Travel Day 1082 – Bangkok, THAILAND
It was already my second day in Bangkok and it seemed about time to start dealing with the infamous Khao San Road…
Facing Khao San Road in Bangkok
The problem was that Khao San Road was nothing but a Thai version of what Thamel was for Kathmandu, only that here there were more alcohol, more shops spilling into the streets and more aggressively approaching touts. Since I was having another Arrival Day while still adjusting to the non-monastic life and the different culture in Thailand, I felt once more quite overwhelmed by the noisy music, the loud talking of the people, the open beer bottles on the streets and some sleazy looking girls…
While Thailand was obviously famous for all sorts of sleazy people at night, girls, boys and lady-boys, I felt already overwhelmed by the seemingly sleazy western girls during the day. After spending almost 8 months between India and Nepal, I was simply not used to seeing girls walking around in hot pants or tank tops any more and while I had learned to appreciate a rather modest style of dressing, it was quite interesting to see how much in fact my perception had changed during the past couple of months…
People, Signs and Shops, Khao San Road
For me personally this was just one more thing that added to my sensory overload of the day and made me aware of my current Culture Shock quite strongly as I was walking down the busy Khao San Road. But the second issue I was facing was some serious communication problem as I was trying to buy some used guide books in some of the many second-hand book shops of this extremely touristic area of Bangkok…
It seemed that my constant head wiggling, which had always been the most basic form of communication in India and Nepal, was simply confusing every single Thai person I was talking to. Additionally, the fact that I always told people that what they were selling was much too expensive while trying to bargain them down, was only met by frustrated, sometimes angry faces, simply telling me to go away…
Touristic Khao San Road in Bangkok
It was all a bit strange and made me almost feel alienated and like an outcast while I was on my quest for some reasonably priced second-hand guide books. The prices that were asked for these books and the money that was apparently willingly paid by other travelers seemed simply outrageous to me. In general all guide books seemed to come in four price categories: original new (latest edition), original used (latest edition), original used (older edition) and a new copy version of the latest edition…
Since the non-negotiable prices for the first category were even higher than they would have been at home in a real bookshop and since the second category seemed to cost almost the same, those two were obviously not a real consideration for me. So I could only aim for the last two categories and luckily by the end of the day, I probably found the only street vendor in Bangkok who seemed to possess some bargaining skills. With some books in my hand, I could only think what a strange day this had been on Khao San Road in Bangkok…
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