This week’s installment of Helga Travels features visiting Bangkok during the height of the Thai New Year, Songkran. Songkran has many traditional elements, such as gently tossing water on the buddha statues, being blessed by monks, and gifting monks large quantities of shampoo (at least as far as I could tell). The traditional water element really caught on and it is also the largest water fight you’ve ever seen, with millions of tourists and citizens flocking to Khao San Road, the tourist/backpacker district. Silom, the other district with major water fight parties, was closed, so Khao San Road was a city of immense chaos. It reminded me of being on the Green River as a child, baking in the hot sun, and my Dad using the oar to shower me and my sisters with water while we screamed at him. I didn’t always love being sprayed and soaked in water for 2 days straight, but I think it was necessary even if I wasn’t exactly what I wanted all of the time. “To Sin and Be Seen” was printed on several of the tourist boats taking people to Songkran, and I love that concept. Usually people do not want to be seen when sinning.
Note: I accidentally pasted the pictures wrong and didn't have time to fix it before my bus comes to pick me up, so you have to scroll past all the pictures to read the rest.
The first day went according to plan, and I visited the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Wat ) and the Grand Palace, and Wat Pho (The Temple of the Reclining Buddha), and several other golden, jeweled temples. But my plans were upended for the next two days, and I found myself buying a water gun with a couple of the other hostel travelers and walking through the throngs of people. Talking to some of the other hostel travelers (most of whom I met were from Europe), we were remarking on how unsafe this kind of thing would be in the US or the UK. But here, there are tiny children running around spraying water at enormous drunk men, who just smile and spray them gently back, in a sea of people that could just as easily be rowdy and unsafe. I felt extremely safe in Bangkok, with the very large exception of crossing the road.
The pictures I took on my camera are all from the first day. I didn’t want to risk taking my camera out during Songkran, sadly. Live action photos of the water fight probably wasn’t worth breaking my precious new camera, even if it was very tempting at the time.
On adjusting . . .
Those who know me well will probably guess that I’ve been scheming how to run while in Thailand. I tried running yesterday, which went about as well as you might think it would in 98F heat. I had to walk every .25 miles, my veins were popping out of my skin, and a kind elderly man approached me to ask if I was okay. I am embarrassed to admit that not being able to exercise while traveling is stressful for me, but I am working on just letting every day happen and if I’m in the right place at the right time, I might try to run again.
Notable sights and experiences of the week . .
-The artist’s loft/artist residency at Khlong Bang Floating market, where Thai teens drank coffee and made long bead chains on the river in this beautiful wooden building, and I sat and read Midnight’s Children and watching kids jump off the bridge and surprise the long boat tourists by throwing enormous buckets of water on them.
-Meeting a random Scottish man on the street in Chinatown when I had been walking for about 5 hours straight in 98F heat, who put out his hand to stop a car from hitting me. He then showed me scars running all the way down his right side, and told me he had been hit a month ago. He was apparently trapped in Bangkok because he had been partying in Koh Tao, and had his passport stolen. He walked with me for about an hour, promising to give me a ride on his motorbike while I frantically dreamed up excuses to not get on his motorbike for a life-threatening ride through Bangkok. Thankfully, we did not find the motorbike and he thoughtfully helped pay for a taxi back to my hostel.
(Un)Revelations
-It is very difficult to write this and not write cliches of thoughts that every westerner has when they travel to Europe. I think I’m going to just have to accept that fact. I also feel the need to acknowledge that this blog feels extraordinarily self-centered and putting myself and my thoughts on display for anyone to read is extremely uncomfortable for me. But here I am, trying to do things that are outside my comfort zone in the spirit of the journey.
- Everyone always says that it is “so easy to make friends in the hostels” and I didn’t believe them. (Because who believes anyone else when they tell you about their “magical, transformative travels”?) But it has been genuinely so easy to make friends—I would have needed to be actively antisocial. I think past versions of me have convinced myself that I am fairly introverted, but the amount of social interaction I crave while traveling alone (it has literally only been 4 days) speaks volumes about my social habits. I chased down some girls staying at my hostel on my first night because I felt so lonely.
-I alternate between being completely obsessed with myself and my fantastic decisions, and wandering around in a haze of indecision, a scarecrow with a fried egg for a brain. I think this might just be who I am when I strip away all the decisions that other people help me make?
-The food looks and smells amazing (obviously), and the street food is incredible, but I have just not been hungry at all. Maybe it is the heat, and I have certainly had to drink like 10 L of water a day, but I’ve found that I have to remind myself to eat as I walk around. I thought I would just be so excited and want to try everything? I think things will return to normal when I get to Krabi/Koh Lanta today. I swear my body has been on a state of high alert for the last 3 days.
Currently reading: Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Quotes that I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of days:
“That bag should fry in Hell with the testicles of the ungodly” – thinking about this on repeat as I walk around Bangkok in the middle of the day looking at infinite elephant pant shops
“You do it on purpose,” she says, “to make me look stupid. I am not stupid. I have read several books.” – me, every time I am trying to understand something written or spoken in Thai
“Doctor Aziz begins to fight, against sadness, and against Tai’s anger, which is beginning to infect him, to become his own, which erupts only rarely, but comes, when it does come, unheralded in a roar from his deepest places, laying waste everything in sight, and then vanishes, leaving him wondering why everyone is so upset” – on the kind of unwarranted rage that boils inside of me occasionally.
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