Bangkok Lights

The Bangkok skyline is gray and foreboding.  Less than 12 hours ago the city welcomed me with a dazzling display of light.  Today the sky weeps as if to compliment my own tears and trepidations.   They are not the result of sadness, simply a reflection of adjustment to a new and very different world.

Last night after 27 hours of transit I emerged in a new place, my tired eyes adjusting to a very different life.  I felt like a cast member of the Walking Dead or at the very least like I had just emerged from a dark movie theater squinting and opening my eyes.  The process of getting from airport to hotel was not as complicated as I thought and I definitely appreciated the assistance I had from an analyst that currently works in our office here. 

Trans Pacific flights seem to have a way of altering all reality leaving one to feel oddly disconnected.  I felt almost as if I entered Star Trek mode and some how become one with the Space Time Continuum whatever the hell that means.

For me Bangkok is an entirely new place and while my mind absorbed the kaleidoscope of colors around me, my body whispered subtle pleas for a comfortable bed and a moment to quietly close my eyes.  When the moment finally came I mercifully drifted of into a mind numbing peace that seemed to remove me from all states of reality.

A giant boom woke me from my slumber and my weary eyes cracked open.  Was it a coup? I wondered as my eyes begged to be released by my mind and allowed once more to close.  Another crack shattered my tranquility with all the force of an iron hammer descending on an anvil creating one ring to rule them all.

A noise pierced the air.  Rhythmic in nature it continued incessantly.  My body surrendered and I raised myself up and looked at the clock.  It was six AM!  "Jesus Christ!"  I thought, I had barely been asleep 4 hours.  The noise continued.  Would it stop?  Wait I had heard this before, but what was it?  It was a fire alarm.  "Christ" I thought.  "What the hell do I do now?"

I sat up and and reached for pants that lay in a rumpled pile.   They had been discarded the night before without thought in a pitiful effort to escape my own consciousness.  I opened my room door and peered out into a nearly empty hall.  In the distance I saw another Farang.  Farang is the Thai word for foreigner.  It is a label, a tattoo and a term that quietly and endearingly encompasses foreign ignorance and naivety.    Farang.  I hated the name at first knowing that it would forever brand me as an outsider to this magical land.  Now I have come to embrace the term.  It is encompassed by a sincere desire to understand the cultures and traditions of this nation.  It is also a plea to accept my ignorance not as a sign of disrespect, only as a stage as I learn to afford all here the respect and honor they deserve.

The Farang looked at me and I looked back at him.  We both had a mystified expression punctuated only by our hands gesturing complete ignorance in what we should do next.  The funny thing about Farangs in Thailand is that you have no idea where they are from.  We are grouped together much the way Americans group Hispanics and call them all Mexicans.  We look at each other both knowing we are outsiders yet neither knowing what in the hell language we should speak.

My fellow Farang and I departed and as my mind became increasingly lucid I remembered my years of school training and decided I had better avoid the elevator and take the stairs.  I located the stair case and began my descent from the 24th floor.  Building designers in Thailand are smart and since electricity is expensive they avoid providing air condition to any area not often frequented.   As I pushed open the door I was greeted by a blast of humidity that made the one centimeter long hairs on my head curl.  The staircase had a glass wall and I looked out at a rain soaked skyline as I navigated each floor and descended to the bowels of the hotel. When I reached the bottom I found no signs. I pushed open the door and found myself in a deserted corridor lined with the hotel stuff.  Tables, laundry carts, boxes I felt as if I was navigating the upside down passages of the SS Poseidon in the sinking ship classic the Poseidon Adventure.  Had I become Ernest Borgnine?  Was the overly plump Shelley Winters just around the corner?  Was a burning towering inferno about to crash in on top of my head?  Like Sherlock Holmes leading Dr. Watson I pushed ahead.  "I found the tunnel Watson."  I mumbled.  "It's this way."

I passed a nearly vacant kitchen.  In the distant an equally mystified young Thai man looked back at me.  I know I must have had the often scene expression on my face of the Farang essentially saying
"I don't know what the fuck I am doing."  Noting my distress he walked over to me.    I don't think I ever learned the word for fire alarm but he at least seemed to understand I was lost.  I followed him and a short time later emerged from my hidden passage.  I half expected to find panicked people running and screaming.  Smoke filled rooms filling my lungs with rancid air.   Instead, I walked straight into the morning breakfast service where Farangs and Thais strolled along an elegant buffet choosing their next morsel of food to eat. 

I looked at a Thai waiter and mumbled "Fire alarm." 

"Oh nothing."  He said.  "Just thunder.  Rain make alarm go loud."

Relieved and defeated in my effort to escape this four star palace that would be my home for the next four nights I grabbed a plate and a cup of coffee and enjoyed my first meal in my new home.