Lose the map

Welcome to LoseTheMap, former diary of travels around Asia, then account of everyday life in Moscow, and now with my family in Berlin - VERSIONE ITALIANA

Monday, April 13, 2009

Thailand

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Thailand

Thailand: sooner or later everybody fall in, and no surprise many people forget to leave...

What to say about Thailand you still don't know?

Wonderful unspoiled beaches, amazing exotic food, 5 star welcome, and many extras non listed in the menu but included in the price...

For the whole world Thai means exotism, holiday, relax, fun, easy travel; well... same for me!

All the ideals built in these months about traveling ethically adventurous, far from society, avoiding turistic paths, diving 100% in local culture... All of these ideals blown off after 5 minutes my arrival in Thailand: I surrended myself to extreme ease, the comfort, the smiles and all the Thai optionals; in the end, i did right!

No ok i won't go to far, i didn't fuck off my ideals, let's say to me Thailand has been the 4th episode of "Back to the future", the return to modern society, in the Buddhist year 2552.



In Bangkok I closed my Initiatic Cycle "From Village to Metropolis" started in Mongolia, getting lost in Chinese mountains till Tibet border, in Sichuan and Yunnan, and then Laos, Cambodia and finally Burma... All these country and wild life gave me much and opened up my eyes, rather they opened up a third eye in my forehead: the eye of wisdom.
Ah no sorry it wasn't wisdom it was just some dirty...

After many months here i am tired, sweating and dirty, sit on the nth car (with aircon freezing my armpit hair) in slow hitchhiking.
I see Bangkok's light in the dark: open mouth stick to the window I saw passing by my (now 3) eyes all symbols and icons of the society which I belong, in which i raised, in which I teenagerly rebelled and in which I detached for few months.
Suddently I realized that while I was in the desert reconciling with nature and wild world the world itself has gone straight ahead, without waiting for me, and it seems it didn't miss me that much.
Well, far enough, it means I'm not a key cog in the machinery! And while I see new technology pouring on, new materiality that enslaves us, new needs that blind us and new crisis to whom the world has to face, I feel free, I'm not a shrivel up cog, I'm a fucking wheel speeding up at its own way! Yo!

The closing of Initiatic Cycle for my small brain is very important, useful, charming, entangling, but not easy, now i got far more questions than answers flying between my temples...

Finding myself before between indigenous that barely can satisfy they primary needs and suddently being among who consume 1 and waste 4 has its consequences on me, and hardness in drawing the complexity of human natura sometimes puzzle me.

After all these global paranoia i get to Khao San Road, in the center of Bangkok, the traveller's Olympus, where I don't even got time of dazzle or puzzle that I start meeting people and building some social entertainment network.
Smiling I welcome myself to Thailand: all the post-modern questions go straight in the wardrobe and I start a "Rock'n'roll-and-fuck-off" lifestyle; eventually, dear Marco, you deserve it!

A modern and global Thailand, that makes good business with Farangs, that 7-elevens are open 24h a day, that each year becomes less exotic and more expensive, where you "get bad habit 'cos you're on holiday" and where millions of turists are glad to enter Thai-mood, spending few days in Bangkok before of leading on resorts on amazing beaches in the south, or trekking in the north.
But a Thailand also still anchored to Buddhist traditions and some degree of conservatism (not for sure in Pattaya or Puket). This mix of beaches & bitches VS spirituality & Buddhist monks gives a particular energy to this country, modern but ancient at the same time, where East and West live, each one in his own business, hands in hands, where if you want you can be bitch or if you want you can be hermit.



Eventually I spent a whole month in Bangkok, where, without getting too much into details, I had fun!!

Friends, friends, long nights, short afternoons, sunrises and sunsettings; squat life made by juggling, beer and electronic music: I learnt using unicycle jugglin and drinkin, I composed my first digital song (I missed some 12 hours in front of a computer!) and shared hilarious metropolitan adventures with (to say some) Chile, Brazil, Panama, US, Canada, England, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Croatia, Russia, Israel, Senegal, Sudan, Ghana, India, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand...



