2002-01-09 - 12:54 a.m.
Four days three nights.
No Lonely Planet, itinerary, or pretty clothes.
Day 1: Broken toe, duty free shopping, two passengers, one check-in luggage, impossibly long stretch of market stalls, coconuts, body-to-body human chains, Japanese tourists, James Bond, hidden fireworks, champagne, quiet moments.
Day 2: Pork noodles, secret safes stocked with fake goods, numerous cab rides, frightening cabby, deserted seafood restaurant, 70's film, magenta and cane, whores, Japanese tourists arriving in bus loads, no decent bar.
Day 3: More pork noodles, Thai silk, changed more Baht, monstrous malls, ubiquity of Watsons (your personal store), distressingly pathetic sight of Chinatown, seafood by the river, drunk Thai singer who covered the Carpenters, red wine in bed, one year older.
Day 4: Cold breakfast at the hotel (complimentary, of course), more bags, manic lingerie shopping, coconut juice while waiting for airport pickup, spent last 79 Baht on one Burger King meal (shared by us two), paid for two coffees at the airport pub with my Mastercard, Elvis impersonator/security guy, English schizoprenic/Buddha, two passengers, two luggages, cake on board, more jokes about my age.
