Her guide for the second day of her tour of Bangkok was a woman. Jao had sent her along with the silver Mercedes, a driver, and a handwritten note apologizing for not being able to take her around himself, and introducing Chailai as the best tour guide in his employ.
Chailai's accent had significantly more British in it than Thai, but any doubts about the extensive depth and breadth of her knowledge was dispelled during their drive as she provided an in-depth running commentary of every single section of the city they drove by.
"We're going on the river. We'll first go down to the floating markets, then we'll see the Wat Arun," she had said with a wide smile as they both settled into the backseat. "Hope you don't get seasick?"
Honor smiled and shook her head. "No."
"Good." Chailai nodded, happy. "Then we can ride through the khlongs and you'll see some of the real Bangkok."
"What are khlongs?"
"Oh... that's the Thai word for canals." She raised her eyebrows, making a face. "They're a bit stinky, though."
Honor wrinkled her nose expressively, smiling at her guide. "The stinkier, the better."
Chailai was true to her word. The smell of the khlongs was far from pleasant, almost enough to make Honor regret her bravado. Thankfully, Chailai had anticipated the problem and come prepared with a pair of scented scarves.
"The smell used to be much worse," Chailai informed her as they sat low in the fantastically colored and decorated long-tail boat, their only other company the smiling driver who had bowed to both of them and exchanged a few quick words with Chailai before setting off.
Honor gave her a questioning and somewhat sickened look.
"But the government has been running a sanitation and clean-up program for the past three years," Chailai continued, clearly amused at Honor's facial expression. "They're bringing in the big machines next year. The tourism and environment ministries all swear that in two years time, you'll be able to swim here."
"That's great," Honor said, genuinely pleased, though she couldn't imagine ever wanting to swim here. She suspected that no matter how clean and clear the water would be then, she wouldn't be able to entirely forget the greenish brown malodorousness of it now. Or the large numbers of water monitors she saw coming out of the water to bask in the sun.
She took numerous pictures of them as Chailai explained that they were protected, along with the numerous waterbirds perching on rocks alongside the muddy canal banks.
Chailai looked at her curiously. "Mr. Haydn's company is part of the clean-up project." Her look at Honor plainly asked, 'How come you don't know?'
Honor looked at her and answered truthfully. "I didn't know that." Inside, she told herself another truth. 'Because I'm not his woman. I'm just his whore.'
But she found that this piece of knowledge was a cheering one. From everything she'd seen and heard about him, Mark Haydn was apparently a good man. It was nice to know the man who had been inside her within the last few hours was not just some uncaring corporate monster.
The children she saw swimming and playing in the river made her even more glad that someone was doing something about cleaning it up. She took pictures of them, and got one where two boys and a girl actually posed on a veranda for her before waving and jumping once again into the brown water.
Either way, Honor enjoyed herself immensely - and before she knew it she had taken well over a hundred pictures in the first one hour of their ride in Blue Dragon Guides owned long-tail boat - known locally as a 'ruea hang yao'. From the very moment they set off the variety in the buildings lining the canals, showcasing all from profound poverty to ostentatious wealth, was something she found fascinating. Cheek by jowl with each other were corrugated tin shacks, elaborate temples, homes built on wooden stilts, restaurants, schools, and full-fledged high-fenced concrete mansions with large gardens and docks of their own.
As Chailai explained, they were travelling through the khlongs of both Thonburi and Nonthaburi. The former was now a district of Bangkok, but it was previously an independent city of its own, and even once the capital of Thailand before the capital was moved across the Chao Phraya to Bangkok by the first King Rama in the late Eighteenth Century. But Nonthaburi was an independent city of its own, the second largest after the capital and close enough for people to live in one and work in the other.
The change of pace was striking. Everyone of the local citizenry she saw was hard at work, making a living. From the floating stalls stacked high with clothes, shoes, utensils, tourist items, trinkets and other knick-knacks for sale, to the skilled rowers floating along in all directions while simultaneously grilling and roasting fish and chicken on charcoal grills grafted unto their boats, no one was idle, and yet, the best way she could describe life along and within the canals of Bangkok was... relaxed.
Finally, the boat captain, cut his speed and turned the boat toward a highly decorated structure built on struts in the water.
"That's the Klong Bang Luang Artist House," Chailai said.