Constant background was an unbearable heat and fucking mosquitoes bitches, sometimes I dreamt about a train to Siberia, then I solaced myself with tropical ice-creams and sweet rice...

Ah, talking about food: finally I faced my demons and one night at one stand selling insects I raided: first I observed dazzled happy kids coming ready to enjoy local delicacy such as grasshoppers, worms and various flying stuff, then it was my turn: little worms are actually good (even though my italian background...), then other insects small, bigger... till i reached the top: a BUG!



Bleeeeeeah! Crunchy outside, soft inside, with all those little wings that brake up in your palate, all the cartilage meltin like chocolate in your gums... mhmh thinkin about it I still water my mouth!
After the soft legs I got to the head and there I gave up, but a new page in my life has been written, i ate insects!
Next stop might be drink human blood in some african tribes, I love new cultures!

Then I've been to Chiang Mai (Thai second city, in the north), and it got not much different: night swimmings, Thai-ska party and so on... and I also got the great idea of packing to Italy Kg.10 of books (n.30) bought in the best second hand bookstore in the world, you know culture has no price, but when it's so cheap I just dive in!

After a month of metropolitan life it was time to leave Bkk, and the idea of catching any train, boat, bus or car gave me nausea... i'm seriously tempted by the idea of flying tomorrow to Hong Kong and staying there building a new life, then I calm down and say to myself "Sure you can do it, you're just a free man you can go where the hell you want, but on the other hand it's no use in hurrying, you have a whole life; then, dear Marco, Fuck you!"

This interior monologue gave me the boost to go further, or, to be precise, to continue southbound. Yo!
Of all these amazing Thai beaches frankly speaking I didn't really care, but I granted myself with few days of scuba diving (always top experience) and a crazy Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan, meeting some old and new friends.
Finally I enjoyed the Thai New Year (or Water Festival): 3 days in which the whole country stops and everybody splashes each other with loads of water, and loads of water again, forever, until you get mad, or faint, or drown.
The result is really funny, with amazing scenes of huge water fights to anybody, plus a rock/house live concert with loads of artificial foam pouring down the street between buildings among the collective frenzy.

The best idea of my whole travel is to leave Thailand at 12 in the last day of the Water Festival: I even took a shower to look nice at Malaysian custom; all clean with my backpack and passport in hand i stepped out of my GuestHouse and there hell begun: everybody, EVERYBODY smiling were throwing me buckets full of water and after 20 seconds me my backpack my books passport are like a cat in a lake: wet.
At the begin I try to limit the damage telling to everybody to not wet me, that of course makes things worst and I resign myself to my destiny, than the situation start to be really unbearable and I recruit a crazy Thai that on his motorbike speeding up like hell zigzagging through the madness manage to bring me to the bus station after 1 hour of fightings.
Safe. Can't believe. You can't believe. Alive.
Totally wet and dirty by shaving cream and talcum powder (midsummer carnival) I open my bag hoping that at least my passport will be usable; lucky enough, a part from dog' smell emerging, I only have to dry 3 books and few pages of my passport...
An epic victory that will end up in history's books, together with the real fightings in Bangkok made by pro-Thaksin (Thai Berlusconi) protesters.
Imagine that in Italy a pacific demonstration could be able to oust Berlusconi, and after 4 months all his "Forza Italia Youth" get down the streets with their tie on their forehead and start burning tyres and crashing shop-windows...
This happened in Thailand!
The world here or there spins upside down!

A part from shit politics I sadly, sadly left Thailand...

123 I'm in Malaysia!
In half an hour I booked some flights and after 1 and half months of Malaysia-Borneo I'm (finally) flying out of South-East Asia, but I won't tell you where I'm going ok?

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Shots: http://picasaweb.com/lostconversation/Thailand

2 comments:

Unknown said...

yes... stil misbehaving I see. But where are you going....
Diana

Anonymous said...

wooohooo I feel good when I read it joob joob