Leaving Malta

It must have been around seven in the morning when I finally stumbled out of bed after a somewhat restless night. I was still trying to sort out my luggage even though the flight was only hours away. The main luggage bag weighed a tonne. Undoubtedly, I had to unpack and remove items that the situation required me to do without. Gasping for air throughout this stifling summer morning, at last I secured those belongings deemed necessary to take with me to Thailand and Australia.

The tension made me lose all appetite, although I was hungry, I could barely look at food. I arrived at the airport a nervous wreck. Rushing about to exchange some money, last words with relatives and friends.....before I knew it I was fastening the seat belt, ready for take-off to the unknown.....

From one hot and humid climate, I found myself heaving in an even stickier and sweatier one in Thailand. Upon arrival at Bangkok's swish Suvarnabhumi International Airport, I left most of my luggage in the airport's security storage. Searching around for the bus heading to the (in)famous Khao San Road in Bangkok's Banglamphu district, I could not believe six years had already passed since my last visit to the Kingdom. All round progress was evident, perhaps something reflected also in a higher cost-of-living. Traffic however remained frenzied as ever. I felt thankful I wasn't the one behind the steering wheel.

Free from any burden of extra luggage, I ambled along Khao San Road for an hour or so trying to find a guesthouse where I could finally settle down. Quite by chance, I sauntered into the Rainbow Guesthouse on Chakraphong Road, just off Khao San Road. It only took a very brief inspection to conclude it was a fair deal parting with 200 Baht per night for a spartan room including toilet and shower as well as a dependable fan.

A much needed shower restored my cosmically-speaking energy levels, enough to have a wander up and down Khao San Road later on in the evening. Khao San Road has it all in terms of what an anthropologist or sociologist might find of interest. The amount of stalls, guesthouses, travel agents, jewellery shops, street food vendors, bars and restaurants strewn on this stretch of some 300-400 metres, is beyond imagination. And in my lengthy absence, fortune-tellers, girlie bars and open-air bars have set up shop in a location where it seems like anything and everything goes. Initially, Khao San Road started off as a hangout much favoured by hippies and new-age travellers. But times change, and the unprecedented growth of tourism has brought in a mixed crowd of different people with different lifestyles. Nothing is permanent on this road that never sleeps.

At night, this patch of tarmac becomes an ever more bewildering spectacle where the participants are none other than the mainly Western travellers and the local Thais working in the area. Travelling to a different time-zone however left me feeling frazzled. The multitude of people, dazzling neon lights, loud music, tuk-tuk drivers touting "boom-boom massages", were only compounding my headache.

Just before retiring to my room, I remembered! Where was that stall where they sold those tasty, if not health wise, banana pancakes?!? Like everything else on Khao San Road, what you want usually finds you. I stepped back to watch the circus around me. The pancake was delicious as the last time. It was good to know that at least, some things never change, no matter how long it has been.