Butterworth to Singapore (the worst bus ride ever)

Long story short: 

I was forced to ride a bus from Butterworth to Johor Bahru in southern Malaysia, and thence to Singapore. Thanks to Hari Raya, the end of Ramadan, all the trains were booked up. It was a rumbling, clattering misery machine a bus to Singapore or nothing at all. 

I woke up at 5:45 a.m. on the morning of Wednesday, July 30, slipped downstairs in the predawn darkness, gave my postcards and 10 ringgit to the night clerk and asked him to mail them for me, and caught the first ferry to the mainland at 7:00 sharp, crossing a calm strait under the pale light of dawn.

What little information I could find online suggested that express buses to Singapore (Woodlands) would be readily available. Apparently those were all booked up too. The best I could do was catch an express bus to the border town of Johor Bahru at 8:30 and figure things out from there. It was a nice bus, at least. It was plentifully air-conditioned, clean, and had seats which reclined fully. I settled in for a long ride and was just getting comfortable when...

...bam, we were in Kuala Lumpur. 

Not my photo. 

A skinny shrimp of a 2nd-generation Chinese-Malay woman kicked everybody going to Gelang and Johor Bahru off the bus. With her hectoring voice, baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, and flicking ballpoint pen, she herded us out of KL Sentral Station and across the street to a pair of considerably older, dirtier, hotter, and less comfortable green buses. A pair of creased, loud-voiced fellows in polo shirts and jeans with walkie-talkies clipped to their back pockets shouted as us to load our luggage and get aboard, and be quick about it. 

Then the agony began. We'd already been on the road five or six hours, but we happy few going to Johor Bahru would remain for a further 8.5 aboard that boiling, filthy bus with precious few rest stops, no food, and shock absorbers that amplified every bump in the road. 

You can't imagine how glad I was to stumble off that accursed machine at Larkin Sentral Station in Johor Bahru, wobbly-legged, sweat-grimed, weak-stomached, bleary-eyed, and foul-tempered. For my trials were not yet over: I thereupon boarded another bus, the 170 for Queen Street in Singapore. I got on and off that bus three freaking times—once to exit Malaysia (and get my exit stamp from a callous-looking woman in a black hijab), once to enter Singapore at Woodlands (which necessitated waiting in line for 40 minutes, and I had to go back to the end of the line once because I forgot to fill out a damn entry card), and finally to go through customs inspection. Each time I stepped off the bus into the steamy night air, my glasses fogged up and my pores began oozing sweat. It crusted my hair, soaked my skin and clothes, and soured my mood. I hate sweating and I hate climates like what they've got down in Southeast Asia, irresponsibly warm and humid. Furry mammals—particularly clothed human beings—have no business living in places like that. It's better if we leave the whole cockamamie place to the reptiles.

At nearly eleven o'clock, 17 hours after waking up, 14.5 hours after leaving Butterworth, and three hours after arriving in Johor Bahru, the 170 bus dumped me out on Queen Street. I had to walk another five or six blocks (and ask a kindly cabbie for directions) but I made it to my hostel, the Tresor Tavern on Jalan Besar in Little India near Farrer Park. Before entering I tried to buy a much-needed 1.5-liter bottle of water with my debit card, but the Sri Lankan shopkeeper didn't have a card reader. That's when a random Singaporean, a tottering old fellow with a shock of gray hair, bulging eyes, and a broad mouth filled with crooked teeth lurched up to the counter to buy a pack of gum. He and a friend had been sitting and eating and boozing it up for who knew how long before I'd walked in. This elderly Samaritan grokked the situation in a blink. Without hesitation he bought the 1.5 liters of water for me, and handed me ten Singapore dollars on top of that. Then he lurched away without waiting for a thank-you. I honestly didn't know what to do, say, or think, and that combination's rare for me. You hear a lot about the kindness of strangers when you're out traveling the world, but the reality of it really hits you in the old heartstrings. That first drink was the coolest and sweetest gulp of water I've ever had.  

My rehydrated corpse hit the rock-hard mattress of the Tresor Tavern's third-floor mixed dormitory at almost midnight. The room had twelve beds, bunked and curtained, the frames bare metal and the rings squeaky. The floor was concrete, the walls bare, the ceiling choked with exposed pipes—"Like a jail," said my elderly Indian roommate. Garbage was stacked atop every locker, none of which actually locked. The wireless Internet only worked on the ground floor, none of the upper floors. It seemed I would have to physically place an order for a towel. Two things did work, however: the air conditioner and the light switch. 

