Getting a taxi from the airport in Bangkok to your hotel is not the stuff of adventure and adversity. Unlike many airports throughout much of the once fiercely erect but now gone flaccid civilizations of Asia, you are not immediately charged by a frenzied mob of grubby, grabby taxi and hotel touts. But where's the fun in that?
Bangkok makes pretenses of having sagacious systems in place which run with an exacting know-how as polished as a silver serving tray handed down from grandparent to parent to the next generation.
The civility found beyond the customs counters manages to get you into a fast and clean smelling taxi by first selling you a fixed price chit which is handed to the next driver in the queue who takes over the handling of your luggage with the first of the many thousands of smiles you've come to love about the place.
Unlike Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong where modernity is in full bloom, Bangkok is in a perpetual state of blossoming. It is not a gold medalist Asian economy and its powers-that-be, despite being empowered through corrupt organizations passing themselves off as political parties, are aware of its poor man’s version of a roaring Asian dragon. I wish I could say that only figuratively will it sell you its mother to earn a buck, but why be misleading?
When you climb into a taxi at Suvarnabhumi Airport, you get all the feeling of excitement of coming home from a hard day at the office to find a nice meatloaf and mashed potatoes dinner awaiting you (you’re still inside the box).
It’s only when you tip the familiar face of the bellman at your familiar boutique hotel and after he clasps his palms together in a sacred hand position and says “kob kun” (Thai for “You’re the man”) then he leaves you alone, holding a TV remote like a withered dick in hand, that I find the fond sanctuary of isolation, and when it fully kicks in after my post-flight shower and nap, the doubting Thomas in me will be pulled in 1000 directions from clarity of vision and I will dress in a more leisurely skin which is exactly what I’ve come a’looking for.
I’ll try hard not to dread the return date on my ticket and the consequential need to drag my soul into a confessional booth the morning after I spend my first night back in my own bed.
2 Comments:
What?! Where's my comment?
(It's so unlike you to not reply back, I came a'checking.)
Anyway. I went back and forth on this one, but decided that since it's part of the much bigger, longer piece, that it works just fine.
Sometimes, just fine is good enough.
Booda, you'd left a comment previously? Where? When?
Anyway, I agree. It's, eh. . . OK--and rushed, but I keep putting off telling the story which begins after post-long haul flight nap.
Taxi rides from airport to hotel after the long haul flights deserve much more reflectifyin' and epiphanizin'.
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