Stories Vol 5: The Shoe Designer and Skin Instructor

Circadian Rhythm is an absolute bitch or at least when you are trying to relax and let go. For those of you that don't know, I am an extreme morning person in my day to day at home. I get up between 5am and 6am on a routine basis. For some reason my body just does not let me sleep and believe me when I say, "I've tried."

So the morning after my Visa  drop off day, I found myself wandering down to the hostel lobby at 6:15 am. I figured if I wasn't going to be able to force myself to sleep, I might as well get some coffee from the bar to curb my caffeine withdrawal.

Note to self: After two weeks of travel, I now recognize my coffee/tea/caffeine addiction as unhealthy. I am a slave to the symptoms of withdrawal. In Thailand, to stop the headaches, shakes and other drug related symptoms of caffeine slowly being weaned from my system I am actually willing to pay 3-4 USD in Thailand. That's more than a two course meal here. I loathe myself but can't bring myself to do it. Right now I've gotten my habit down from caffeine intake 4 times a day to 2. I'll take the little wins.

As I open the door to the lobby, to my surprise I am greeted by Vanessa  the Shoe Designer fresh out of a Chicago Art School, and Chris (I called him Ben in the Stories Vol 3, found out his name is Chris… whoops), the German studying Massage.

I greet them with a big smile, excited to see I am not alone in my early morning failure. I set my day pack down next to them and grab a coffee. As we begin talking, Chris explains that for the entirety of his 5 day class he will have to get up at 5:45 and out the door by 6:30 to be at the school by 7:30am. He tells us he usually eats alone. Vanessa, like many others who have talked to Chris at the Hostel, quickly offers up her body for him to practice the Thai Massage on at night. I tell him, I'm game for the shoulders, hands and feet portions.

He laughs and finishes up his morning breakfast. Leaving Vanessa and myself to converse one on one. In Chris' absence we begin to reminisce about living in Barcelona. The night prior to this particular morning, we had found out so much about each other and that while 3 years a part we shared many overlaps in our experiences in life. The discussion of Barcelona quickly turned to food, as it always does when I talk about travel and life abroad. Bakeries. Bakeries are the thing we long for from Barcelona.

Barcelona June 2011, National Palace, a block away from my 2009 apartment.

Realizing it's going to be hours before her friend,  the Ski Instructor from France, is up; we decide to venture out into Bangkok to find a Bakery. We gather our things and quickly depart. I have to admit, I have a bit of a friend crush on Vanessa. Like all creatives, I am drawn to her. She offers a sense of familiarity in how she sees the world and in a corner way the human condition.

If you've never hung out with an art student, actor, musician or other creative you will know that conversations are fascinating. To tap into and charge their creativity they put themselves through different experiences forcing themselves to widen their vision of the world around them. Vanessa is no exception to this. From the crazy freshman year shaved hair cut to the wild partying in high school to the experimentation, she is the pinnacle representation of a Brazilian Teen meets artist. 

 

The farther we walk the more it feels like SE is a little sister and close friend. She begins to recommend places to go out to eat in Chicago… the girl gets me. I ask her if these are budget friendly places. A couple are not. "Fuck it, I'll go on Grindr near the consulting offices and find a consultant looking for dining company while staying in Chicago. I mean, he's not paying for it, his company is. I'm ok with that." I say to her.

"Morgan, I feel like I've known you forever," she answers to my ridiculous statement.

We walked for twenty minutes, passing street vendors and fruit stands but no bakeries. Finally we gave in and Vanessa bought some Lychees. Lychees are this alien looking fruit that have a grape like center after you peel the thick bumpy skin off. They are delicious. I'm glad she made me try them. I some times get in a rut and refuse to trust street vendors. What can I say, I'm terrified of travelers diarrhea.



 

Our walk continues on from streets to markets to a 7-11. After 40 minutes we realize the bakery is not going to happen. We decide to grab a mango from the market, a yogurt from the 7-11 and return to the hostel.

After about an hour of Facebook pursuing at the hostel, I show her my fatkid college photos and she shows me her high school/college pics. Within a few pictures of her at 17 I turn to her and say, "you must have aged your father so much looking like that and living in Barcelona. Spanish men must have chased after you not knowing you were 16/17 years old." She laughs, turns to me and answers, "you think I was trouble, wait until you see my younger sister. We were a deadly combination."

At that, in walks Fleur. Fleur is a fascinating specimen of Dutch/English background. Her and Vanessa have been best friends since school in Barcelona. She has a British accent in English and thinks in Spanish. She fascinates me. I laugh as we talk to the travel agent who books their train tickets to the north and my scuba excursion in the Gulf Islands of Thailand. Despite being Dutch/English she is talking to Vanessa in Spanish. Its entertaining.

With our travel plans booked. We head out as a party of three to walk to MBK mall. Like my previous conversation that day, we share stories and backgrounds. It's perfect. We snap photos of a converted car coffee stand, continuing our way to MBK mall to buy dollar shirts and cheap flip flops. Rest assured I am able to buy cheap travel clothes. I no longer just have one pair of shorts and a couple shirts. Its tank time.

Our adventures included some of the following highlights.

• Bargain Shopping
• Shoe browsing, with Vanessa identifying all of the different leathers and styles. I'm learning so much about men's shoes.
• Green Tea glazed, chocolate stuffed donut eating
• Tuk Tuk travel for a buck pending a stop at a tailor shop for mens suit. The driver gets gas money for bringing tourists there. We are ok with it but Vanessa goes a little far with the ruse pulling out fabric and indulging the tailor. He honestly thought we wanted one. She holds up a charcoal fabric stating "this goes perfect with your eyes, every Business percent needs a good charcoal suit."

Amazing Donut

Our adventures end with a lunch with Vanessa's friend from art school who is a Bangkok native. He brings us to a soup restaurant where a large pot on a stove is placed in the center of the table. You select greens and protein and other goodies to dump and cook in the stew. Slowly it turns from water to this delicious mixture of flavors.

Over the course of the meal, Pong, Vanessa's friend, explains Thai culture, shares stories, and reminisces about Chicago. He is fantastic and a great host. We easily loose ourselves in the conversation and are ripped back to reality realizing it's three. He has to get back to work and I have to pick up my visa and get to the bus station.

We say goodbyes and I venture out for my visa. If you remember back to my previous post. I had told you that the place I left my passport with was kind of sketch. On my way back to the location, I feel my heart rate rise, noting the possibility that I might have made a mistake. I arrive just after four and to my relief, collect my passport and sticker visa.

Horah, with passport in hand I head back to the hostel, shower, collect my belongings and say good bye to my new friends, the shoe designer and ski instructor. I hope to meet up with them again on this trip in Vietnam but nothing is for sure when you are flying by the seat of your pants. We hug and I hop in a cab with an Italian from the hostel. He and I will continue the journey.

Until next time….

W.M.