My luck is varying so much on this trip that I think the monsoonal weather is buffeting my karmic scales, and they're dolling out justice and reward like Lady Luck is trying to get herself fired. Nothing is quite going as expected so I'm keeping my plans so loose their pants keep falling off.
Leaving Indonesia was the most straight forward travel experience of my life, except for trying my hardest to miss another flight. I left Claires house over 6 hours before the flight as an extra precaution and passed through customs so quickly that I had enough time in the departure lounge to develop a new collection of wrinkles and greys. My gate said Penang on the sign and every announcement was in Bahasa or Thai. I sat there grinning the special grin of the ignorant and wondered why everyone had boarded the plane to Penang and my flight to Bangkok hadn't even been mentioned. Finally someone saved me from own stupidity and used some English to announce a last call for Bangkok through the Penang gate.
There was one spare seat on the plane and it was the window seat next to me. I swapped, and the tallest Asian to ever board a plane and I got to share the leg space in between us. I arrived into the old Don Mueang airport flying with Air Asia, but my partner for the next 5 days, Julia, was flying into Suvarnabhumi, the new airport for airlines that were actually expected to make the distance. She was arriving 5 hours after me so I was looking at a taxi to Khao San Road, a minibus to the other airport and then a taxi back with Julia. There was an airport security strike in Dusseldorf and had she planned her trip like me, ie. thrown darts at a globe and a clock, she would have missed her connection.
Having not been to the old airport in years, I wandered around, purposefully, looking for the least dodgiest way to get a taxi. The government had stopped running the shuttle bus to Khao San after the bombings there, believing that a busload of Westerners would be such a target that it might as well just blow itself up. In it's place was a local bus that cost me $1 to get half way. I had to change to another local bus to get to Khao San but there wasn't a clippy on there so it was a free ride and I'm getting the equivalent of naughty snapchats from Lady Luck.
There was only one room left at my guesthouse, so I had to take it even though it had a King bed and Queen bed butted up wall to wall like our extended families were going to be joining us. Old mate was impressed I'm Lady Lucks flavour of the month and he gave me a discount without me even asking for one. Julia arrived on time and in a flash, we were back in the party bed overjoyed to be seeing each other after 6 years and sleeping feet to feet just because neither of us had slept on 4 hectres of mattress before.
Lady Luck didn't dig me having company, even one sleeping 10 metres away from me, and I woke up to her flipping me the bird. My plans for Istanbul had already turned solo when Kath had lost her dear father the previous week and understandably realised she wasn't going to be up for Harry's special brand of traveling hijinx. My cousin Gow hadn't been granted a work visa in time meaning he was no longer going to be able to help me exhaust Abu Dhabis limited beer supply in 3 days. Ainslie is having a hard time and the unknown nature of her accommodation is not able to host the Harry house party. And then worst of all, my dear friend Laura's father has just taken a turn for the worst and her plans are under reconsideration.
Travel plans be damned, cause I was going to find a way to fuck them up myself anyway, but why is Lady Luck taking her jealous rage out on my friends? I cannot justify feeling let down when I compare my mild inconvenience to the hard times these friends are going through. I can only pray that Lady Luck finds a new lover soon enough and the karmic scales recover equilibrium. I guess it could be a good thing to be there for a friend in a time of duress, but I would much rather not give anyone a chance to draw parallels between me visiting and bad luck following me around like a rancid fart.
On that topic, I woke up the next day with an ass like a B-52 and the toilet was Hiroshima. A mild hangover wasn't helping, but I felt like an alien chest burster had gotten lost inside me and was just using gravity to find an exit. It was Julia's first time in Bangkok, so she was happy to entertain herself as far away as possible from a guesthouse that should have been quarantined. Within a day though, I had somehow shat myself back to good health and went out that night to see if Black Russians really were a panacea.
I have been traveling like a rookie in Thailand so perhaps my accumulative social faux pas are behind my bad luck. Other than mangling the language like my tongue is in a constant state of seizure and shopping like I think bargaining is impolite rather than the norm, I keep doing dumb shit that I know is disrespectful in the country. On the bus from the airport, I elbowed the clippy in the face trying to keep my balance, but I'm pretty sure that's a no-no in every country. Apologetically I patted her on the head because most Westerners would surpass her in height before they hit puberty.
Touching someones head in Thailand is not the done thing, particularly with the left hand whose sole use is bum polisher. Even though I'm right handed, I'm using my left hand for everything because I like to utterly confuse myself over my actions while offending as many people as possible. The Thais are an extremely polite and forgiving culture and probably wouldn't think twice about my transgressions, except for the clippy who has a sore snoz and cause to believe I shat on her head.
Trying to prove to Julia that Australians are better drinkers than Germans is not helping my social retardation, or my financial state of affairs. But it is a just reward for doing a lot more during than day than when I was on my own. We went on a river cruise that was akin to taking a Harley Davidson around a go-cart track. Our questionably sea-worthy canoe had a jet engine bolted on the back and afforded it so much thrust that I am pleased I am able to resist the urge to make another sexual reference.
The ticket selling lady had punctuated her sales pitch with profuse chuckling, sensing she had hit the jackpot and obviously pleased she wouldn't be joining Julia and me, Broken Mirror McGee, on the trip. Her description of the sights were all we got though, because the jet pilot in control of our river rocket only knew how to carve big rooster tails in quiet canals and grin like a man working his dream job without knowing a word of English.
Our 1 hour 'cruise' was over in 45 minutes, even with a stop off by a group of ladies with their own little boats loaded up like a 7-11. With a captive audience, a sale was inevitable and we were fortunate enough she gave up after selling us two beers at thrice the price of a real 7-11. Seeing that the beers had been floating in esky water, that you would assume was once ice, and knowing that ice and dirty eskies are not known for their health promoting properties, I wiped my can lid on my pants before cracking it open. In retrospect, my pants are probably less hygenic than either ice, esky or petri dish thanks to the environment, a humid climate and the mere fact that they are pants. So I can blame karmic injustice for my Bangkok belly all I like, but if I keep pulling stupid stunts like that, no one is going to believe that Lady Luck had anything to do with it.
