Welcome to Bangkok January 6th 2008

I just landed in Bangkok - it's a blizzard of people, rickshaws, cars, motorbikes, kindness, tantalizing food, and yesterday my first real-life Thai massage. I was so relaxed I drooled. I tingled in muscles I didn't know I had. Surely they had not been touched for centuries. Counting my past lives too. Lee, the masseuse, twisted me like the bow on a gift box and she doesn't even use oil. She stretches arms and legs into positions that are like the kama sutra but with no sex involved just smooth tugging and folding of arms across chest and thighs pulled out of hip sockets. I felt like I was on one of those medieval stretcher racks but it was all in the name of a mystical, physical experience. Afterwards I felt invigorated.

I hadn't slept that well in years. Then I woke up at 4AM feeling beat up and achey but in the morning I opened my eyes ready to take on the world. Or at least Bangkok. I'll take it. Also I am back to meditating on a regular basis. Everything falls into place after silent sitting. I had not meditated since I left the Western world and I felt discombobulated. It is more important to be spiritually fit than physically fit. And the pedicure helped too.

If you ever want body treatments for cheap come to Bangkok. You can be stroked, shined, waxed, and polished for next to nothing. My massage cost $7. With tip. I felt like a hedonist pilgram today. I strolled through Bangkok taking the canal taxi, jumping into the boat via the bumper-brake tires in my long flowy skirt, visited the stand-up Buddha, and afterwards had an altercation with the auto-rickshaw driver. I should have dismissed him when he pressured me to leave the temple after he said, "take your time." I wanted to stay and I should have. I learn lessons every darn day in how to be firm with idiots. Then unasked he took me to a tout (a form of robber baron who hustles money out of travelers) who wanted me to buy a tailor-made Thai outfit for way too much money. Not. The tailor mistook me for a rich tourist on a two-week holiday. I tried to explain to him the words "budget" and "six-month trip" but he just kept smiling in a very oily way.

Then I put on my red silk skirt from India and everything got better. I sashayed around town had my massage and went to the movies. Then I got lost. But angels came to my rescue in these vexing minutes. It was dark and a man on the street gave me directions to my guesthouse but I was bewildered. Not really lost but confused about which way to walk. So after I have walked in that direction for a while and he's well out of sight I hear running behind me; huffing and panting he's back again."I told you the wrong way!"

He escorted me to the correct street since he was going back to work at the hospital where I got my teeth cleaned earlier today. I tagged along relieved. I had just seen an intense movie, "Elizabeth" and wasn't feeling all cheery and smitten with travel. The movie was supposed to be entertaining but it was heavy and left me with a discouraged feeling about love. Then I got mixed up in the dark and was not sure where I lived.This morning all is better. I floated down the street sampling food from the vendor's wagons in front of my guesthouse. It's cheap and delicious. I can't resist. But this is not why I get sick to my stomach. You never know who will poison you - it could be the pricey splurge restaurant or the sidewalk lunch cart. It happens. Which is now my new mantra. Things can go awry. It is all part of the global adventure. It does not mean I should go home - this is all just a passing show for my entertainment. Don't take it so seriously.Yay.