A pint of education.

Firstly, I am sorry.

The past week has been a blur of sickness and hangovers - sickening hangovers. Alcohol has earnt a sudden allure here in Bangkok, not because of the price (40 Baht/$1.50 per approximate litre [very full strength]), nor because drinking is the capital way of time-passing (sleeping takes precedence), and certainly, most definitely not because I'm a rueful bottle-buddying alco (there is no wood to touch!). But alcohol, true to the old adage, is for me a peerless social lubricant. Sorry for ignoring you in favour of it.

Travelling solo can be lonely, but only because there's too much time to think. Always have a book on hand, a language you're trying valiantly to grasp, a too-tight budget to constantly realign, a local girl that'll forever be out of reach but with whom the chase is enthralling, as to stave off a wandering mind. But at night, when the moon looks sick because of all the pollution, turn to alcohol. I'm a friendly kind of guy, non-judgemental and modest (really [extraordinarily] modest), but sometimes I struggle to find an appropriate gateway into conversation with a stranger, especially when that stranger looks like Nostradamus, speaks fluent Thai, smells like marijuana, and has been on the global highway for half a decade on end. Sometimes I become a little intimidated-

Enter alcohol. I befriend the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Germans and English and Israelis. We laugh untethered, share stories and opinions and stage moot arguments, buy helium balloons and set them free, watching as they shrink into little pinheads in the starlit abyss above. One more Chiang please. No more smalls? Shit, better make it large. Who are you? Oh, Lekz from Finland. Finland intrigues me. My email? Of course, I'd love to stay with you in Finland 2007 sometime. Will probably be October or later though, I have to repay a few debts first. Hey, thanks a million times over, Lekz. I think you're one cool mofo, even with a tattooed cobweb masking your forehead.

The stomach groans, the bladder bulges. I realise I can uphold my end of conversation with anyone, everyone. I realise these people love human interaction, that they're just like me, that the beards and piercings and tattoos are inherent parts of their character, just like a smile, or accent, or guiding philosophy. The sky lightens in hue. I am no longer intimidated, only curious. The next round is on me, dear friends.

The sun is now up, and I am sick and tired. I bid goodnight and godspeed to my new friends, most of whom I will never see again in this lifetime; I'm not exulted nor saddened. I hail a tuk-tuk in my new Transformers t-shirt, sullied by spilt beer. The ride is like a rollercoaster. The driver's name is Tavee, and I tip him handsomely. Fall into the hard cheap bed, out like a light and satisfied-

- So proceeded the week. And that's the explanation for a week free of any real valid blogging. Too difficult to write while the hangover hovers. But that week has now passed, and I have remounted the travelling tracks. Tomorrow at midnight, Bangkok will be beneath me, behind me. Mongolia and its chill will provide my plane with a tarmac. It is a good, exciting, and mysterious time to be me. I have sworn off the alcohol, but will remember the lessons it taught me: we are who we are, no matter how old or hippy or transexual, and we are all worthy of one another's attention. Don't be intimidated; just be. The treasures that lie within this multifarious cast of strangers are too profound to sacrifice for reticence.

Addendum:

This is a paragraph I wrote just prior to the week of controlled binging. I will finish it when I can. But in doing so, I'll have to rethink the first few sentences. Because now, a week on, Bangkok is my new best friend; the best friend with attitude, ego, and snarl, but who's seen and been through so much that you can't help but revel in its fury. Ahem:

Because this place is a giant vortex, sucking rookies like
me deep into its darkest loneliest pockets, and does not spit you out, but
rather leaves you to clamber your own feeble way out, toward the light, toward
sanity. I am weary of Bangkok, vigilant, because on my last wispy stay here -
duration: 4 days; three weeks ago - I assumed a different persona altogether,
and didn't even realise it till the advent of hindsight. This is a scary and
humbling thing, behaving out-of-character at 21 years of age, when you think
your entire personal constitution has been chiselled into hard and immutable
rock. Did I end up telling you about that episode? About the night I slept on a
damp wooden bench in a Bangkok park bordering the ever-dirty Chao Phraya river
with two homeless friends, whisky seeping from our pores, beside the
cannon-wielding fort that draws sightseers like a lamp does fireflies?

Oh, I didn't?

Goodnight and God bless, for now.