Honor saw the web address arranged in large white hand-fashioned capital letters hung above the balcony as the boat sidled up to the building 'www.klongbangluang.com'.
"We're going to get iced coffee, and watch a show," Chailai informed her.
Honor smiled, curious. "That sounds good."
Honor was captivated from the moment she set foot in the large wooden house. As Chailai explained, when the owner of the house could know longer afford to keep it, he sold it to the local Art Society. Everywhere was covered in some piece of artwork, from face masks, puppets, sculptures, to paintings, drawings and fabrics. But what was truly fascinating was the musical puppet show put on by a troupe of masked men and women in black dramatizing the Ramakien story - every flawless jerky movement by the puppeteers perfectly timed and coordinated and transmitted along to the little puppets representing the Thai gods.
Everyone in the audience, from the small crowd of tourists to the small class of elementary school children was silent from start to finish. The only snatches of noise being the flash and click of multiple cameras. The puppeteers and their musicians were greeted with wild applause when they were done, which they gamely received as if for the first time. Honor was only slightly surprised to find that she had taken over fifty pictures.
She'd finished her remarkably sweet iced coffee by then and guiltily went for another before they climbed back into the boat.
Their next stop was one of the floating markets, and again, Honor found herself captivated, staring at the mass of wooden boats moored along the riverbank, the vast majority of which were cooking some variety of seafood, rice and noodles in large woks on artfully attached stoves. She saw huge prawns, blue crab and various large species of fish roasting on grills and people, sitting on the floor, feet dangling over the water, eating with gusto and chattering happily with their neighboring diners.
Other boats sold fruits and vegetables, mangoes, pineapples, papayas and pomelos - a handful sold the infamously malodorous durian fruit - and as she watched, she saw the vendors rapidly cut up, slice and dice fruit into fruit salads for wandering customers, most of whom, she noticed, were Thais.
In fact, she noted with a start of surprise, she could only see two other non-Thais in the crowd, one a pretty black woman in a filmy sarong and wide-brimmed straw hat with a swarthy man wearing dark mirrored shades. They were sitting at a table in one of the awning covered restaurants on the riverside, chatting and looking completely at home as the long tail boat slipped by.
Honor then noticed the splashing in the water and looked over the side to see an energetic school of black catfish swarming around the boat. Chailai wordlessly handed her a plastic baggie of breadcrumbs and they both leisurely fed the fish as the boat chugged on through the floating market. Honor saw three more tourists all looking about as fascinated as she felt and she found herself smiling widely, realizing that she was thoroughly enjoying herself.
Finally, Honor felt the engines begin to slow and the prow of the boat swing over, approaching one of a few empty docks. The market was a little bit quieter here, but not by much. There was still a lively trade in cooked seafood, fruits and trinkets.
"Someone's picking us up outside the market," Chailai said as they left the dock, having waved goodbye to the long-tail boat driver, whose smile was even wider because of the large denomination baht note Honor had left in his hand. "But first of all,..."
"Food," Honor said.
"Food," agreed Chailai, grinning back.
A short walk away from the dock, Chailai led them to a restaurant under a bright red awning along the shoreline. The food was being prepared by three women cooking on a platform out on the water. The young and somewhat chubby Thai man who directed them to a pair of plastic seats fell into a fast-running conversation with Chailai before finally walking off to the restaurant's floating kitchen.
In less than two minutes he was back with two large wooden bowls and two pint glasses of freshly squeezed pineapple juice. The first thing she saw was the fist-sized prawn topping everything. Further examination, under the prawn, revealed a mound of noodles surrounded by a thick black broth dotted with shredded pieces of shrimp, periwinkles and even tinier shreds of chilli peppers, bell peppers and basil leaves, and curious streaks of bright orange and yellow. It smelled hot, mildly pungent with the familiar scent of fish and chilli oil.
"Special recipe. Best food in market," the plump waiter said to Honor, smiling widely. "Very good. You will like."
And as if to make sure, he stood by as she twirled noodles unto her fork, dipped into the black sauce, capturing bits of shrimp and the streaks of orange and yellow, and lifted the fork to her mouth.
"Oh my @#&%...!" she gasped.
Chailai started laughing.
"You like?" the waiter asked.
"Oh my @#&%!"
________________________
"And this is the infamous Khao San Road," Chailai announced.
