Holiday in Bangkok
Well hello. How are you? Sorry I haven’t been in touch much but I am currently on holiday in Thailand. I also happen to be staying in a fairly remote suburb of Bangkok and it doesn’t have Internet which is sadly quite distressing.
Yes thewordofward is on holiday with Mrs wordofward and it has so far been bloody marvellous. There have obviously been a lot of family dinners and some fairly heavy alcoholic evenings catching up with friends, bars and local beers. Fuck I miss this place. In case you didn’t know, I lived here for 2 years but have also been a regular visitor since 1984 when we used to come on occasional family holidays. It actually reminds me of Hong Kong back in the day before it decided to slip forward into the year 2015.
Bangkok has a lot of these futuristic aspects too but has retained a lot of the charms at street level that Hong Kong has lost. There are astoundingly huge and sci-fi-esque shopping malls filled with the coolest gadgets and oriental woman in shiny miniskirts, but outside you can drink beer and eat freshly cooked noodles on a plastic stool until dawn. Which is always nice and can provide some of the best people watching in the world.
It has all been a fairly relaxed whirlwind of activity since we arrived. Today for example we slept in then had lunch with Nim’s Aunt and Uncle. We then got a cab to my friend Greg’s place and were interviewed for the www.bangkokpodcast.com site. We will be on air in February but it is a really site interesting even without us. Next week they are interviewing the American ambassador which some may argue is a step up in calibre but it’s debatable. Tonight I am due to meet my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and one or more of the crew that have been filming the Hangover 2 here. I’ve already been out a couple of times with some of the crew and they predictably know how to party. Their stories usually start with things like: “So I was on a boat in South Africa with Steve Buscemi and we were going to go in a cage to see some great whites…” Very cool but slightly annoying as it’s impossible to come up with a comparable tale. Even I found it hard and I’m fascinating.
In a couple of days we are going to hit a beach on an island called Koh Chang. I last went there over 10 years ago with an ex-girlfriend who had never been to Asia before. It was awesome but I suspect it has changed a lot.
Apparently the place now has wifi so I might be able to write something. It didn’t before but that was probably more down to the fact that wifi hadn’t been invented. I don’t know how we survived back then. Our friends and acquaintances not knowing every tedious, gloating detail of trips abroad. The horror.
Anyway, just thought I’d write in case people thought the site or myself had died. I don’t want to be held responsible for the mass wailing and gnashing of teeth that would inevitably provoke.
I truly feel at home here and look forward to living here permanently. I’ve spent over half my life in the Orient and quite frankly, I like!
I will sign off with my usual postcard message I stole from my dad.
‘Food fine, bowels regular, natives friendly. Jason’
Cheers
