It's a strange song to have whistling around your head as you say goodbye to a life you've pretty much loved and know that you'll miss dearly, but I couldn't get this song out of my head during those last two weeks and the time that followed. So late one night in Baby Rasta, after jamming along to reggae in the bar, I turned on the camera and tootled it out. It's down there at the bottom...
I suppose, deep down, I was thinking about what was on the horizon beyond Bhutan - back to the bustle of city living and the throb of consumer-driven economics, and Bangkok certainly is all that and more! Sometimes I think I'm living in the future here, Bladerunner style with the concrete feet of the Skytrain and all the motorbikes yipping about and the cars that seem to all be brand new and shiny and future-shaped. In the Siam Paragon shopping mall, you walk by a Zara shop and find next door, a Lamborghini shop! In the 'mall'. Everything moves real fast here and it's always a-buzz, and of course, anything goes. To get to the local 7-eleven to buy a toothbrush, I walk by ladyboys and fat middle-aged European men with dainty little thai beauties on their arm, all of them wearing very expensive dresses for their benefactors to sweat on. Not pretty. I look these men right in the eye. I'm not sure why.
I forget how much I've said about it, but I'm now in Bangkok for a month, staying at the Atlanta Hotel as a sort of 'writer-in-residence' with the aim of finishing one of my books. I'll put more photos up sometime. I was planning to do a sort of reflective, day-by-day blog about it, as I'm here to try to learn a bit of discipline and finish things off, which is hard and interesting in its way, shut away and locked in to my little writing room, but that won't happen. I have other things to write.
Next week I go to Myanmar for a week on a visa run with benefits! I'm heading for Mandalay, from where I pick up a tidy little motorbike and go off into the countryside. There's plenty of chatter about whether it's the right time to go - am I giving tacit support to a regime that has a seriously less than spangly reputation for human rights. But it seems that as long as you travel considerately and, ideally, alone, then it's considered a good thing to do, especially by the people there who want us to know what it's like and want to know what life it's like outside. The key seems to be to avoid channelling your money into the government, hence the travelling solo or in small groups, and hence my decision to get a motorbike and get off the beaten track and into the countryside. Ideally, I'll stay with families, if I can find any who are willing to take me in. I am led to believe the people are lovely, and it's still one of the most devout Buddhist countries there is, which is something I now realise is a good thing, much as I dislike all things religious. Buddhism tends to be a good culture in which societal values can grow, especially if allowed to pertain without too much outside influence - a good description of the Burmese flavour of it, even if the reasons for its isolation are unpalatable. I suppose this decision is a reflection of my feelings about leaving Bhutan. I miss civilised people, dare I say it. Koh Tao was overrun by hedonists. Bangkok is full of people making money. And it's too big.
I waxed lyrical about the open-fronted Baby Rasta bar in my last blog, noting that nobody in Bristol would leave their bar open to the public through the night. I feel I should clarify - I'm not making a comparison between Thai and English or European. It's all about scale. Small is, as they say, beautiful. The social contract breaks down when there's too many people, like nuclei do when there's too many nucleons shielding the binding force. The crowd is a mitigating factor of sorts, but it's a poor substitute for community. So, back to the village. Back to real people and away from all these glossy poster girls and walking sandwich boards. But for now... back to the desk...
Oh, and here's a song...
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