What's up Steemers!!! If you don't know me yet check out my introduction post right here: https://steemit.com/trip/@flyover/hi-guys-let-me-introduce-myself .
Alright, alright, I woke up like 5 hours ago and I was just wondering a question some of you might find familiar, allow me to express it in the language my mind use... "what the fuck do I write about!?".
Well, maybe it would be a good idea to write about one of the best if not the best times of my life.
My 3 month trip to Thailand.
But lets go step by step:
After working for 3 years for one of the biggest and busiests casinos in London as a croupier I was starting to have some health issues regarding my back and some other little things.
That, in addition to the growing hole of apathy towards everything that surrounded me was wearing off my soul, I needed a break, a huge one.
It was about the start of the christmas campaign when I decided it:
Fuck the Casino, fuck London, Fuck feeling as a empty as a shiny bag of crisps floating around through the grey streets of the city. Time to fly, time to feel, time to be 100% myself.
Checked my savings, checked skyscanner and found an interesting flight for an interesting price, I looked at it for a couple of minutes. Through my mind was going a series of thoughts about what is right, what could I do with that money instead and how leaving a kind of confortable (in some ways) job, could affect my financial stability.
I've always been a quite self-aware person, some people have a garden as inner space where they chill out and organise their stuff... what I've got is a inner jungle-ish rain forest...
While I was looking at the skyscanner website i remember about a philosopher whose name i forgot, who said one phrase that really changed my life. If you are waiting here for big words and grandiloquent articulation of terms, well you waited in vain, it was simply one of those powerfull truth statements contained in easy, plain and kinda obvious manners " there is a time for thinking and a time for doing, learn to discern between them" . So I just clicked, A simple tap with my index finger meaning so much and just line that, the ticket was purchased, the trip had begun.
After telling my family, friends and workplace about my plans I started preparing, planning my journey, not knowing yet that those plans meant nothing, as Antonio Machado wrote once "caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar" (" there is not path walker, the path is done by walking").
After the christmas celebrations with friends the bitter sweet feeling of adventure and the unknown motivated fears that I was experiencing, the day arrived:
Flight London-Copenhagen-Bangkok
Taxi to Kao SanRoad and BOOM! Just like that I was just there, in a totally different reallity surrounding me, what a mayhem, tourists and travellers everywhere , you could make a clear distintion between this two species, I didn't even know what to do next so after leaving my stuff in the hostel I started just walking around, offers from hand tailored suits to deep fried scorpions, ladyboys offers, massages and a sense of chaos where my inputs.
Ok I NEED A BEER... NOW
So I sat down and started talking with this 50 something years old quite crazy dude who end up telling me about his mad tinder dates... trust me, you don't want to know about that...
My phone beeps, Sophie, an events organiser, festival maker, Dj and more over hedonist as f* friend that I met in one of my travels through Europe ( I met her in the Dover-Calais ferry) was in Bangkok, time to meet up, grabbed a moto-taxi and flew over the traffic at a full speed On, (helmet what!?).
She was staying on a AirBnB flat with swimming pool in a cool area segregated from the touristic, plastic area. This was the real high end Bankok life style.
Oh God that hug and then jump to the swimming pool felt so great.
We decided to go back to kao San road, it was around 19.00ish and the city already was transformating... alcohol flowing through the vains of this vast city and its occupiers, the whole workforce of the vice and party scene where out looking forward attract the foreign currency in to the ecuation. I was ready to rock it, we went to this terrace bar with live music and stuff and drank like there was no tomorrow, come on after all, it was a great occasion to celebrate, wasn't it?. then I went to the bar for a couple of chang beers and as I came back Sophie was chatting with this guy Mike, an austrian new hippie like traveller, cool dude.
I could sense straight away their mutual attraction to each other and since I wasn't sexually attracted by her I tried to encourage it...
The night went on an on and we end up clubbing in an area where I didn't see one tourist. It looked like the kind of place where the thai moneymakers had their weekly dose of deephouse and "soma" . After leaving this two over there... I headed back to the hostel to call it a day.
Oh God, the ammount of rubbish depravation and pure vice I found in Kao san was barely bearable so I just went straight to bed after politely declining a few prostitutes in the way back. (Promise 😂)
The next day Sophie was doing her own thing so I met Mike who appeared to me as a much happier man today and after mentally reviewing the last night we went around the city visiting a couple of temples , it was that night where sitting in a little reggae bar we decided to invite to sit down with us every single person who looked like sending good vibes, soon we where around 12 people drinking discovering each other personalities and having fun like life-long friends do, within them there were Lisa and her "open relationship boyfriend" George, Paolo and kameron. Paolo for instance was this italian fashion designer dude who was living in china for years and traveled to Bangkok riding a bicicle, he is currently going back to italy... yes... riding the bicicle. Kameron a 27 years old San francisco(u) cool guy who was travelling for a year and a half , doing some.freelance mysic prosuction for apps and with a great sense of bussiness passive income related.
After more and more beer and some dancing in the street to deep house tech music we ended up at 6 in the morning looking for somewhere to go, looking really for a excuse for sticking together. This was my second day , now technically third and I was already enchanted by the freedom and openness of the traveller crew we were now part of.
The third day I arrenge my bus ticket to Chiangmai a city up north famous for its coworker spaces, startups companies, temples and mountains, I'd leave bangkok in two days, days that I spent visiting markets, eating pad thai, drinking chan and meeting great people wich was the most rewarding of the experiences.
As an example I would like to mention about my last night in Bankok, Sophie and me decided to just walk , no maps no transport and simply decide in the spot between 3 options every intersection : left? Right? Or Carry on, just like that we found a 100%local food market below a highway where we met Pó a superfunny cook who filled up our table with his bests dishes for virtually nothing, then introduce us to his 9 years old boy and 11 years old daughter, shy kids at the beggining I ended up playing rock paper scissor with them , best of 3, if you lose you gotta dance in front of the rest of the thai costumers. Yep, managed to win against both of them, first the boy, who I made dance the "everything counts" depeche mode hit ( i know... really funny tune choice lol)
And for the girl "barbie girl" from Aqua...
I have to confess that because of the girl being shy I just jumped next to her and started dancing like a fool making every man laugh and then getting 2 shots of this Sake-like liquor wich burned like hell.
Next day the sense of Bankok being done and the thirst for new adventure saw me saying goodbye to the people I met and got in the bus to spend the night in the most confortable bus I ever been on( at the time) .Kameron was going to come up in a few days and everyone was talking wonders about Chiang mai so a new chapter was about to begin 😊.
Well, boys and girls this is all for now, I hope you enjoyed reading this posts, this is the first of a series describing the best bits of my travels, feel free to comment, ask , advise and share ;)
If the feedback is right you'll get to read about the 762 turns in a moped motorcycle from chiang mai to the mountains of Pai, how I nearly lost a toe in the full moon party, how I met the beautiful girls I enjoyed the company of and well, maybe even about some psychodelic experience in the Pai jungle...
Stay tunned! Quality content is coming 😊
Upvoted you
Will post part 2 as soon as I reach 50 up votes 😊
"There is a time to think and a time to act" Buying a one way plane ticket is almost as great a feeling as landing in a country you've never been and all of a sudden your in it, emersed in a totally new culture. Love it!
@flyover Really liked your episode in the reggae bar!! :D i also went there. I think that place is impregned of positive vibes itself.