As I mentioned before, I will not only be using this blog to tell my own story, I will also use it to impart the tales of people I meet along the way. The people you meet make up such a huge part of the experience. You realise quickly that what you see and do is a minute part of what is going on. Everyone has something mad happening to them.
This is one such example.
Charlie was having a bad morning.
We all were, it had been one of those 'night befores' where despite everyone going off in their own directions, the conclusion by dawn was pretty universal. Headaches and hazy tales in abundance. As the dorm reverberated in patchy hangover explanations, one figure on the far right top bunk looked more folorn than most. He just wanted to sleep but that was no longer an option. Eventually forced to accept his lost slumber, he awoke and introduced himself as Charlie.
Charlie was having a bad morning, because Charlie had a bad night.
You see he wasn't meant to still be here. He was meant to be in the air. Flying home. Class started on monday, college was calling. Bangkok had other plans. When he had arrived at the aiport the night before, the flight he had booked himself on to didn't exist. Payment had been taken but the flight appeared to nothing more than a fabrication. As journeys go it wasn't off to a good start.
An hour or so later, still at the airport he came to two realisations that made things even worse. Firstly, in waiting at the airport, he had fallen asleep. Secondly his passport had been stolen.
Clearly distressed by this turn of events he turned to the support force there to put travellers at ease. The Bangkok ariport Tourist Police. He explained his tale of woe to the kindly woman who was serving as the face of the enterprise. She nodded politely, smiled and explained:
" Oh yes, you've been burgle-snatched! "
Charlie had indeed been burgle-snatched. There was no getting around it.
The rest of the force was then brought out to replay the footage of the incident. They watched it over and over and responded as no doubt any law enforcement unit should be expected to. They burst out laughing.
With paperwork in hand to confirm what had happened, Charlie returned to the hostel he had departed from with misty eyes earlier in the evening, ready to settle back in. This was friday night and the embassy didn't open until monday.
What followed was a weekend of clandestine meetings with embassy officials, a modicum of strife but a new found enthusiasm to the make the most of the extended enforcement of his tenure in the city. If Bangkok was keeping him, then the most might as well be made of the experience.
Whilst it was not a circumstance he would have chosen, looking back he gained a wealth of stories for his troubles. Had this not happened he would never have made strange new local Thai aquaintances on the sky train, he would never have found him self lost amongst the frozen stingrays in the weekend fish market and he would have never found himself being sprayed in the face with soda water from the vaginal cavity of a ping pong performer.
It was a strange kind of fortune Charlie had. A mutual friend later remarked that were he to fall down a manhole on the street he would be likely to find a hungry crocodile on one side and the lost city of Atlantis on the other. A curious mixture of stress and discovery.
Later as I drank with him at Sky Bar, taking in the breadth of the city that had provided this unexpected ride he recounted a story of how he had once been rock climbing and found a handhold halfway up the face that unfortunately held a poisionous spider that proceeded to run down his arm. He was clearly still around to tell the tale but I posited that maybe he had actually perished at that moment and what he was going through now was his experience of the afterlife.
He thought about it and decided that he certainly hoped not because for all he been through, for better or worse, it wasn't what he hoped heaven to be.
I think for me, this summed it up as well as could be managed.
Bangkok was many things, but it was not Charlie's heaven.
I think Charlie's tale of woe.... I can't even find the words to describe it. While being hilarious, I think there was a bit of schadenfreude we all experienced with it. However, due to his poor turn of events, I think we had an amazing time and I'm glad he finally made it home. Clandestine destiny my friend. You a new traveler, and me coming out of my little turtle shell, and both of us so afraid of going through what he did. I think we learned a bit from his strength and his optimism. I miss him already.
ReplyDelete