Thai boxing became boring after a couple of bouts. We left and headed for town and beer. After several of these, a man with a stall outside the bar offered us fried bugs. Frogs, maggots, locusts, cockroaches and various other nameless bugs were sampled. Cockroach was particularly disgusting and unchewably tough.
The following event could be the effect of drink, bugs or even the anti malarial Larium. Being too tight fisted to pay for a hotel room in Bangkok, I spent the two nights sleeping on the floor of BossMan and Ben's hotel room. On the second night, I woke up in a blind panic from a bad dream, which involved me being kidnapped and robbed. Thinking fast, I jumped up, and ran towards the door, and belted it down the corridor seeking an exit from my captivity. At this point, I was completely convinced that the situation was dire. Catching sight of the fire exit, and feeling lucky to do so, I headed down the stairs as fast as I could and tried to force open the exit door at the bottom. My distress was heightened as I could not open the door. I headed up to the first floor, and jumped out of the window, shimmying down the drainpipe. Free at last. It was at this point that I realised I was wearing nothing but boxer shorts. I had to figure out where I was, and how the hell to get back to safety. I started walking down the street, looking at the cars, and thinking that since they were all right hand drive, this had to be Thailand (Vietnam & Cambodia are left hand drive). Next - what city? I started asking people on the street. Getting a bad response (due to my bad Thai, their bad English, and my lack of clothing), I figured the only option I had now was the Police. Asking simply for police took me to the main road, which had a (thankfully) empty traffic police booth. I found out the time, 4am. Panic. In a city, possibly miles from Bangkok with no money and no way of knowing how to get around. And no police. Clearly, I was going to have to wait until dawn before police were around, and in the meantime I wanted to know how far I was from Bangkok. So I started asking people "Bangkok? Bangkok how far?" This received, as before, a poor response, until one hawker stall guy looked up and said to me "Ah - Bangkok City Inn! - there, there!" pointing down the road. My luck was in, as the hotel we were staying at was called The Bangkok City Inn, and my nightmare was starting to wear off. As I walked back towards the hotel, it gradually became clear that there had been no kidnapping or robbery, merely sleepwalking. After reaching the hotel, I got scared that they would not let a guy just wander in wearing a pair of boxer shorts at 4am knowing that i did not actually stay there. Making a sarong out of the blanket that I had been carrying around, I marched in confidently and took the lift up to the third floor, where the door to our room was still open. Woke up Ben and BossMan to tell them the story, with my feet still wet from wandering the streets of Bangkok barefoot.
- posted by Daniel @ Friday, May 21, 2004