Blog

From Wat Phra Kaew, this afternoon I jumped on a ferry down the river, and explored the looming skyscrapers and the bloated shopping malls that comprise central Bangkok. The place is nothing like the chaos and squalor of Khao San Road; and yet, it's also vastly different to what you'd expect from the downtown area of a Western city. The river ferry service from Khao San down to the Central Pier is great fun: fast, cheap, breezy and very scenic — great way to see the city.

Today was a momentous day in the history of my life. First proper day in Thailand. First proper day in all of Asia. First proper sightseeing in Thailand or in Asia. And first ever visit to a Buddhist temple. A momentous day: but in my sweltering and jet-lagged state, not an overly strenuous one. To kick off my exploration of the sights and sounds of Bangkok, I went and saw Wat Phra Kaew, one of the largest and most magnificent of the city's many wats (lit: "temples"). Lovely temple — and boy, never before have I seen so much, covered in such quantities of pure gold, in all my life. Buddha like his gold nice 'n' shiny.

It's been a while: but having now finished my stint in upmarket, "iz too expenzive fohr us" Europe, achim sheli are back! Like South America, Thailand too is one of the world's hotspots for young, IDF-complete, weed-smoking, shag-seeking, stingy-as-hell hordes of Israelis looking for a good time. And in Bangkok's Khao San Road, the yehudim do make themselves known. Reminiscent of such cities as Cusco and La Paz, here in Bangkok you can see Hebrew cardboard signs in shop windows, you can hear Hebrew being spoken as you walk along the street, and you can eat a falafel for every 50m that you cover (if you're crazy enough to not take advantage of the cheap and delicious local food, that is).

Anyone who's ever visited Bangkok will recognise this ever-present, oh-so-classic sentence. It's the call of the city's extremely numerous tuk-tuk drivers, who endeavour to solicit a few baht from whoever wanders their way, and who seem to have a deep-rooted belief that it is nobody's God-given right to actually walk anywhere — everyone should be getting a lift, and they should be the ones providing said lifts. Tuk-tuks also seem to genuinely believe that they know better than you "where you go": as far as they're concerned, any and every male farang, at any time of the day, has a desperate desire to be driven to see "pretty ladies" and to get "nice massage"; and as such, it is to such venues that they will endlessly offer you a ride. In Khao San Road, the tuk-tuks are at their thickest, and a swarm of flies does a worse job of buzzing and hovering — after the first few offers, they become little more than an annoying buzz in your ears.

I've been in Bangkok for one (jetlagged and sleepless) night; and if there's one thing I've already noticed to death, it's this: the air pollution here is horrendous. This is one seriously polluted city: you can see it, smell it and even taste it 24/7. Mexico City is peanuts compared to this place. Bangkok's sky is permanently marred by a greyish haze: this becomes particularly foul and unmissable around dusk, when the sky's colour turns a disturbingly nuclear-ish shade of purple against the hot Thai sunset. The constant heat in the city doesn't exactly help, either — what with the smog, the dryness and the sweltering temperatures, water and air-con is the only way to live around here.

Farang is Thai for "foreigner". And here in Thailand, all foreigners — no matter how vile or undeserving their behaviour may be — all of us are very welcome indeed. Having just arrived here this evening, I once again find myself a rich, Western foreigner travelling in the developing world. After Europe, that will take some getting used to. Whereas I was previously the "s$#% of kings", I'm suddenly now the "king of s$#%" again: and with this new situation comes the advantages of constant pampering, of being surrounded by all things cheap, and of a heady wonderland where anything and everything is possible, based on nothing more than a fat wallet and an on-the-spot whim. Gringo... farang... same diff, new lingo. It's unfair, it's exploitative, and it's artificial. But hey, it's nice to be special again — nice to be back "in the club".

Like many a backpacker before me, my introduction to Thailand this evening came in the form of Bangkok's (in)famous tourist strip, Khao San Road. Khao San is quite literally a tourist mecca: in all my far and wide travels on this trip, I've never seen anything that comes even remotely close to matching the sheer density of tourists, tourist-hasslers, and tourist-related services that packs this one little area. The streets are thronged with farangs (lit: "foreigners" — I'll be using that word a lot, so get used to it!) from every corner of the globe. The buildings lining the sidewalks provide everything your average tourist could ever want, from guesthouses to cheap Internet, from tattoos to Pad Thai, from bars to travel agencies, and from laundry joints to Chabad house.

Thailand, the land of smiles. Hot, cheap, and plenty of fun; plus, it's the final leg of this epic 12-month trip of mine. As of this afternoon, I've finally made it — I may well be the last Aussie on Earth to visit Thailand; but better late than never, as they say. My introduction to the nation's capital — the endless metropolis of Bangkok — was appropriately crazy and surreal. I got lost. I sweated like a pig. I held on for dear life in a tuk-tuk. And somehow, I survived. It sure is good to be here.

My departure from London marks the end of my time here in Europe. It's been short, compared to my long stint in Latin America that was the "big boy" of this world trip. And it's been wildly different: modern, sophisticated, cultured, and pricey. But no world trip would truly be complete without a visit to Europe. It's the quintessential backpacker's destination. What's more, it's still wildly popular with tourists from all corners of the world, and in every level of the glamour spectrum from backpacker to millionaire. I've mainly confined myself to Western (and Southern) Europe; but even in that relatively small geographical area, there's an awful lot for me to wrap up. So here goes.

This evening I said farewell to Europe at the same place where I first greeted it: London's Heathrow International Airport. A bit different to Luton airport; and flying Qantas again is also totally different to (and a welcome relief from) flying with Ryanair. So long Europe; Thailand, here we come.