Hit the road...

Well, I did it, I got my own little hub on the eastern part of the globe. I spent my first night being twenty-five far away from all my dear friends and family, but at least I got to spend it in my own bed! You should have seen me this morning. Well, it was morning in Europe, here it was well beyond morning, but after celebrating one's birthday and becoming an old-timer one is entitled to sleeping well into the afternoon. So first thing I did was pour a bottle of warm water into my system. (No fridge in my 50-Euro apartment.) Trying to keep my hangover from getting the better of me I spontaneously jumped out of bed and started to stretch my arms as I froze with terror. Luckily I froze with my arms in midair, as anything well above my head would have meant a little visit to the local hospital. You see, ceilings are high to Asian standards, so no problems there, but the hovering fan does tend to cut off pointy fingers when set to full force. I wonder if I could save expenses on my haircut if I just jump up once in a while. Well, you will be the first to know, I promise. Next thing I did was running to the toilet to get rid of all those digested (and well-fermented) foods and fluids. (I had the unfortunate idea of trying to get as many different countries into my stomach while celebrating my birthday. I started with Thai rice and chicken for breakfast, moved on to Us style tuna-sandwich with sweet onions, then some kebab in Middle-East street off Sukumvit, to top it off in the evening with more Thai and French fries, to end with the totally unnecessary but nevertheless delicious Israelian Humus and shoarma.) Aha, another little surprise: No toilet. Well, not as we know it. Instead of spending half an hour on the loo with today's paper, I will just be doing it like a girl in the woods. Squatting, that is. Yup, my toilet consists of a porcelain bowl with two footstands engraved in it. Just place yourself on top of it, make sure your tie doesn't dangle in front of your wee-wee and start applying pressure on your lower half. I've been told this way of drooping your droppings is actually quiet healthy compared to the western version. No hanging around here, and so those nasty hemorrhoids don't get a chance of popping up neither. So I've been told. Anyways, sitting so close to the things you have eaten before doesn't really do your hangover any good, so sticking around wouldn't be my choice even if I was squatted comfortably. All in all however I felt pretty proud of my new home. Next thing you know I'll be having a job for Buddha's sake! Well, actually, that might be a good thing. Keeps me from walking around too much. Because that's what I've been doing the rest of the day. Sweating and walking.

I can assure you these Bangkok pavements are not winning any contests in my book. At least not in my "places to stroll around mindlessly without twisting both your ankles" book. It's a thin book, I'll admit to that, but nevertheless it's an important one. If you like your ankles, that is. Potholes that can bring you off balance and thus making you bounce into one of the foodstalls with their boiling oil-pans, Roots from trees creeping out of the cracks of crooked tiles, tiles missing, tiles sticking out for no apparent reason apart from making non-friendly contact with your little toe, ... These are some of the things a pedestrian has to deal with walking any of the not that many pavements. I wonder if that is why everybody is always taking a taxi, motorbike or bus to get from their homes to the shop around the corner. Or is it the other way around? Since no one ever feels like sweating and thus restrain from any kind of exercise outside of airconditioned environments, there is no need to keep the pavements in good shape.
I'll have to give them one thing tough. For a country where people throw trash everywhere but in trash-bins, these pavements look pretty clean. (Not taking air-pollution in account) And for a city where stray dogs rule the streets instead of domestic dogs on a leash, I'm surprised no one ever has shit on their shoes. Actually, I've never seen a turd on the streets since I've been here. There must be some sort of highly-efficient (read "Japanese") Robot-crew out there, scanning the pavements and cleaning them up before anyone shows up to make the damage worse by flattening it out and talking it for a walk. Hrmm. Maybe this dogs are doing it in the trash-bins. Well, then they would get used after all. Everybody happy. Watch out tough for not kicking over beggars cups filled with coins. These little buggers put their beggar-gear in the most inconvenient places. My guess is they are raising their income by appealing to your feeling of guilt after kicking their cup over. I know I put a nice ten Baht in there last time I spilled the poor guys income all over the pavement and onto the streets. (No chance of retrieving it safely until the next traffic jam.) And all that is why I rather hit the road than walk the sidewalk...