Magic and the Muse by Annie Crawford

How the Other One Percent Lives

We cap off our day in Bangkok with another meal at a street stand. I try not to watch as a mangy cur picks what looks like a turd off the street and settles down at our feet to leisurely munch on this tasty morsel. Nick orders all sorts of mouth-watering dishes: a hot, spicy tom kha gai coconut soup, red and green curries with rice, a plate of sautéed dark-green morning glory vines gleaming with oil and flecked with bits of red chile.

Bangkok

The Hangover, Part II (this is not an endorsement. . .)

We wash it all down with Cokes, pay the bill, which is five dollars for the four of us, and hail a taxi. We’re going to splurge on a drink at the Dome, on the 63^rd floor of the State Tower hotel, where Hangover, Part II was filmed.

At the hotel, we zoom upwards in the elegantly appointed elevator. At each stop, there’s a bevy of slim, gorgeous Thai girls wearing floor-length traditional costumes dripping with gold brocade that smile and bow as the elevator doors slide open, evidently welcoming us to that particular floor. “Elevator greeter” must be an actual job here. Good money if you’re young and beautiful! When we arrive at the Dome, with its various open-air bars, we’re inspected by similarly-dressed employees to make sure we’ve met the dress code. I breathe a sigh of relief that we all wore close-toed shoes as I watch a family of disgruntled tourists being quietly but firmly turned away.

The Dome

It’s a different world up here! I feel like an impostor, a small-town rube, in this swanky place. We walk out into one of the patio bars to take in the panoramic city-lights view. In spite of the chest-high transparent plexiglass barrier, I feel dizzy with vertigo as I look at the ant-size cars crawling by on the streets so far below. We find a seat and study the drinks menu. Each fancy cocktail costs at least three times what we just paid for dinner for four.

The bar is full of young, beautiful foreigners, though I spot a few paunchy old white men in the crowd accompanied by attractive Thai women young enough to be their daughters (or granddaughters). I’ve already been told by Pam, Nick’s Thai fiancée, that these older European and American men who come to Thailand to prey on young women are referred to as “snakeheads.” I reprove myself for my uncharitable thoughts as I take tiny sips of my yummy, fruity fifteen-dollar cocktail, trying to make it last. Maybe they’re truly in love, I tell myself.

This rooftop bar, as elegant and exclusive as it may be, has one unpleasant feature: it’s buffeted by gale-force winds. One of the several open-air bars up here is appropriately named Sirocco. Our hair’s whipping our faces hard enough to sting, but the hilarity continues unabated among the guests. Personally, I find it unnerving. It seems entirely possible that a sudden gust of wind could pick someone up and just flip her over the plexiglass barrier and out into endless space. I wonder if that’s ever happened?

Bangkok!

It’s Tuesday (or is it Monday??) and we’re in Bangkok! My son Nick, who lives in Chiang Mai, a city in the north of Thailand, came to the airport to pick us up. After our tearful reunion (we haven’t seen each other in a year), we proceed to the first order of business: getting new SIM cards for our phones so we won’t incur astronomical roaming charges when we use them.

A joyful reunion!

Then we’re whisked to our hotel over wide, empty freeways. At three-thirty in the morning, from the freeway, Bangkok looks like any other large anonymous city, not at all like the frightening warren of shady establishments I’ve seen in movies like The Hangover, Part II, which I forced myself to watch in preparation for our trip. (I give it one star. ; ) People in Thailand drive on the left side of the road, in cars that have the steering wheel on the right, the way it’s done in England. That’s a bit unnerving at first, but since I won’t be driving, I’m not worried.

We’re now ensconced in our dingy hotel, which is in the dodgy part of town, right by the train station.

Bygone opulence

We’ll be taking a 5:30 AM train to Siem Reap, Cambodia, two days hence, so we thought this would be the least painful way to make it to the station on time, even if it means our hotel isn’t anywhere close to picturesque downtown Bangkok. It’s not bad, though. It’s true there’s no elevator, and the pimply young desk clerk doesn’t even look up from his video game as we struggle to haul our enormous, heavy suitcases up four flights of very steep stairs, but it’s graced with certain charming features that hint at a more auspicious past. The wooden doors to the rooms are elaborately painted with alluring young Thai maidens, and curiously, on the inside of the medicine cabinet door, there’s a painstakingly painted scene of Thai children frolicking in a wooded glen, though the rest of the bathroom is spartan (no partition dividing the shower from the rest of the room, and no shower curtain either). The room has an air of sleazy opulence thanks to the gauzy canopy on the four-poster bed.

Fancy!

The mattress, unfortunately, is hard as a concrete slab, but at this point it looks good to us! There’s also functioning AIR CONDITIONING, which is my number one requirement, so I’m content.

It’s almost four in the morning now, Thai time, but we’re bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and hungry. So we navigate the four-lane arterial in front of the hotel (a word to the wise, vehicles in Bangkok do NOT slow down for pedestrians, much less stop). There are no restaurants on this street, but there are open-air stands open even at this late hour. We lower ourselves gingerly onto rickety red plastic stools at a tiny card table. Nick orders several dishes for us, and we get a few cold Cokes from the 7-11 down the street (7-11s are ubiquitous here). I catch a glimpse of the gray, filthy water in the basin where dirty dishes are soaking, and my heart sinks just a bit, but we’re all resolved to throw ourselves fully into this adventure, so we pick up our spoons and dig in. The food’s fabulous. Hot, spicy, crunchy—there’s rice, of course, and I can identify bok choy and Chinese cabbage, but there are other vegetables I’ve never seen before, along with various types of meat, pork, chicken and . . .? Nick douses everything with fish sauce and chopped scallions and cilantro, and we all eat out of the same dishes.

Yummy! But what are those balls?. . . (just kidding, they're pork)

I’m not sure what we’re eating, and I devoutly hope it doesn’t involve any close relatives of the mangy dog sleeping peacefully at our feet. We came to Thailand armed with probiotics, grapefruit seed extract, and activated charcoal, all of which were recommended by my yoga teachers, who spent six weeks in Thailand and India last year. They told us they ate and drank everything and were not sick a single day. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed, and I have to say, so far we’re all feeling remarkably well.

The bill comes, or rather, is shouted to us over the shoulder of the hard-working woman who prepares the food. The yummy meal we’ve just enjoyed has set us back the equivalent of five dollars, for the four of us. Wow! I can see I won’t go hungry on this trip.