Noise City

I am back in Bangkok and it is the same assualt on the senses - penertrating sounds and even noisier smells; in your face sales men, tuk tuk drivers and hustlers -- although this time around I feel I am dealing with it with a much greater sense of detachment. Perhaps it is the knowledge that I only have one day left here before I leave for Japan, coupled with the fact that I have done most of what there is for traveller to do in this city already.

At the moment I feel that I sitting in the seething steamy center out of which all the chaotic flights of tourists, scam artist and taxi drivers (et al) are spun -- I am sittig in a small internet cafe / networked games parlour using a key board whose keys expect you to write from a well spring rage and determination within in order to get your key strokes to register. I reckon that it is hotter and steamier inside this tiny niche in the sidewalk than out there in the sun/rain which is bathing Bangkok in a cloak of sultry sluggishness today. But inside here it is the noise that most is formidiable as the frantic slaughter of digital beings rages on just behind me -- from the pitch of the atmosphere here one gets the sense that the fate of the world is depends on the happenings right over my shoulder.

It all makes for an interesting writing experience, as I feel that my thoughts are having to yell themselves within my own head.

I never did make it up to Pai, but I heard it was a very lovely place, alot calmer than Chiang Mai. I guess the challenge to find peace and calm wherever you are, rather than always feeling the need to search it out.