Sunday October 19 12:13 am BKK Time
I rode my first motorbike, as a taxi. Not because I needed to, because I wanted to, because I knew it was an inevitability. I watched as the photographs of monarchs passed by, as I passed a square shaped precisely like one of my favorites in Italy. I felt the wind, cool for once, all over my body, and the rush of knowing I am uninsured.
I saw a woman alone in a tuk tuk and rethought my decision for a moment. There I was, holding loosely to a strange man who I had trusted to join by the way he held his cigarette and leaned on his bike. He didn’t offer me a helmet, I asked for it. I told him it was my first time riding a bike and he made no comment.
I’m drunk enough that I made this decision and drunk enough that I felt like I was flying. Drunk enough to know that I was safe enough, drunk enough to know it was time for me to leave Khaosan Road. My new colleagues all seem to be here for the similar reasons.
I bought a new phone case, I walked down a couple of alleys, and a row of six people held signs up in front of me that read “laughing gas.” I think too much about what my actions mean and whether or not I should commit them. Overall the evening was pleasant, a perfect introduction to Thailand.
Someone told me that she knew she wanted to live here from the moment she stepped foot. I knew before I got off the plane that I’m just passing through. It makes me feel slightly guilty, like a fraud in a land that is neither great nor awful to me. I just already know my home. I fear that coming here means “I can never go back,” and if it does, then to hell with trying. We should all be allowed to go home.
I want to add that I went and watched Muay Thai. The beers were free and the fighting was beautiful. The fighters were doused in water before each round so that droplets flew and cascaded through the air around them. My colleague and I made it on the big screen a couple of times, my favorite being the dance cam. Fun fact: they don't do kiss cams in the UK.
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