BANGKOK – THE CAPITAL OF THAI KINGDOM

Nothing is as easy as we thought it would be: it takes us two hours to find a customs worker who understands what are we talking about. She asks for ATA carnet and as soon as we show it, everything begins to work. The carnet is executed within two hours; meanwhile, we meet local broker named Batbudah. He barely speaks English; however, in all the possible ways with the help of gesture and mimics he tries to persuade us he is the one we need. The entire procedure, beginning with declarants and cargo handlers and finishing with customs officers would cost us 100$. And there he goes: he is able to avoid the line in front of functionary boxes where we would spend all the day; he knows how to make the police let us in the customs terminal without a pass; he runs and spins and really works as much as he can. We even begin to believe that eventually we’ll get to ride again. In two hours of running after Batbudah and documents signing we get to the warehouse and find our precious boxes. However, the working day is still too short to make it to arrange all the formalities and we have to postpone it. We are happy enough, though. Unfortunately, in all the fuss we’ve lost our photo camera with all the pictures from China. It’s rather sad: yet, we haven’t lost anything in longtime. 

In the evening Khao San Street area becomes quite lively and we step out as well. It’s full of various nation’s backpackers and tourists and local people entertaining their big white guests. Among the original Rolex watches, Che Guevara t-shirts and Indian Versace jackets there are different shows going on. One of these is famous pingpong show. The show reminds a magician show a bit, and sometimes we are amazed by the girls’ ingenuity. The room filled with smoke with the stage in the middle is full of white guys and Thai girls amusing them. Of course, within a moment we are also being attacked by the girls whose goal is to make us buy as many drinks as possible. We tell them we are gays and it works out perfectly: they screw up their faces and leave us alone immediately, so we can happily enjoy the “art”. Next, we move on to the Hard Rock Cafe, where a local band plays hits of the eighties. This is really a great party!