The woman’s unconscious body dangled between the tiny Thai receptionists’ arms as they dragged her into the hostel lobby. What had happened??? We all rushed from the couches towards her sprawled form. Her dyed blond hair and white dress fluttered around the table where she lay. “Go back inside,” said the hostel receptionist with a polite but firm wave. Outside we could hear another rumble brewing.
I had been warned of the lies, but experiencing them in person really slaps you.
“Where you try to go?” asked the Thai man on the street, seeing me and Adie discreetly pull out our Bangkok map. “Snake farm,” said Adie, studying the tiny blue lines on the paper.
“Oh NO!” shrieked the man, “No good! No good! Bad! No snake farm!” You go somewhere else!”
Startled, [...Read More!]
Attention! Through “Boston Bright” language school, you, too, can unzip your Thai skin and become a blue-eyed, English-fluent Whitey! Awesome!
Oh, the irritating stories I could tell of how light skin is prized here…
- Walking down the street with my mixed-race boxer buddies, the masseuses will scream and holler to the light ones “come in, come in!”– then abruptly shut up as the darker ones pass
- On the beach, vendors [...Read More!]
Tucked behind or inside every gas station, clothing store, restaurant, four star hotel, Starbucks– anything at all!– in Thailand, you can see a tiny but gorgeously ornate Buddhist shrine.
Sometimes as you walk by, the curls of incense will kiss your senses and aromatically relax you.
Sometimes, the business or home owner will be walking by with a tiny offering of food for the shrine.
Sometimes, incense in hand, the person will be deep [...Read More!]
I pulled out the map of Bangkok from the Lub-d Hostel lobby and mapped my walking tour objective: To the strip clubs, to the park, to the giant MBK mall, to the river, and to all the glistening golden temples between. Off we go!Vegetable stir-fry and my daily condensed-milk-sweetened ice coffee (OH I LOVE YOU!) to start, and then in to peek at the infamous Patpong strip of girlie clubs. [...Read More!]
“LAST STOP, BANGKOK!” hollered the bus driver from the pitch black.
“What the–” mumbled Stevie from the bus floor where he had been fitfully sleeping on his balled-up pants for the past eight hours. Everyone else peered from under their face masks in utter confusion.
It was 3am. We weren’t supposed to arrive until 6am. “Can we just keep driving around?” asked a small voice from the back.
And yet there we [...Read More!]
It is midnight in Phuket, Thailand, and I am in room 5 of my 5-room poolside, near-beach house… for which I am paying $14 tonight, due to a woven braid of human kindness and connections.
A week before my trip’s first flight, I donned a polka-dot dress for to visit my sweet mother’s place of employment. It was fun, and made me proud of my mother! It was also the first thread [...Read More!]