Good night! 

a day in George Town

Not pictured: knee-biting lunacy.

A little historical context first:

George Town is the capital of the state of Penang, one of the smallest provinces in Malaysia, which not only incorporates Penang Island but also a decent wodge of the mainland, including Butterworth. It was named after King George III. That's right, folks—Crazy George, the mad king of Britain and Ireland during the American Revolutionary War. 

The island was originally part of the Sultanate of Kedah, until one day in August 1786 when an enterprising young sea captain named Francis Light of the British East India Trading Company landed there. He wound up marrying the sultan's daughter and Penang Island was ceded to the British Crown as part of her wedding dowry. Captain Light promptly established George Town, Britain's first permanent colony in Southeast Asia. It initially had only four streets and a couple of jetties. A fort was built in the northeast corner of the municipality, commanding a 270-degree view of the sea. The Netherlands Trading Society, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company (known today as HSBC), the Chartered Bank (now called Standard Chartered), Boustead & Co., and a dozen others all set up shop here, and the town and the swampy island it sits on were the center of British trade and shipping in the area for quite a few years. There was a nasty problem with malaria in the early years of the colony, earning it the unfortunate nickname "White Man's Grave." 

There were geopolitical speed bumps as well. Captain Light had promised the Sultan of Kedah that the East India Company would offer him military protection in exchange for the island. In so promising he had acted without his superiors' approval. When the Siamese attacked the sultanate a few years later, no British help was forthcoming. The enraged sultan tried to take the island back by force in 1790. In this he failed, and was not only forced to give up the island permanently but also to pay the Crown a sum of 6,000 Spanish dollars per annum. This was later upped to 10,000 Spanish dollars when Province Wellesley (now modern-day Pulau Penang) was incorporated in 1800. Even to this day the Malaysian government pays an annual honorarium of 10,000 ringgit (around $3050 American) to the state of Kedah. 

In 1826, Penang (along with Malacca and Singapore) became part of the Straits Settlements under the British administration in India, and came under direct colonial rule in 1867. In 1946, it was absorbed into the Malayan Union and in 1948 was designated a state of the Federation of Malaya. This federation gained independence from Britain in 1957 and became modern-day Malaysia in 1963. The island was a free port until 1969, and even after losing its free port status became one of the world's foremost centers of electronics production in the '70s and '80s. In 2008, George Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has seen an influx of tourists ever since. 

It was one of the most multicultural places I visited in Southeast Asia, despite having a population of only 720,000 and being rather off to the left compared to more popular tourist destinations like Kuala Lumpur or Langkawi. There were bearded, robed Arabs walking around; chattering Tamils with pearly white teeth; quiet, dignified Chinese; agile, jolly, skinny Thais; bald, pale, T-shirted English expatriates; and grubby foreigners like me from America, Canada, Spain, France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, and everywhere in between. 

I spent most of the morning of Tuesday, July 29 nursing my katzenjammer. (Seven beers at the Hong Kong Bar the night before, remember?) The Red Inn Court had a free breakfast of noodles in black sauce, toast and jam, coffee, and fruit. That helped a lot, as did the warm shower I took. I'd intended to sally forth and tour George Town promptly, but a thundering rain came pouring down between ten and twelve o'clock, the heaviest monsoon cloudburst I'd yet seen on this trip. The Matrix Revolutions has got nothing on Mother Nature. It kept sprinkling well past one o'clock, by which point I couldn't wait any longer, so with a poncho stuffed in my pocket I sauntered out and commenced my walking tour.   

It wasn't just the Muslims who were having a holiday (Hari Raya Puasa, the end of Ramadan). For the Chinese Buddhists, there was some festival related to Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, who has one of the largest and grandest temples in George Town dedicated to her. Crowds of elderly men and women swarmed the temple forecourt, barely visible through the thick, broiling fumes of incense. Prayers flew thick and fast and I couldn't get a show, so I walked on. 

Unfortunately, despite being a UNESCO site, there just wasn't that much to do or see in George Town. I saw the fort; Khoo Kongs, one of the oldest and most famous clanhouses; the jetties; a couple of temples...and, well, that was about it. 

