Another city in B
It's been 3 weeks since we landed in Bangkok to start a new life. I'm writing this amidst the sounds of a Bangkok morning - intermittent chirps from birds and insects, the sputtering of motorcycle taxis and the hum of air conditioning units covering the drizzle.
The area we live in is a hodgepodge of old houses and apartment buildings. From our balcony we have a view over a collection of houses all sharing a leafy compound with a frangipani tree in the front. The houses are completely hidden at street level; it must be annoying to have so many balconies of the hoi polloi with a direct view onto what was previously wholly private.
Every day we make many trips around the little stalls that line the pavements on the way to the BTS. We get grilled chicken, spicy papaya salad and sticky rice. Fresh seafood. Mangosteens, longans and golden bananas. Energy-saving light bulbs. Teo chew duck. Pandan swiss rolls. Stewed pork (yes to the tofu, no to the intestines). Sliced pineapple with a ready skewer. Beer and bills at the 7-11. Milk, bread and pasta from the expatriate supermarket across the main thoroughfare. And, rashly, yesterday, one very expensive peach out of nostalgia for our last summer in Budapest.
It's the rainy season now, so it rains at least a little every day. Some days it cools the city down, as it's doing now. Others it thickens the humidity in the air, offering little reprieve from the heat. I'm hoping the rain today at least deters the ants a bit. Gone are the days when we could leave a plate lying about. There are scouts out in stealth and within the hour the troops invade, so we have become quite OCD about the cleaning and washing-up. Which half-amuses me, considering the lackadaisical attitude that one of us tended to exhibit pre-ants.
There are certain things I really miss in Budapest. DM. Kid-friendly spaces. Affordable wine. The things I sold, gave away and left behind. We left a box here, a pot there. I wonder if we'll ever see those things again. Most people miss friends but I miss the knowledge that my possessions were somewhere in the recesses of that cluttered, dusty flat, things I collected from travels, friendships.
As for friends, there are the myriad ways to stay in touch, and visiting is easy enough as long as you're committed to maintaining relationships. The day-to-day of friendships in Budapest we've given up, of course, in the hopes we will find something similar here eventually.
For now we are a family of three on a Noah's ark of ants.
The area we live in is a hodgepodge of old houses and apartment buildings. From our balcony we have a view over a collection of houses all sharing a leafy compound with a frangipani tree in the front. The houses are completely hidden at street level; it must be annoying to have so many balconies of the hoi polloi with a direct view onto what was previously wholly private.
Every day we make many trips around the little stalls that line the pavements on the way to the BTS. We get grilled chicken, spicy papaya salad and sticky rice. Fresh seafood. Mangosteens, longans and golden bananas. Energy-saving light bulbs. Teo chew duck. Pandan swiss rolls. Stewed pork (yes to the tofu, no to the intestines). Sliced pineapple with a ready skewer. Beer and bills at the 7-11. Milk, bread and pasta from the expatriate supermarket across the main thoroughfare. And, rashly, yesterday, one very expensive peach out of nostalgia for our last summer in Budapest.
It's the rainy season now, so it rains at least a little every day. Some days it cools the city down, as it's doing now. Others it thickens the humidity in the air, offering little reprieve from the heat. I'm hoping the rain today at least deters the ants a bit. Gone are the days when we could leave a plate lying about. There are scouts out in stealth and within the hour the troops invade, so we have become quite OCD about the cleaning and washing-up. Which half-amuses me, considering the lackadaisical attitude that one of us tended to exhibit pre-ants.
There are certain things I really miss in Budapest. DM. Kid-friendly spaces. Affordable wine. The things I sold, gave away and left behind. We left a box here, a pot there. I wonder if we'll ever see those things again. Most people miss friends but I miss the knowledge that my possessions were somewhere in the recesses of that cluttered, dusty flat, things I collected from travels, friendships.
As for friends, there are the myriad ways to stay in touch, and visiting is easy enough as long as you're committed to maintaining relationships. The day-to-day of friendships in Budapest we've given up, of course, in the hopes we will find something similar here eventually.
For now we are a family of three on a Noah's ark of ants.
posted by Sze at 5:51 pm
1 Comments:
Hahahah! Noah's Ark of Ants. Get your mum or dad to buy some ant powder from the markets for you. Mix it up with some sugar or milo, leave it on a trail which they use when they go out to forage (preferably out of Max's reach). Sit back, relax and watch Nat Geo in progress. They will bring the deadly mix back to the nest and you will soon see their numbers dwindle, till they all but disappear.
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