Friday Night in Bangkok

Last night was a strange Bangkok night.

We took the bus to Khao San, a road famous throughout south-east Asia for its Vegas-esque, neo-hippie-backpacker-hobo vibe. It's full of bars, hostels, markets, ping-pong shows, dreadlocks, pirated software (Adobe CS3 for less than $20!), fake I.D.s and southern rock music. The prostitutes don't run openly but they're not hard to find.
Needless to say, it's an interesting street.

We drank some beers in the evening while it rained, then walked into the street again. I had just finished negotiating to buy a tazer when two clear-eyed young travelers approached us.

"Are you going to Cambodia?" they asked.

It seemed like a scam, but why would two clean, young, western kids rip us off?

"Yes, we are, actually," we responded.

They had just returned from Cambodia and had leftover currency they couldn't exchange. They wanted to give it to us. We offered to trade for Thai Baht but they insisted on giving it to us. They weren't sure exactly how much money it was; they just wanted to give it away. We took the money and chatted a bit. They're from Sweden and they liked Angkor Wat.

We counted the money this morning--it's more than $90 USD!

After our Swedish encounter we visited the Internets and walked back to the street. There, in the rain, we saw two familiar faces. Lo and behold, we nearly bumped into Paul and Caterina, an Irish couple we met at a ticket office in Beijing then again on a sidewalk in Hanoi.

We have happened across this couple randomly three times now in three different countries. Third time's the charm, right? This time, we decided to get to know them, so all four of us sat down for more beer and travel stories.

We had a lovely time with them and said our goodbyes.

We wanted to take a public bus back to our hostel in Siam Square. I asked several people which bus to take--it was definitely bus 2, 511, 47 or 29. Hmmm. We eventually started bargaining with two tuk-tuk drivers and a taxi driver. The discussion was not about money but about how much the driver had been drinking. He wouldn't let me smell his breath (or at least I couldn't properly communicate with Thai and miming that I wanted to smell his breath. Try it--it's not easy.) We eventually conceded and went with him.

We drove a few blocks when he pulled to the curb. We thought he might be scamming us. No, he was just looking for his eyeglasses--they were on the floorboard beneath Bonnie's feet.

No big deal, right? Prescription glasses or sobriety--both equally irrelevant for driving at night. Luckily, everything turned out fine with him and we headed back to our hotel.

As we approached the door to our place, a taxi driver rose up from a nap in his driver's seat. He was wearing a plastic bag over his head and gingerly tapped his fingers against the window for our attention. He gave us a sleepy smile and settled back into position as we politely refused. Guess that's his tactic for getting foreigners in his cab late at night?

What connects these unusual events? Nothin but being in Bangkok on a Friday night.