All in all, I was so disappointed by the place (my debauch the previous night notwithstanding) that I ended up taking just six pictures during my whole 48-hour stay, including that one you saw in the previous post. Disappointing, to say the least. 

Lebuh Chulia, where a lot of the bars and noodle joints are.

The fertility cannon at Fort Cornwallis. The largest gun with the widest range, it will also cure barrenness in women, or so the local legend goes. You just need to place some flowers on it. 

After my little walking tour of the town, I got into a cab and tried to send postcards home to the States, only to be gently reminded by the Indian driver that today was a holiday—several, actually—and the post office was shut. I sighed, thanked him, got out of the cab, went back to the hostel, and napped until 6:30. 

Awaking hungrier than a horse, I strode toward what looked like the food-and-drink sector of town, determined to find me a burger and a beer. I was sixteen days into my trip and I had been a very good boy, eating local the whole way. Now I was fed up with rice and noodles and chicken and wanted nothing more than to get a thick, juicy beef patty between my teeth. I stopped off at the SoHo Free House, noting burgers on their menu and cheap beer. Seemed like a winning combo.

Well, it wasn't. That was the worst burger I've ever had in my life. What was supposed to be a rare patty turned out squishy, lumpy, and poorly seasoned; the bun was stale and soggy; the vegetables far from fresh; and the fries limp and cold. The best part about that meal was the mad specials they were having on—you guessed it—Tiger beer. Even so I could only bring myself to drink one. I laid my money down and sped out of there.

Night fell. I wandered, unwilling to give up George Town so easily. I thought vaguely of finding a historic hotel and having a cocktail, but again I felt worried by potential dress code violations, and the proliferation of foreign phonies that were sure to be in the hotel bar, boozing it up. I strode longingly past the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, trying to peer through the big casement windows and catch a glimpse of all the idiots partying inside, but my reconnaissance was for naught; I couldn't make out a thing. 

Not my photo.

I walked home, a bit miffed at the double holiday that prevented me from mailing postcards or exchanging ringgit for Singapore dollars. Testily I went to sleep, ready to rise at 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning to catch the long-haul bus at Butterworth Station. 

an evening in George Town, Penang

Travel Truth #7: Holidays and festivals can throw some delightful zest into your trip. Or a monkey wrench.

Things began to go seriously wrong the moment I stepped off the International Express train in Butterworth, Malaysia, fresh off the overnight ride from Bangkok. While the other passengers took the long walk up a series of elevated ramps to the ferry jetty, I turned right, crossed the tracks, and went to the station office to check on train tickets to Singapore. 

There weren't any. As in, none. Zero. Zip. Nada. 

I didn't realize that Ramadan leaped around so much. I thought it was pretty much a winter holiday, and that's that. I didn't comprehend that the vagaries of the Islamic calendar could place Ramadan, say, in the midst of summer, but so it had. It seems that I had arrived in Malaysia right at the beginning of Hari Raya Puasa, the "Day of Celebrating the End of Fasting." Today and tomorrow (July 28-29), every Mohammedan in Malaysia (and Singapore and Brunei and the Philippines) would be home with their family, stuffing themselves silly and giving thanks to Allah. All the train tickets back to Singapore were booked up through the end of the week. 

Shoot. 

Resolving to worry about all this later, I hefted by backpack, sauntered out into the broiling sunshine, and traipsed my way along the elevated walkways to the ferry jetty. 

The line was about 50 miles long. Twin rows of Malays (mostly young men, I noticed) stood upon the cracked concrete of the shady walkway, arms folded, talking amongst themselves as they waited their turn for a ride to Penang, a medium-sized island just a kilometer or two off the coast, its humped green back just visible in the hazy distance. There were a couple of portly, black-uniformed policeman patrolling the crowd, casting disapproving eyes at the loud and boisterous, their keen eyes seeking out any women and hustling them to the front of the line. One of these policemen spotted me. His eyes swept over me, taking in my misshapen hat, sweat-soaked clothes, lumpy backpack, and ridiculous flip-flop tan, and then darted away like a startled fish.

