My ordinary life

I know the language of your laugh, tripping over circumstance I know the story of your walk, I taste the sugar in the salt I taste to savour your little ways, the colours that you choose to paint your day

Sunday, July 03, 2011

God I hope it's not a Thai

The results of the Presidential election in Thailand will be known in a few hours. Thank God because the ban on alcohol, in place since yesterday evening, can be lifted. If it's a tie, there could be trouble between the red shirts and yellow shirts. And we're not talking Liverpool FC and Norwich. People (like I have done a survey with my fluent Thai!) seem to want a clear winner by a landslide - whether it be for the sister of Thaksin (Of Man City fame) or the current government. Both sides are offering free credit cards and laptops to woo voters but I cannot get in on the act unfortunately. There are hundreds of other candidates as well.

Wandering around the streets in the tourist area, there are polling stations set up outside where a monitor takes a polling card from a cardboard box, marks a X on the board of contenders and then folds it in half, putting it back in a BUCKET. Are you watching Manchester?? - where we ran out of stationary in the General Election. Democracy is working fine just here. Well, it's actually fragile but they can count and it's fun watching a sort of game of outside bingo, with perhaps more at stake than a shitty teddy bear.

Other than that today, I have meandered through side streets and markets, spotting delighted tourists buying toiletries for less than a pound (I got a cut throat metal razor - I may use it later in the riots). I also bought elasticated pants (jeans feels like wearing concrete) and a sarong and really enjoyed the haggling, although she won. I changed T shirts twice. Never wear gray in this heat. I spoke to two lads from Ipswich during the monsoon hour when we all sheltered in a cafe on the Koh San Road. They, like many, are headed on a long bus trip to the islands for the Full Moon party. If I am going to accomplish what I want to, it's keep on moving. Cambodia Wednesday. Before then, I want another two days in Bangkok.

The monsoon hour was so well anticipated by locals and less so by tourists. The gray clouds got thicker and thicker and then boom. Streets became streams, puddles lakes and tourists ran for their lives under plastic macs, flip flops flying. By this time, I was already under cover. One whole hour of torrential rain after which little Thai grandmothers, carrying small kids in napsacks on their backs, approached me to see if I wanted to buy bracelets and triangular pointy hats. "Who you calling Dunce beeeatch?"I am using my basic Thai to great effect and thus far little laughter.

Life is so stressful right now. My biggest decision is how much am I willing to pay for flip flops and should I pop in my Immodium diarrhea tablets straight after the street food or wait till the morning. Of course, what Bangkok looks like in the morning will depend on what happens tonight. Red or Yellow? I can never bring myself to support the reds so I am behind the Government, it seems. "NO MORE THAKSINS," my motto. Just like being back at Man City.

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