Le Petite Bateau

After reading excerpts from my travel journal, a friend of mine wrote me and compared my journey to the imagery of a classical French poem he recalled.

The poem featured an allusion to a small boat that gets free from its moorings and drifts along a lazy stream. As it does so, it witnesses the events surrounding the provincial French countryside. Eventually, it makes its way to the vast open ocean and is astounded and awestruck by the sheer beauty of it all.

His depiction of le petite bateau was like reading a page from my travel diary.

Does anyone recognize this poem? Is it Hugo? Baudelaire? If anyone has any insight, please let me know...

Ping Pongs at Patpong

Now I feel that my visit to Bangkok is complete! I likened my dillemma to traveling to Anaheim and not paying a visit to Disneyland! You've read about it, you've heard all the stories...so you're in town...you gotta go#@!?

...Right???

I'm rambling about the notorious red-light district known as Patpong in Bangkok. It's in all the travel guides.

Well, after three very strong white russian cocktails, I managed to muster enough nerve and simultaneously abandon all my Catholic inhibitions & relinquish my Asian sensibilities - and hailed a cab to take me "shopping" in the Patpong district.

No sooner did I step out of the taxi when I was accosted by touts with graphic pictures and descriptions of shows they were trying to solicit. I raised my hand to gesture "no" and turned my nose up with false indignation.

Yet, beneath the veneer of indifference, lay desperate human curiosity. (How else could I explain the behavior of a single woman foraying in the seedier areas of town?)

I paced the main drag about three times. Soon I felt self-conscious that the touts were actually beginning to recognize me! I was sobering up rather quickly and I knew that I had to make my move before all my courage was lost.

As I tried to be nonchalant, I noticed an American couple enter a bar. I quickly followed behind them hoping to "blend."

Without being too graphic, here are the highlights: Ping-Pong balls propelled into the air with incredible precision into buckets across the room; Bottle caps that were like sling shots after incredibly being twisted off their respective bottles; and darts aimed at balloons above my head - I cringed during this part of the act...what if they missed?

I didn't have travel insurance. That was all I could risk...

So are the bragging rights worth it? Yeah...if only to say, "been there, done that."

Ladies? Boys? Lady-Boys!!!

Went to a Lady-Boy cabaret show last night...left me in a quandry...

If I was a heterosexual man in Thailand, I'd be in trouble! Straight men BEWARE! Just remember, when in Rome do like the Romans, when in Thailand, REFRAIN!