A second policeman with dark sunglasses came along a few minutes later and motioned me out of line and to the front. Gratefully, I humped my backpack another 200 yards, past a line that would surely have meant two or three hours of waiting, paid my fare, rode across the strait, and spent about a 30 fruitless minutes searching for my hotel (and nearly melting in the process) before a kindly cabbie picked me up and took me there.  

I checked into the Red Inn Court, which wasn't as new or modern or large as Boxpackers in Bangkok but nonetheless clean and serviceable. Thereupon I took three hours to cool off, both literally and figuratively. I also had to wait until after 6:00, when the noodle joints opened up. Then I sauntered into the gentler but still sultry evening, found an open-air greasy spoon crowded with locals (always a good sign) and ordered a plate of delicious, savory char koay teow, noodles stir-fried in rich dark sauce. This particular variety had chicken and shrimp. I sat across the table from a Brazilian fellow named Gabriel who lived and worked in Singapore, and found it horribly boring. We talked, mostly of the shittiness of Asian beer and the emergence of craft brew. 

I sloped a few feet west down Lebuh Chulia to the Hong Kong Bar, a cramped closet of a place with an eclectic mix of rustic decorations, Chinese paper lanterns and WWII British Army jungle hats being the most prominent. Best bar in Asia, bar none. I sat at one of the tables out in front, right next to a pillar, and had seven Tiger beers (for a total of 77 ringgit, or about $23.50). The sun set beyond Penang Hill, lighting the low, glowering clouds a lambent yellow ochre overhead and a fulgent papaya nearer the horizon. Drag queens, ladyboys, tourists, and benighted foreigners strode past and kit cars and scooters zoomed by at ridiculous speeds. I chatted with the Chinese-Malaysian proprietress, an English man and his articulate Chinese wife at the next table, and a youngish Russian woman named Eugenya. She was a scuba diving instructor and was living in Thailand, but was down in Malaysia doing a visa run. She and I were united by literature—both of us were quite well-read, and we discussed our favorite works, Russian and otherwise. One of the most controversial topics we discussed was the plus side and perks of racism—yes, we thought of several good ones. We shared a few off-color jokes between us, including ones at Russians' and Americans' expense. 

All in all, it was a magical evening. As I sat there with a bellyful of horrid Malay beer and the fires of a glorious sunset still dying a slow death in the western sky, the Chinese-Malaysian proprietress laughing at my jokes and slapping me on the shoulder, I could see myself happily moving to George Town and sitting in the Hong Kong Bar and doing some of my best writing. And living. 

the International Express to Butterworth

Travel Truth #6: Don't trust the hype, whether good or bad. 

One of the things that's always bedeviled my travels is the tendency of other travelers to twitter with needless positiveness about things that really gargle balls. 

The Man in Seat 61 asserts that you've no need to reserve a first-class sleeper on the Thai-Malaysia train, 'cause the second-class sleepers are excellent and serviceable. It was definitely the latter, but not the former. I had a comfy seat in the daytime, and delicious train food, but my upper berth had barely enough room to roll over. If you do decide to travel second-class on the run from Bangkok to Butterworth, make sure to get a spacious lower berth with a window. That's all I'm going to say. 

On Sunday, July 27, I awoke at 8, showered, breakfasted, exchanged two hundred dollars for 634 Malaysian ringgit, and was set to go by 9:30 a.m. I lazed around until 11:45, reading Dune and chatting with Miss H, relishing the air conditioning and putting off the moment when I'd have to set foot in that hot, humid hell outside the hostel as long as possible. I checked out at noon, got my $10 security deposit back, and hired a tuk-tuk to take me to Hua Lamphong Station for 100 baht—once again beating back my burgeoning bargaining skills. 

I spent a couple of hours lounging around Hua Lamphong's massive lobby, staring at inscrutable commercials on Jumbotrons and portraits of the king and hearing cheesy food court music. The latter made me hungry, so I hauled my heavy pack into the stuffy, sweltering food court and ate a last delicious plate of pad thai for 40 baht. At two o'clock, I went to platform five, car two, seat thirty-one. 

The attendant came by with the dinner and breakfast menu. I ordered fried veggies with shrimp for my repast, and made a few notes in my journal. 

