I was in the front seat of a taxi on the way to Patpong one night, with two girls in the back seat. We were in one of these huge Bangkok traffic jams and had been sitting behind a pickup truck for maybe 25 minutes when I finally noticed the back of the truck was piled high with this pink, jiggling quantity. I looked closer and realized it was pig carcasses, all gutted. There was a guy holding a pole standing on top of the pile, to make sure none fell out. The pile was actually higher than the cab of the truck and my first thought was "I can't wait to be eating those tomorrow."
Later in the same traffic jam I had to get out and find a place to pee. It was an emergency. Finding a spot to pee took forever and when I went back to the taxi, it had moved maybe 25 feet. I said "Come on, let's just walk" since we were only a half mile from our destination. The girls talked animatedly a second and eventually agreed. So they got out, I paid the cabbie and we walked. This was in my first year of living here and now that I think back on it, doing what we did was something Thai people would never, ever do. Pretty sure it's a Buddhist thing, or the shame of showing an emotion besides glee maybe. In any case it was one of those situations where the farang in the group wanted to do something unthinkable or impolite and they just had to go with it.
I live next to a very large Wat of some kind. I have been told it's a place were they hold funerals. Early evening one night I was walking past it and there were 5 or 6 monks near the car entrance repairing an iron fence with a blowtorch. They were all barefoot and wearing their bright orange robes. The guy clumsily working the blowtorch had a welder's mask on but besides that he had no protective gear on at all, just the silk robe. There were sparks flying everywhere. Two of the monks were hunched down next to him apparently giving advice while the rest of them milled around laughing nervously. They clearly had no idea what they were doing.
I was lurching through a darkened area one night and was descended upon by a gang of ladyboys looking to pick my pocket. I made it through the first group unscathed but the second wave, a single dude working alone, put her arms around me and got to my wallet before I could. In fact got it out of my pocket before I could even get my hand back there to block her. In Thai I said, "Please, I only have a thousand baht. Please. I am not lying" and wai'd her (which I never do because I don't really understand how and when to do it right). She looked at me for a second and then handed me the wallet and pointed at the ground, where my money was sitting. This all happened in a split second -- she had gotten my wallet and tossed my money on the ground so fast I couldn't have seen it without a slow-motion camera.
Another thing about wai'ing. I really have no idea how and when to do it but I know it is an important part of Thai culture and expression. Because I wanted to do something when people address me and because I had seen immaculately dressed security guards do it at malls here, I started saluting people. I don't know if this is seen as acceptable or weird or what but for years now when I leave my house, the gang of motorcycle guys at the end of my street all salute me, and as I walk down my sidewalk to the skytrain, the waitstaff at a restaurant I pass each time all stop, straighten up and give me a crisp, grinning salute, which I return. I love this.
I took this girl named O to see King Kong when it came out. She worked at a truly reprehensible go go bar called Red Lips. Ugh what a hole. One of the times I went there I was sitting at the bar outside it, having drinks with O who was eating dinner. She had put her food aside and was giving me a long description of her 2 hour daily commute (motorcycle to taxi to skytrain) when I noticed a pretty big rat on the rail nibbling her food. I pointed to it exclaiming, "Holy shit!" O said "He won't eat much." But she did throw the food away. When we went to the movie, we were sitting in our seats as the lights went down and O said "I have not been to the movies in 10 years. Farang only take me short time." I was like, "Yeah I know, sorry. Weirdo." When the movie was over she was crying. She hit me on the arm and said "Why you take me to sad movie?"
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