Walking

The cliche is always that you must go away only to better understand where you come from. Let's go for a walk in Bangkok. Step outside the cool domain of your air-conditioned hotel. Now pretend you have a wet, warm face cloth over your face. That's how humid it is. Add in some car exhaust, smoke from cigarettes. Look far into the distance and see the office towers through a fine haze. It is 38 degrees. There is so much noise you don't know what to make of it. The purr of motorscooters, tuk tuks, cars, squeakng brakes. Not far from your hotel, the streets are busy. There is a woman carving up a Durian into small blocks, another woman is repairing clothing on the curb and stuffing a pair of pants through her portable sewing machine. A man carries to baskets of peanuts dangling from a pole that he balances on his back. A man selling lotto tickets. The stores are small, but always open. A shop with just big bags of rice.

"My friend, I have a nice suits. Cheapest price...." The indian tailor wants you to buy a suit.
"Sir, I take you to nice girl...." The tuk tuk driver has plans for you (he gets a comission).
"Sir, t-shirt..." A man has a shirt he wants to sell you.

You walk in the brief shade of some tropical tree that you don't know the name of. Now look both ways, as the cars drive on the UK side of the road. The cars don't wait for you -- you must find your way through the traffic: every lane is full, in between each lane streams motorbikes, some even hopping up onto the sidewalk. There are wild dogs, some near death, others just lazing on a block of cement. Ah, a 7-11. A starbucks. You can smell the curry simmering at the food stall. Steam rising from a row of dim sum in the open market. Then the smell of putrid rot - coming from somehwere.

The street is not a place of transit as it is in Canada. Here is tangle of people, none in a hurry. It is chaos, it is life. The sidewalk is never empty, for that empty space is a commodity in a city of 10 million people. We are walking, walking for ten blocks with nothing to do but take it all in.