Touristing Like a Local

After planning out our day we headed into the city to meet with my uncle's tailor. My family lives in Banga, the first suburb east of Bangkok. Luckily we are here on the weekend and traffic to and from the city is light. As we zipped down the road you see concrete everywhere. The main highway, Sukhimvit, runs all the way through the city and people refer to their location by the exit number. Ribbons of raised roads supported by concrete pillars cross and follow the highway. The building are also all concrete which is an unfortunate choice for a humid town with so much air pollution because everything is quickly covered in soot.

I want to have a bunch of linen clothes made to wear on my trip so I don't have to wear short pants and jeans would be unbearably hot. For those of you who have ever tried to shop with me you know that I hate choice and give up very easily. It was near impossible for me to look at rolls of fabric and try to decide what I want made and how it should look but we'll see.

My uncle stayed behind to catch up with some office work and Arthur split off to do the temple and palace circuit. While I love tourisiting as much as anyone, there are just so manny buddhas and pointy gold roofs I can see and I saw more than enough last time I was here.

I walked to the nearest sky-train station which wasn't actually ver near but I was able to partake in delicous Thai street food and drink along the way. I was headed to meet up with Pooja who took me to a discussion on the 21st anniversary of the 8/8/88 uprising and subsequent massacre in Burma. Oh, swine flu fear is rampant here so many people are wearing paper masks. One of the fundraising items being sold outside the event were "Free Burma" face masks.

Enough of political discourse we net went to Khao San Road where all the backpackers stay. I felt at least a decade older, six inches shorter, a few shades darker and a whole lot cleaner than everyone there. The point of the visit was to see tourists as a tourist attraction.

I was really looking forward to going out that night with Pooja and her friends. She is super cool and political as I imagine her very international friends are as well. But after a delicious Gujrati dinner that my aunt made for me, I went upstairs to change and somehow fell asleep. I was too tired to make it out when they came for me. The same thing happened the first night I was going to go out last year, and just about any time I plan to go out at home.