Bangkok Hum-Drum

January 20, 2012

I just made some birds homeless! Ate their nests.

The following is copied from a text — in English(!) — on bird's nest package for sale:

The Thai bird's nests are extraordinary natural product that healers of the old school, and physicians have proved and endorsed that they are composed of many highly useful substances which nourish the lungs, kidneys, heart, stomach, and other internal organs, as well as heal the "excessive heat in the intestines, and other internal organs" relieve cough and phlegm, and regulate the blood circulation, the physical condition would be greatly rejuvenated with youthful vigor and freshness; it also helps to brighten mental faculties and give more radiance to the complexion.

Preparation:

First soak the shredded clean-dry bird's nest in the clean cool water for one hour to allow it to soften and swell, then take the bird's nest out and put it into a steaming vessel for stewing on a low fire for two hours. When the bird's nest becomes jelly like and tender, add sugar as required and keep it on the fire for a little while, then you will have the above mentioned priceless delicious food.

Alter natively (!) chicken soup stock can be used to make a very delicious bird's nest soup.

Now you know it too. I got this description in the bird's nest store/restaurant. Even though it is not specifically mentioned, it (the soup) looks like they cleaned out the bird poop before cooking up the nests. I never had it before and it tastes like nothing, no particular flavor, consistency, aroma, in short, nothing to write home about (and here I am doing it!)

But, short of simply becoming immortal, after having eaten that elixir of gods - may come what may - I'll never, ever get sick.

For the tidy sum (here in Bangkok, that is a lot for food!) of nine dollars I got a tiny bowl full (about the size of a small tea cup) of that mystery food. It was served with a raw egg, a couple of ginkgo berries, a little pitcher of honey and a bowl of ginseng tea.

Along the walls stood glass jars with dried bird's nests. Prices written on the jars ranged from an equivalent of 90 dollars to 900 dollars. I had no idea if that was per weight or by nest. The owner told me. It is for 38 grams (1.34 ounces). So, 1.34 ounces of a better quality bird's nest can put you back 900 dollars. The darker the nest were, the higher the price (does that mean the expensive ones are less washed?)

That magic potion, however, didn't prevent me from getting blisters on my feet. I walked about five hours in my new rubber flip-flops. It was totally worth it.

I have been to Bangkok's Chinatown before and it never looked even vaguely like that. Just like the Khao San backpacker ghetto, Chinatown has bulged and is busting in its seams. Either vastly more Chinese came here or, the ones already here had babies like crazy. The place is more densely populated than an anthill is anted, antelated(?). They sell authentic-looking AK-47 but they shoot only gas-powered BBs. There are more flip-flops on display than there are people on the planet able to wear them. Everything is in such an excess, the sight might make you dizzy. Way more than 90% of the stuff is simply useless junk, stuff that nobody ever needs, stuff one buys for presents, on impulse, or because of a shopaholic affliction. Once bought it gets put away, maybe dusted a few times, then discarded. Since two wrongs don't make one right it is no excuse that we in the US, or generally the "developed world" share the same idiotic habits.

I wonder how we, in the States or in Europe, are going to deal with the frightening phenomena of total gridlock and congestion as I see here. Bangkok's Chinatown could serve as a laboratory. The good news is, from the looks of it, they take it in stride. There are plenty of smiles even on people's faces whose bodies are about to be crushed. In areas of wall-wall humanity deliveries to stores still need to be made - and they are. It is inexplicable to me how not lots of feet, or at least toes, get crushed as pick-up trucks, and motorcycles with improbable loads squeeze through the mass of humanity.

A day later:

Last night I went people watching on one or Khao SAN's main drags, an activity I love almost everywhere, even in Walmart (if that didn't involve having to actually go there!) Not so long ago, a European with a smattering of English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Scandinavian - I mean just recognizing them by the sound would be enough - could have felt like a homebody anywhere international travelers congregated.

Fugetaboutit now!

The whole world is on the move. The former xenophobic Soviet Republic's masses haven been unleashed. Nationals of countries where obtaining simple sustenance took all their time and effort, have now become free to visit other shores. A place like Khao San could serve as an illustration of the biblical Tower of Babylon - with the saving grace that all in the milling crowd have a smattering knowledge of the international lingua franca, English. Maybe there is a benevolent god after all because the one who created the havoc in Babylon didn't offer that handy service.

Over a couple of bottles of Singha (the Thai beer that goes: One Sing-ha, two Sing-ha-ha, three Sing -ha-ha-ha!) I got into interesting conversations, one with an official of the UN, a Dutchman, stationed in Bangkok since seven years. What a job! I think he has just been forgotten by his superiors because he didn't seem to have much of an idea about what his duties were. At least he doesn't do any harm to anyone (according to him, they at the UN, not he, were working behind the scene for improving the Burmese junta's human rights record!). Why not live in Burma for that? I thought. But then, of course, Bangkok is much more pleasant than the new capital the (former) Burmese bozos had themselves built in the middle of nowhere, a place difficult to reach by the rest, and maybe restless, of the population - thus a place with a marked absence of interesting people.

The German I met later was much more interesting. A professional gemologist gem buyer, about sixty-years old, he has roamed the gem producing regions of northern Pakistan, Shri-Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, mostly as a backpacker, hence his presence in Khao San, in search of private, thus mostly illegal, miners.

The stories! We both managed to impress each other with recounting of our respective exploits on the planet. We ended up with a lot of ha-ha-ha. At a dollar a bottle, how could one go wrong.

