A well-dressed man in a formal gray suit came up to me to ask where I was from. I was standing in Sanam Luang park in front of the Grand Palace when he approached, and he had a generous smile, was fluent in English. It was my third day in Bangkok and up until then I had been alone.
I arrived in Singapore after being burnt in Jakarta. And I had been told how dangerous it was but after six months of travel through already dubious locations I had become complacent. The late-night bus from Bandung was just pulling into Kalideres. A short trip and I had the whole bench, rucksack above, daypack below. Normally I would have used the daypack as a pillow, but the bench was wooden and not cushioned. It could only seat two and it was not possible to lie across it. Still, this time I was not thinking.
Took the death plane from Heathrow, a numbing multi-stop ride, first Schipol then Sofia, which only a few of us survived, before we arrived, 2 o’clock in the morning. On each land the empty seats flopped forward, their backs pointing to the ceiling, crash position. Was that the best position to make it through?
Washington DC was the murder capital of the US. The deaths peaked in 1991 when almost 500 died that year out of a population of 606,901. Lafayette Park, next to the White House, was unsafe at night. Needle Park, a few more blocks up was also not recommended. East of 14th, forget it. So when I drove to DC from North Carolina, I was terrified of making the wrong turn.
I wandered out into the cool night air and headed away from the quiet end of Roma Norte towards the bars along the Avenida Álvaro Obregón. Then I stopped to look at a bulletin on the door of a jazz café when suddenly a man pulled me by the arm and shoved me inside.
When the woman I was making love to turned into a pig I knew that I had become too cynical. I watched her face fill out, her cheeks lose their definition and her nose turn up at me to form a perfectly cylindrical snout. Her skin became rough. It became pockmarked and covered in fine grey hairs and then her mouth widened and opened up to reveal a coarse and unclean set of teeth.
The countdown had begun; music span from the speakers, clubbers jumped up, arms in the air, shouted each number, thirty-nine, thirty-eight, thirty-seven, music beating each second with its rhythm. Alone in a corner, slumped against the wall, thinking, I was trying to remember the year that was nearly over. How apt it was to be single, now, just as I had been when it had begun.
Jed took hold of the dried lizards, I took the bong and together we ran to the train. A three foot bong is difficult enough to handle without having both hands occupied with plastic bags of food and drink, and a rucksack on your back. I pinched it under my arm and stepped out from the tourist waiting room into a calm night heat. The sounds of Beijing eluded us on the platform.
I'm a-walking down Nathan Road with a strut in my legs like I'm dancing, the crowds thick as steam off the paving. Cars are pressed cheek to cheek and blowing fury and the neon billboards stretch into the middle of the road ends touching and bouncing fire red and orange; and I'm seeing all this on my toes, alive with the noise rattling in my ears, the clatter of kettle drums and disco beats, and high pitched screams like noodle sucks and slurps and the slice of a gaggling chicken throat.
All around the walls hung heavy sequined tapestries. Scenes of death, love, of the battle; of evil and good; of the demons and the heroes of the Ramakien, all portrayed in relief. Rich gold embossed details on coarse brown fabric. A Burmese man sat at a table tuning a receiver to the World Service.