There were two things I thought I should mention about Thailand before I left it. First, unlike the Vietnamese or Cambodians, the Thais drive on the left side of the road, like the Brits or Japanese do. Second, even the poorest Thais—including the ones in the slums which the train chugged past on its way south out of Bangkok—could afford brass birdcages with mynah birds in them. I'd been seeing these birds—renowned for centuries as clever mimics, on par with parrots—since Phnom Penh, both in the wild and kept as pets. 

The attendant made up the beds at 7:30, and I lost my comfy seat by the window. By that time it was too dark to see anything anyway. Everyone from Kipling to Conrad has written about the swiftness of the equatorial sunset, but I'd never seen it put into practice before. I was a long time in getting to sleep, rolling around uncomfortably in my sardine can of an upper berth. This was way more awkward and unpleasant than my upper berth on the Reunification Express in Vietnam had been. I almost wished I was back there, prayer-chanting old ladies and squalling infants notwithstanding. 

I passed a hot, aching, bumpy, noisy night, and woke when dawn was just beginning to tinge the eastern horizon a neon tangerine. I had breakfast in my bunk, as my lower berth-mate hadn't deigned to wake yet. Two hours later, bored and cramped and antsy from missing what was surely a stupendous sunrise, I leaped down into the corridor and peeked through the curtain. The bastard was awake in there, playing games on his iPad with his smartphone serving as a mobile hotspot. That got my dander up. No way the bugger would monopolize that space while I scrunched and squozed around up top. So I knocked quite loudly on the partition and caught his eye through the gap between the curtains. He jumped up apologetically and fetched the attendant, who folded up the beds and took away the bedding. Both of us were installed in our rightful seats again by 7:30 a.m. sharp. 

Ten minutes later the train rolled into Hat Yai, the last major Thai stop. My lousy seatmate got off here—just how long was he intending to loaf around in bed, anyway? I got a new seatmate, a middle-aged but not unattractive woman whose nationality—Malay or Thai—I couldn't discern. 

We reached the border town of Pedang Besar at 9:30 a.m. I was one of the first off the train and through immigration. Piece of cake—a quick glance at my passport and a tourist stamp. The customs inspector had a quick look inside my bag, but zipped it up again and handed it back to me with no questions asked. Why can't all border crossings be this easy?

And at 1:00 local time (12:00 Bangkok time) we rolled into Butterworth. But I'll tell you all about that in the next post. 

Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua (Tiger Temple)

A scant 30 minutes from the River Kwai bridge was the golden horn of this little seventy-dollar tour I'd taken out of Bangkok on Saturday, July 26: Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua. The Tiger Temple.

Billed as a chance to score some one-on-one time with the rare, elusive Indochinese tiger, the reality turned out to be neither one-on-one nor much time at all. We strode across half a kilometer of dusty temple grounds, strewn with indolent, wandering water buffalo and skittish deer, to the nexus of the action, a spot fancifully called "Tiger Canyon." It was a gully naturally carved out of the pale rock and ochre dust, leaving a natural shady grotto with an artificial waterfall built by some thoughtful, wealthy, and guilt-wracked Thai millionaire. We eager guests traversed the the gravel and hard-packed dust to the bottom of the gully, where a stout fence and double lines of gawkers heralded our arrival at the tiger paddock. Beyond this fence, tigers—some dozen of them—sprawled everywhere near the rock pool at the base of the waterfall, spreading themselves out like the viscous liquid which all somnolent cats resemble. Tanned, dreadlocked foreign volunteers sorted us into two lines: the camera-bearers and the camera-less. I was shunted into the former. When I got to the head of the line, a curt Thai volunteer grasped my wrist and hustled me from one tiger to the next, shoving me into a crouch, snatching my camera away, snapping a picture or two, yanking me to my feet, and packing me off to the next recumbent feline form. The whole affair was run with the efficiency of an assembly line and the quickness of a soccer substitution. I didn't get to savor the fact that I was sitting next to, or petting, a goddamn tiger. It was rather anticlimactic. 

  

I wasn't in the sweetest of moods after the three-and-a-half-hour trip back to Bangkok. Imagine my surprise and delight when I reentered my cubicle at Boxpackers and discovered a lovely handwritten note from Emilia, my Kentish dorm-mate. Sadly, our paths had parted. After I'd left for my tour at 6:30, she had checked out at noon, bound by train for Chiang Mai. I had considered leaving her a note, but hadn't wished to appear forward and creepy; so I'd desisted. She was more earnest. In her missive she wrote that it had been nice to meet me, and she wished me well on the rest of my journey. It's not often you meet such genuineness out on the road. I do hope she and I meet again someday. 

the bridge on the River Kwai

...as seen on TV.