I learned an interesting factoid about natural versus manufactured gem stones. For most of his buying journeys he carried a little portable laboratory; spectrometer, chemicals, microscope etc. etc. I didn't recognize even the names of some of the tools he described but some of what they unveiled fascinated me.

The difference between a manufactured gem and a natural one is in the impurities. The natural ones have blemishes, inclusions of other materials that impede brilliance, clarity, refraction or, what have you! The manufactured ones, even though, with the same chemical composition, are pure.

"Thus worthless, or worth less?" I asked.

"Yeap," he said with a sheepish grin.

"Wasn't it once the purer the better?" I said.

"Yeahhhh," he said.

This is yet another illustration of man's (woman's) gullibility, snobbism, or simply silliness? If it is rare it is worth more, or we desire it more, even if it is of inferior quality, less tasty, or less beautiful, or weaker, than readily available substitutes, or, in some cases even injurious; think bird's nests, shark fins, caviar, Limburger cheese, or, hitting the head with a hammer.

As for the before mentioned people watching, I keep being mesmerized. With Sing-ha-ha-ha I sit and stare at the great show of a never ending procession.

Two men, both tall and hefty, with shaven heads and reflecting sunglasses, one in a jungle green singlet that left his beefy, tattooed arms exposed, with grim features and brusque gestures, looked exactly as one would expect rough mercenaries to look like. They met a third, punched fists and started to talk. After a while one made the sign with his straight hand of slitting a throat, the two others repeated the gesture, they punched fists again, one left and the two went to a table across the ally from me and ordered food. As they sat on the tiny plastic stools both their spread legs start whipping vigorously. The table belongs to a street food seller that advertises vegetarian. One got an orange soda, the other a bottle of water. While they waited for their vegetarian meal, the bigger one got up from his tiny stool, rummaged in a garbage can, retrieved a styrofoam bowl, filled it with water from his bottle and brought it to one of the stray dogs in the ally.

Many of the passing foreign woman are achingly beautiful in their special exotic Khao San outfits, stuff few might wear on their home front. Tattoos these days are covering whole limbs and torsos. Many entwined pairs of women stroll by. It seems men with men have their own cruising grounds somewhere else, but transvestites add interesting colors to the mix. One, a really big guy with an Arnold Schwarzenegger upper body, veiled in pastel colored gossamer shrouds that left spandex shorts exposed tripled by in high heel stilettos. I wondered where he might have gotten his enormous sized lady's shoes.

It is strange to see the before mentioned nostalgia elders lugging bulging backpacks in their search for accommodations. Some, with their tottering gait, look like you might want to help them across the street even if they carried nothing. More so than their younger counterparts, they seem to have a permanent grin plastered to their faces.

Markedly absent in the passing mix are Thais. Except for the occasional man or woman hurrying by on the way home from their cooking, serving or massaging jobs, they are missing while only a short block away, on Phra Athit, a street parallel to my ally, many young Thais are lined up together with the foreigners for the inexpensive, but delicious noodle soups.

I had lunch today at a restaurant about a half hour away from the ghetto. I remember it from former visits for having the best roast duck. It offered also shark fin soup on the menu. After my malevolence with wild birds I stayed with duck.

Staying in Thailand for any length of time without having a massage would be like hanging out at Munich's Oktoberfest without drinking beer. The Khao San region is full of advertisements; foot, neck, head, whole body oil, or just the regular full body Thai massage. On my wanderings I often passed a hole in the wall with an advertisement for massage in the garden. Through the hole I saw a white pebbled path with black stepping stones, sort of like a Japanese rock garden, going through the building. Since I never was a fan of having my body kneaded I went there mostly out of curiosity; to find out what that garden in the middle of the city was all about. I opted for the full body Thai, even though I know from previous experiences that it is nothing short of torture.

The garden was beautiful, all white river stones with slate slab walks between potted plants. Baldachine-like tents, with massage tables inside, stood about. In a dressing room I put on a supplied lime green, loose fitting gown and then was led to a table - and that is when hell started.

A hefty, elderly woman tried to rip off my foot from my leg. Of course I would not let on that it hurt. I now realize this is a wrong reaction. The masseuse has to know she is getting to the body and if you don't let her know, yes, I feel it big time, she just tries harder. Hard and harder she tried, and more and more it hurt. I closed my eye tightly, concentrating on suffering in silence, not to appear like a wimp. I had requested the one hour treatment instead of the recommended two hour job. That was the only bright thought I had while being subjected to kneading, kneeing, elbowing and being walked/stomped around on. They could save a lot of man(woman)power by simply strapping customers on the rack then tightening the vices.

When it was over I was happy to notice I could still walk - sort of. Singha turned out to be a quick remedy.

Another, sort of massage, is also offered all over the place. Fish Treatment, they call it. When walking past one of those places with large, aquarium-like tanks full of little fish, I heard piercing screams. A young woman had just put her feet into one of the tanks and the sensation of the fish starting it nibble on her skin prompted the outburst.

Now, with the world's disgust about pig and chicken shit fed fish from Asian fish farms one can add to the list of local fish food - backpacker callouses.

I expect to have the Chinese visa by Tuesday evening, so, if all goes as planned, next Wednesday I'll be in Burma where the real trip begins.

Oh, I just remember another tidbit, a remarkable sight in Chinatown's Wat Traimit. The Buddha in that shrine is made of solid gold, 5.5 metric tons of it. Google tells me that 5.5 metric tons are 194,006.79 ounces. At almost 2,000 dollars an ounce that makes it a pretty valuable idol. Bill Gates, if he used up all his loot, could barely afford a hundred of them.