My last couple days in Bali I had some very insistant ladies give me a "manicure" which was really just a nail painting job... but boy I felt pretty for Thailand! Here is an excerpt from my diary... written after getting off the bus in Bankok for the first time in 2 years.
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My first thought off the bus: "Smelss like Bangkok"
Maybe I said it out loud. Flood of memories...
Bangkok represents uncountable beginnings wrapped with uncertainty, and equally uncountable endings: Friendships, romance, journeys, eras.
Bangkok is limbo between inumerable paradises and innumerable hells. Bangkok is the end of innocence; the gateway to worlds unconceivable and strange -- yet Bangkok itself remains vaguely familiar. At the same time Bangkok manages to cushion and induce culture-shock.
Bangkok, I say... I know nothing of it. It's Banglamphu. This is home to the Khao Sarn district where I have walked the streest so many times as to wear holes in my 50bhat shoes.
Time moves slowly when you're alone in Banglamphu. Here is a place for trying on hats, masks and cloaks. Who would you like to be today? You can. Anonymity is free yet everyoneis "my friend". Anonymity is the only thing that's free here - anonymity and the smell... they haven't bottled it yet...
Bangkok smells of melancholy, of nostalgia, of loneliness, of excitment, of fear.
The most enduringly temporary city I know - where new friends are never met but are often encountered. There's no nense in it, as everyone you meet is only killing time before that train heads south, the VIP takes off for Laos or Cambodia, or th eflight is boarded onward... or home.
British, Hebrew, Japanese, North American: these are the dominating sounds in the casserole that creates the constant hum of stories, anecdotes, plans, experiences recounted. Emotions are hight in the land of comings and goings. The overriding feelingis of apprehension -- `will I get ripped off, what's it like where I'm going, will I meet anyone nice, what will they thing of me when I get home.... HOME`
All this noise mixing and intertwining - wafting through the smoggy air, reaching my senses all at once, confusing. All at once I hear a big plat of bangers and mash, falafel on the side... didn't I just catch a snippit of sushi, a dash of KFC? (or was it McD's?). That sounds like a baguette or perhapse, it was pasta primavera... what exactly is the sound of a schnitzel? Poutine is prominent but its the Pad Thai that dominates this auditory specturm.
Sometimes you want to hold your breath to block the stench that is so rudely invading your olfactory. That old factory - chugging and churning - turning smell into memories. When they finally do bottle it - who will buy? (I give you good price, my friend...)
The essence of memory ... essentially: time... in a bottle.
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