Hi everyone, For those of you who remember young Ange who has made the move from Sydney to Thailand, I received this lovely piece of writing from her the other day giving her early impressions of Bangkok. I thought many of you would enjoy it and would like to know how Ange is settling in. She has given me permission to post it to the jmdl and she is wondering if any Joni tours or Jonifests are planned for Thailand! :-) John (in Sydney) PS.I'd be happy to pass on any thoughts or messages. HI PEOPLE, FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE INTERESTED....HERE ARE: SOME THINGS IVE NOTICED ABOUT BANGKOK. In Bangkok, motorbikes are the cheapest and quickest way to get around town. Most of the drivers wear helmets its the rest of the family clinging to the back of the bike who go without. Sometimes theres a schoolgirl with her backpack on - her arms wrapped tightly around her fathers waist. Sometimes there are three children all clinging to each other as they straddle the bike seat. Often theres a baby, maybe a couple of months old his little body resting on his mothers knee her one arm around the child her other around the man whos driving the bike. In Bangkok, theres constant noise security guards blowing their whistles, tuk tuks buzzing by, bikes whizzing along the highway and an endless stream of meterd-taxis. There are roosters shouting in nearby slums and street vendors bells ringing as they push their carts full of fruit and fish along the roadside. In Bangkok, theres always a smell and most of the time its not a nice one. The rotting egg stench from the traffic fumes the fishy smell that rises from the roadside woks. The smell of dirty dogs and dirty puddles and something dying in a dark side-street. But there are the good smells too like the lemongrass and fresh herbs in the Tom Yum Gung soup and the smoky insense burning in the shop fronts. In Bangkok, the high rise buildings reach all the way to the sun and shadow the shanty towns that spread out beneath them. The shacks and corrigated iron mish-mash that thousands of people call home. In the heart of the business district there are the air-conditioned shopping centres where you can buy all the comforts of the western world while outside some blind beggar sits crossed legged near the gutter singing into a microphone hoping to attract a few Baht. In Bangkok, the men hok up gunk from their lungs and spit it out at your feet. Theres not a footpath in the city that isnt splattered with the flem of some skanky man. And in between the flem are the malnourished dogs their bodies covered in lice and who knows what other parasites. Some cant walk they just drag themselves along the ground and hope someone will toss them something to eat. In Bangkok, you can drive along the tollway past highrise after highrise and then be struck by the beauty of a Buddhist temple glowing gold amongst the grey. In Bangkok, the pavements are never level. Theres always a hole to fall into a dug-up-but of footpath a cable spurting out of the concrete to trip on a bit of broken wood covering a drain. The city never sleeps even after dark it buzzes. The food vendors heat up their woks tossing noodles and rice around in the bubbling oil. And food is a street-thing everyone is eating on the street sitting on little plastic stools as the taxis speed by slurping duck soup from some plastic bowl that has been washed in a big plastic bin full of who knows what kind of water by the roadside. In Bangkok, they are obsessed with straws. Every 7-Eleven you go to will chuck a few straws into your plastic bag just in case you want to slurp down a litre of milk on the way home. In Bangkok there are no "real" traffic lanes. It is just - wherever you want to go and which ever gap in the traffic your vehicle can squeeze through. In Bangkok, you feel alive. Maybe its because you are always sweating, always kept alert by the whistles and buzzing traffic, always smelling something, seeing something strange and new. And you seem to feel alive the most when you face death often on the back of a Tuk Tuk speeding down a busy Bangkok road trusting three small wheels and a young Thai guy to get you to your destination in one piece. And you nearly dont make it when he runs a light, comes close to ramming up the back of a taxi, tries to invent his own lane and doesnt hear you shouting "stop stop". He smiles as you hand him 40 baht you smile because you are still aliveand living in Bangkok. __________________________________________________________________ Get your free Australian email account at http://www.start.com.au