After lunch, it was off to the River Kwai bridge, made famous by both a book and a movie, which I've read and seen respectively. In actual fact, the tour turned out to be 50 minutes at the perplexingly planned and poorly cared-for Jeath War Museum, and about 10-20 minutes on the actual bridge itself. 

What does this have to do with British P.O.W.s dying horribly?

And the bridge wasn't even the "real" bridge—that got bombed out by the Allies during the war. (The museum had mistakenly depicted American jet bombers attacking the bridge in a large painting on one wall.) The bridge I stood on that sweltering Saturday of July 26, 2014 was built entirely by the Japanese as part of their war indemnity. 

The whole thing felt half-assed, to be frank. There were some cute little leopard cubs at a petting zoo nearby, so there was that. 

the floating markets of Kanchanaburi

It was rather like a field trip, only we didn't stop by school first. The bus came right to my house. At the crack of dawn I was up and ready, but the tour company beat me to the punch. I was still throwing things into my satchel when a bleary-eyed young night clerk came up to tell me a car was parked downstairs for me. I dashed down and leaped into a full-size van, and off we went. There were already two bony, exhausted-looking young Italian girls inside, and on our way out of Bangkok we stopped to pick up three burly Indian fellows and two elderly, grinning Australian women. 

The driver was a tall, gaunt man with longish hair and a Heineken baseball cap who barely spoke two words and spent our rest stops sitting in the driver's seat and smoking a listless cigarette. The guide was a shorter, bug-eyed, toad-mouthed fellow with close-cropped graying hair. He introduced himself thus: "My name Cham Long. You call me Long Cham." He grinned a lot and had a wicked sense of humor. He kept patting my pudgy stomach and asking me when my due date was, and he hinted incessantly that one of the three Indian fellows was a ladyboy. 

The tour was good, but it was so...rushed. We had only an hour at the floating markets (after a two-hour drive to get there!) which was just enough time for a quick paddle around—for 200 baht—and a sip of coconut juice.

  

The markets were a royal letdown. I don't mean to be one of those twits who always yaps about authenticity, but the floating markets of Kanchanaburi weren't authentic at all. You could see this whole place had been set up for the tourists' sake. Everything: the boat rides, the cheap souvenirs, the countless Buddha and elephant statues carved from jade and quartz...it was all to fleece the fat white folks from the big city. There were no locals there apart from the mongers and merchants, just foreign phonies like me. I felt like such a poser sitting in that wooden boat, my sandalled feet wet with bilge water, snapping selfies and sucking on a coconut with a straw in it. I'm never going back. 

After we finished with the markets, Long Cham rounded us up and we were whisked off to lunch, an assortment of spicy, savory Thai dishes laid out buffet-style at a roadhouse. We were all too hungry to make much conversation, and people pretty much stuck to their own cliques. I was the only solo traveler, but that's fine; I was never much for conversation anyway. 

After another long drive, we found ourselves at...

Bangkok, day two: Chinatown

So much for my promise about walking everywhere today (Friday, July 25, 2014). I was feeling so drained after my grueling trek through riverside Bangkok (and so at peace with the world after my lengthy rest in Wat Suthat) that I hired a tuk-tuk to take me to Chinatown for dinner.

Innovative solution...

Fortunately the food was pretty dang good, and so was the beer, or there would have been trouble. 

Coconut curried crab. Since I was breaking rules today, why not break my no-food-selfie rule, too?

As you can see from the signs, I could have had shark fin or bird's nest soup, but I thought I'd keep things simple. And humane.

I was rather disappointed in the place. It had all the authenticity of a corny Japanese theme park, all the priciness of a Sino-Korean neighborhood, and all the dirt and slime and grunge of a Vietnamese metropolis. I ate quickly at Lek & Rut Seafood, paid 500 baht(!!!), and caught a tuk-tuk back to Hua Lamphong Station.

