Our next destination was Thailand and from here we are supposed to start our South-East Asia trip but, definitely we always get complications. The weirdest of them all is usually my beloved Lebanese passport which requires visa applications to get into any country except Lebanon 
So we went to the Thai embassy in Cairo and things did not go as we expected. They were not willing to be helpful neither issue a visa for a non-resident in Egypt so decision was made to get my ass back to visit home and see my parents and get some Asian visas back in Beirut.
Beirut was a small paradise after noisy crowded and hell-alike Cairo, like a yoga class; I had a guest coming from Cairo, and we decided to go tour the downtown and believe it or not, on a Sunday it was like a ghost town. That busy summer crowd was no longer there, it was just all my Beirut.
No cars, no people, nobody on the streets and the fall colors had taken over the city, yellow and red trees and very nostalgic quiet surrounding in the downtown area. I felt sad that nobody from my friends was there except maybe 2 of the many people I have known since childhood or from school or university.
It was a ghost immigrants city, everybody i asked about was either in Dubai, Doha, UK, France, Canada etc… they all live as soon as they get the chance to go make more $$$ abroad and exploit their business oriented brains. Something nowadays I feel lacking in me!
So, from Lebanon to Thailand was another part of the big journey that gets to be more interesting and get us more to miss home, Finland that is, and gets us to miss having dinner with friends and being in one place again even if there is huge winter storms and lots of snow.
Beirut is nothing like the past, it is slowly walking towards a bit civilized place. Well, of course we Lebanese neither need traffic lights, even if they are installed but come on, what the heck, you don’t need those. The city was very elegant and clean compared to Cairo i can say, and there was some preparations for the Beirut Marathon.
The trip didn’t exclude a visit to sinful Gemmayze where the botox/silicone girls have created their hangout zone and occupied the newly hip area of Beirut, where young and rich and fashionable girls and guys flirt with the night showing their elegance and speaking all kind of foreign languages. Just as if you would be in Milano or NY but on a smaller scale.
Coming to Bangkok was like a big WOW. I had this impression that this part of Asia will be poor and won’t have any signs of being modern and advanced but, to my big shock the skyscrapers were waiting for me when I arrived at night after a long delayed flight of 18 hours.
Bangkok seemed like what I have seen in the movies about Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Tokyo: it has lots of tall buildings and huge organized toll roads and traffic lights and very advanced customer service oriented people and, as they say it in the airport when you arrive: Welcome to the land of smiles!
Well nobody smile for free, but here they are freindly and smiley and they definately know how to be a touristic destination with their cheap delicious food and amazing Thai massage (the real one, not the kind you find in red light districts in Europe).
Oh, about Sim city, remember that game that many of us played when young: that’s how Bangkok looks like really. We are staying in a street called Khao San road, this street which known to be the wildest street of Bangkok. Well, its the place to be for wild Swedish teenagers who keep fucking and puking on the streets. It also attracts many backpackers due to it´s cheap accommodation and restaurants spread into smaller streets and alleys forming like a huge labyrinth where everything forms and folds and unfolds in moments like in that game.
Walking there includes finding the typical Thai dishes sold on the street by Thai people dragging their small movable kitchen on a trolley and, believe me they do the best Pad Thai there. And you get the freshest fruits ever, I had the chance to even try dragon fruits and enjoy looking at other eating deep-fried cockroaches.
The whole are gives you a feeling of being in Sim City. Anyway, its all about the fun of trying new things and discovering new things. Bangkok Sim City of 2009 for sure. All move, all go, all new and all old.
More to come about Bangkok in my next blog, keep tuned to MaikuSasi and we would like to hear your comments and travel tips from Asia.
Sasi
Maiku continues a bit: Its so easy in here after Middle East. No hassle, no shouting, no one stares at my tits. What a bliss. Its so clean, organized, advanced. I just remembered why I fell in love with this city long time ago.
But something has changed: am too old for Khao San road. Especially the cheap guest houses. When I came alone for a few days before Sasi came, I went to this place I had stayed years ago. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and I could hear clearly an example of Swedish sex life behind the paper-thin bamboo wall, not just uuhs and oohs but… well, ALL. And so did the Thai police officers who had come to write a report of a robbery of another Swedish couple next door. They wrote their notebooks very concentrated and ears red.
In the night I woke up bitten: bed bugs. I had a full-blown attack of really vicious type who bit me even through three layers of clothes. At 5 o’clock I went to sleep in the floor crying since I was so tired after a sleepless night flight from Cairo. In the morning, I woke up with my right eye swallowed closed, and huge itchy spots all over my body.
Maiku's Eye
Packed my bag, changed hostel, bought a huge bottle of pesticide and went to doctor to get an anti-histamine injection to my ass. But I still love Bangkok.
