The title of this article is a common phrase used around here, where a farang asks for an item, is given a knock off or something else and told, "same, same". But it's different.
12-12, I'm still fighting off sick - the discomfort has quickly settled in the lungs, but the sinuses, ears and throat are now acting in concert. I'm tired, really tired, and walking up the stairs to the BTS had me wheezing. Good thing I'm not smoking, but today I'm chatty, so the coughing fits continue.
It's only 3:50pm here and my day has been pretty full of normal-life kind of stuff. I've put in 3+ hours with PETA already and will log back into work later, closer to my set hours of 9pm-1am. Aaron and I have discussed our next adventure, this one over the Christmas and New Years holidays. We tried to buy train tickets online, then on the phone, and finally took the BTS and underground to the train station itself. On the way, Aaron and I discuss the possibility of taking motorbikes instead of the train, if they really don't have any available for our travel days.
The train station is old-school, filled with rows of chairs filled with dozing Thai people waiting for the train. Through two large doors, I spot the platform and a train is pulled in and loading up. The center of the station is dominated by an enormous gold shrine to the Rama, but the large signs are all in Thai so I make up little stories that they might say. Mostly it sounds like a Lowered Expectations personal ad from SNL. We get our tickets, with buses, taxis, train, we will eventually get somewhere sometime. Too bad, the motorbikes sound amazing and I'm half-promising myself to make that happen soon. Then again, I've never taken an overnight train anywhere, or a passenger train and I find that utterly charming. Plus we've gotten a second-class sleeper cabin, with fan and possibly with a/c.
It's after two, so Aaron and I find a cafe on the second floor of the station, drop our bags, and enjoy a beer while he tries to explain the intricacies of our trip. I think it goes something like this: 7am leave apartment, 9:20am board train, 11:30 arrive in town whose name I can't pronounce. Go to traditional Thai wedding in rented Thai outfit. Aaron DJs dance party using his extensive Thai music collection. On Christmas day, we somehow get to Ratchaburi (motorbike taxi, I'm hoping) and catch the train to Surat Thani. Arrive at 3:45am and spend the next 4+ hours waiting for a bus. Then bus it up the coast and over to Koh Lanta.
I work on the beach for the next week and get the bus-train combo to Krabi for a few days, then back home to Bangkok. I finish the beer before he's done describing the trip and the beer is room temperature with that last bit...
We head back and meet up with Shaughessy. I'm passed his bags of purchases to take back to the apartment and the men split off. I walk quickly, it looks like another rainstorm is coming and I don't want to get soaked in the first 30 seconds. I make it back dry, strip off all of my clothes (alone at last!) and type out this blog entry while munching on good corn on the cob and a bag of small sweet potatoes picked up from a street vendor, a pastel pink stand fan blowing straight on me. I think it will be nap time soon and I hope I dream of what I live right now, sick and all, it doesn't get much better.