naturally, I realize as soon as I walk out that A) I was less than 300 feet away from it, and B) the sign is about 30 feet tall and luminescent green, so the fact that I missed it is a source of some pretty serious embarrassment.
I go and check at the front desk, and it turns out Josh and Melo have left a note for me so I wander on upstairs. There’s a lot of “Schmurrpants” and random honks that accompany our reunion, and it’s all very touching if a little sleepy considering the hour.
My hotel room at the D&D Inn is the nicest hotel room I’ve ever stayed at. It’s got this weirdly zen quality that I just can’t describe, and it’s comfortable and quiet and cool, and costs 30 dollars a night. Thailand is the best.
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Once we’re all a bit more awake, we decide to try and find the Amulet Market. It sounds like something out of Indiana Jones, which is pretty much our main motivation for heading there. We take a boat taxi. There are lots of different types of taxis in Thailand: boat taxis, bike taxis, motorcycle taxis, truck taxis, and the ever-popular tuk-tuk! Tuk-tuks are different from motorcycle taxis, because when you take a tuk-tuk you sit in a little carriage being pulled by a motorcycle, while the motorcycle taxi actually just means you sit on the back of some guy’s motorcycle and hope he doesn’t decide to take you out into the country and trade you for opium.
The boat taxi drops us off at the wrong place, and we spend a lot of time asking for directions and getting a lot of different answers. Everyone is very helpful, and almost all of them are wrong. Eventually, we find the it: a sprawling complex of small golden monkeys riding penises that have animal back legs*, and other delightful ornaments. Josh negotiates for pipes but can’t find one that is in the right price range of “I don’t really want to pay for that.”
We head back to Khao San, and manage to get pulled into a shop that sells beautiful paintings on black velvet sheets. The owner is deaf, and I let myself pretend that he’s the artist behind the paintings. It’s a hard illusion to maintain once we walk outside and see approximately a billion other shops with the same stuff, but I just tell myself he’s possessed of a prolific artistic spirit and doesn’t have room in his shop for all his material.
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NOTE: Saw a lady wearing a suit with a nametag that said “Optional.” Not sure if that meant she chose the option of the optional nametag, or failed to choose the option of having her own name on the optional nametag. Mysteries abound in Bangkok.
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New Years in Bangkok seems to consist of very drunk foreigners (see exhibits A and B) wearing glowing, flashing cat ears. The mixture of people is very diverse; I’ve never heard so many languages slurred so badly in one place before.
We meet up with Damian, who is tall, wearing a very bright green striped shirt and has no hair: excellent characteristics for a new friend to have in a crowd this size. Thank goodness I am still wearing my slightly soiled bright pink shirt (my luggage has not yet arrived) so that my friends can find me. If they can’t see the pink, they can smell the stink – this is day three of wearing this particular assortment of cloths.
Earlier today we watched the Hangover 2, which is clearly why my sister’s boyfriend was so nervous about me going to Bangkok by myself. Damian appears in the middle of this and asks us curiously if we are planning on actually leaving the hotel room at any point. It turns out it is already 10:30.
We meet up downstairs (eventually – there is a brief disorganized shitshow involving the hotel’s policy for guests/prostitutes) with Andy and Tuck, friends from Josh and Melo’s school. After that, things devolve into a lot of beer, several rounds of silly string, and a lot of regretful pictures with strangers.
Eventually Melody helps me upstairs and pours me in to bed. It is very hard to move my legs on my own, not because I am too drunk but because I am laughing too hard. I am, however, laughing too hard because I am very terribly drunk, so I guess it all comes back to Chang and rum in the end. Melody insists on making me drink water, tucking me into the sheets, and turning the AC to just the right level. How she manages this when her current blood alcohol level rivaling mine is unknown. It must be a New Year’s Miracle.
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Exhibit A: The Missile
A 3 foot tall structure full of beer, the missile is equipped with an icy core designed to keep beer frosty cold as you slowly use it to poison your body. As it is made, apparently, of glass, I would imagine many missiles are shattered tonight.
Exhibit B: The Bucket
Filled with a toxic combination of “whiskey” (actually rum), coke and red bull, this sandbox-sized specialty is certain to give you a heart attack while simultaneously making you drunk enough to not remember the hospital stay.
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