Tigers and the Bridge over the River River

Hey, Nuri here. Hi guys!

I got back from my day a little before Erika, so it's blog-time.

First, a couple of things I'd like to elaborate on from Erika's earlier posts:

1. The hustle.

I'm from New York. I was born in New York, raised in New York, and live there now. I am well-accustomed to a level of noise, dirt, chaos, and hustle that would drive most people crazy. Bangkok yesterday was driving me crazy. In the morning, we got screamed at by a taxi driver who spoke no English (and we speak no Thai) -- incredibly, a situation that has never come up in New York. We had no idea where he was going, and it was terrifying. But we got where we needed to OK (and all the other cab rides have been fine). Around the main tourist attractions, the tuk-tuk drivers (it's looks like those pedi-cabs they have in New York now mixed with a motorcycle) kept shouting "where you going? Where you going?" and people kept aggressively offering stuff and by the end I was losing my cool a little bit and really felt like shouting at these people. It couldn't have helped that it was really hot and we were getting lost a little. Hustlers (like the people outside of tourist traps getting you to buy from them when the real ticket vendors are inside -- don't worry, we're not that stupid) also suck because they make helpful people unhelpful, because you don't know who to trust. I'm making yesterday sound way worse than it was (it was mostly awesome), but if Thai people are really as famously nice as the tour book says they are, it sure doesn't come through in the tourist centers of Bangkok.

2. Muay Thai boxing

Famous Thai niceness also doesn't come through if you go to the place where people gamble on other people beating the shit out of each other. Have you ever seen the scene in Deer Hunter where lots of crazed Asian people are screaming and gambling on POW Russian Roulette? I realize it's a different type of Asian person and a different game, but this was probably as close as I'll ever come to experiencing that. There were just a lot of probably degenerate old men screaming and gambling with each other through hand signals -- they helpfully (rudely, condescendingly) told us as the gambling was getting started that we had to move out of the Thai only section. We did, and to be fair, it was the right call. It was chaos, and they were all gambling with each other. Still, saying "you want to move. Maybe accident" was not the most elegant thing to say. Anyway, Thai boxing was awesome and it's a shame that I actually fell asleep during it due to jetlag.

OK, now to my today stuff.

I went on some tour that Erika didn't (I'm going to get a bit more brief now as my minutes are short). The famous River Kwai is a misnomer. Kwai (or actually, it's pronounced differently -- like "Kway") is Thai for "river." So whoever called it the River Kwai just didn't understand. The famous bridge that was bombed is all touristy now but it was still cool to go there and walk around and see what happened there. About 100,000 people apparently died building this "death railroad" that included that bridge and which the Japanese had POWs and Asian laborers build over 18 months, and in raids on the bridge the Allies accidentally killed Allied POWs because the Japanese did not label POW camps as such (apparently you're "supposed to" in war).

We also visited a cemetery, which had mostly Christian gravestones, but a couple Jews. Most of the epitaphs had to do with "he served his duty well" or something, but the saddest one was just "Tom -- someday I will understand." Yikes. A lot of 22 and 23 year olds died there.

The tiger temple was a little disappointing. They had a plausible back story for why the tigers were so docile (they are more active in the morning and at night, they are very familiar with people) but they were, like, suspiciously docile. And they just seemed emasculated, or e-felineated, or whatever, as the monks basically handled them like props and had tourists pose for pictures with the tigers in a creepily efficient way. But they also had pictures of the tigers playing during the non-picture time... I don't know. It left me with a weird feeling, though I did get some awesome photos out of it for what that's worth.

Ouotta time! See you in Chiang Mai!