Before we proceed, let me note that Bangkok traffic is insane. I say this as a mental health professional. There are evidently NO traffic regulations, and a two-story speeding bus as well as a gerrymandered truck piled to the rafters with randomly stocked tree limbs (on top of which sit a platoon of field workers) can be found competing for the same lane as a family of four chugging away on a motorbike for one. All at speeds above 80 mph. Not to mention the countless random stray dogs wandering along aimlessly in and out of traffic or lying nose-to-asphalt in what appears to be either oblivion or a suicidal impulse. There is a decided bias against traffic lights, or turning lanes (or even using turning signals), and making any right turn across four lanes of traffic without getting obliterated (or obliterating, since no one uses seat belts) is like playing Russian roulette.
But make it we did. Mira had reserved two rooms for us at the Sabai-Sabai, her first "home" in Thailand (where she stayed so often that they just stopped charging her and made her a member of the family).
The Sabai-Sabai, owned by the generous and glamorous Lek, is a small, six-story hotel in central Bangkok. It is alternately decorated in either tones of rust, gold, and browns, with art that is equally subdued, as shown below,
or in welcome-to-a-completely-different-world colors - phosphorescent oranges, impossible pinks, lime greens, blue morpho butterfly blues, and garish golds.
Across the street from this classy little establishment, however, is a building so abandoned and dilapidated it appeared to be disintegrating as we looked,
with the exception of one tiny little patio where there was a lovely teak deck and potted plants.
At the end of this block-long health hazard, to my great amusement, is the optimistically named
This was Thai optimism at its finest, a trait I have increasingly come to value. Wherever they are now, may the Prosper Company's workers truly live well and prosper (channeling Dr. Spock here).
This juxtaposition of the elegant and the dilapidated has been...to put it mildly...disconcerting for me, particularly since the squalor, unfortunately, appears to prevail. My compulsivity where beauty and order are concerned is seeming like a neurosis (when I had thought it was a basic human need).
The squalor, though, is quite beyond imagining. Heaps of trash surround every dwelling; buildings are in perpetual states of disrepair; there is no organization of materials whatsoever anywhere,
though there are occasional and startling exceptions.
But in general it appears to be a principle that visible reality is simply, utterly, inconsequential.
I like this concept, but I'm too beholden to my senses to live it.
Bangkok in general is a crash course in giving up any sense of control. The streets are lined with multiple strands of electrical lines bundled together with what appear to be baggy ties just barely above our heads; reportedly some taller people have had unfortunate encounter. The shops along the street look post-apocalyptic (which, sadly, given the recent flooding, they probably are) and everything appears to be under construction, with no visible indication of progress. It is a total dystopia, as Mark was wont to comment repeatedly. Despite the beauty of Thai culture in art there appears to be no contemporary aesthetic whatsoever either in the city or the country.
And I can't even talk about the hygiene factor. Only the most fortunate (and the farang - the foreigners) get the benefit of microbe-free food and drink. And even for us, unless you're at a high-end resort it is a benefit without the option of any paper products except... I am not making this up... toilet paper. That particular consumer good is available in rolls everywhere for every possible purpose except (to my frustrated discovery at public restrooms) for the purpose for which it was intended, where evidently it is seen as superfluous to the occasion.
Nearly all aesthetic impulse in Thailand seems to be directed solely at religious representations, and those are spectacularly beautiful.
I have also been repeatedly reminded of the soulfulness of Thai culture in the countless elaborate, astoundingly beautiful spirit houses that honor the ancestors in even what appear to be homeless encampments.
Perhaps this is a reminder that all of reality is just illusory. The details as I see them - life/death, beauty/squalor, compassion/oblivion, comfort/oppression - seem not to matter so much in the larger scale of time, which the Thai seem to understand so much better than I.
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