Here's where things really started to go south. I rode the Skytrain (Line 2) from Hua Lamphong to the transfer station at Sukhumvit/Asok, but the rush-hour crowds there were beyond imagining. I would have had to wait in line for an hour just to get a ticket, let alone actually board the Line 1 train. So I said "Screw it" and decided to hunt up a beer bar I'd heard about, BREW Beers & Ciders. I knew it was on Sukhumvit 55, and I was on Sukhumvit Road anyway, so I strolled about ten or twelve blocks south, from Asok to Thong Lo, and turned left (east) on Sukhumvit 55 as darkness fell. I walked a good kilometer along the gum-pocked sidewalk, dodging scooter drivers and ladyboy hookers and drunken salarymen and horny foreigners looking for a fix and a quick fuck. I finally reached the alley where BREW allegedly was, but I couldn't find it. I walked up and down, past other trendy and upscale bars, coffeehouses, and Thai-Chinese fusion restaurants, but I never located it. I later learned that I had walked right by it. It lay at the mouth of the alley, but it was hidden from me by some stupid outdoor seafood restaurant that took up half a block and hid the bar from my view. 

I was hot, sweaty, footsore, and felt like I'd hiked 80 miles. I hiked back to Thong Lo and caught the Skytrain home. The crowds had thinned out by this time. I showered, checked in with my Kentish cubicle-neighbor Emilia, updated my journals, and hit the sack.

Tomorrow: my package tour of Kanchanaburi, northwest of Bangkok, begins with the floating markets. 

Bangkok, day two: Wat Suthat and the Giant Swing

After I left Wat Phony I walked all the way around the National Museum, the royal palace and Wat Phra Kaew. Seemed to take hours, though it was barely one. No tuk-tuks today, remember? I'd promised myself. 

I'd originally intended to tour the palace and Wat Phra Kaew, but I changed my mind when I came around the corner of the palace wall and saw the pulsating throng crowding the main gate. White tourists buses kept rolling up and disgorging clamoring heaps of pudgy, fatuous, ridiculously-dressed Asian and European tourists, and I "couldn't get no show" as Mark Twain would say. I walked on, past the museum, fighting my way through the stagnant afternoon heat, trailing a japing pack of young Thai army cadets on a long and completely unnecessary detour around Saranrom Park. I probably should've stopped and strolled through this park, but didn't because another pack of army cadets was doing drills in it and I didn't want to have anything to do with the military while I was here. 

On the east side of the park I was accosted by a plain-clothed policeman of Chinese descent with a bristly, pencil-thin mustache and a whiny, nasally voice who wanted me to walk (or rather, hire a tuk-tuk) to take me to the giant standing Buddha at Wat Intharawihan. I nodded, said I'd consider it, and walked north to Wat Suthat (and the Giant Swing, which isn't really a swing at all). 

In this temple, I found Nirvana—or the closest thing to it on such a hot, miserable, swampy day. I sat down on the red velvet floor and gazed contemplatively over the enormous sitting Buddha, with his long earlobes and his languorous hooded eyes and his lips tinged with that old Angkor smile. I liked Wat Suthat better than any other temple I'd been in, and I've been to temples in six Asian countries. I've been to temples with Buddha statues of solid emerald and floors of pure silver, temples with heaps of glittering gold artifacts sitting at the Enlightened One's feet, temples saturated with the smell of incense and washed with the rays of the sun and the spray of the sea. To blazes with them all; I liked Wat Suthat. 

It was quiet. It was peaceful. It was airy and breezy and cool. There were hardly any phonies. The ceiling was high and vaulted and had all the quiet reverential quality of a church. The pillars and walls were coated in scenes depicting the life and trials of the prince Siddhartha, fantastically intact after all this time. There were a few worshipers—old men, mostly—quietly meditating and bowing. Electric fans hummed soothingly away in the background. I sat on the temple grounds for 40 minutes and inside the temple proper for 15, just soaking up the atmosphere (and drying off after my long walk). 

Bangkok, day two: Wat Pho

No descriptions this time—I'm just going to let the great Reclining Buddha speak for itself. It was so massive I couldn't even fit all of it into one photograph:

The only thing you need to know about Wat Pho apart from that is that it's usually full of phonies—hipster kids in their doofy narrow-brimmed straw fedoras and couples my age in those ridiculous elephant pants that somehow make them look even more like tourists. They were everywhere. Should've been called Wat Phony...