The bus is shaking, rattling my frail sickly body, from side to side. My body, slamming to one side with every turn, quickly followed by the slamming of my insides. This delay of inside to outside creates the perfect combination for maximum sickness. A polyrhythm of misery. I forgot to buy any water. The cure for my torture, 50mg of dramamine, in my hands with no way of swallowing it. No water, no coke, no nothing. Just the yellow bitter tablets and my own determination to swallow them. I can’t take this anymore. The nausea mixed with the cold, results in a hellish experience of almost throwing up, not being able to and swallowing it down, painfully back into my stomach. My mouth tastes of stomach acid. I know it's coming and the anticipation is worse than the act of throwing up. So I ball up some spit in my mouth by sloshing my tongue back and forth and place the dramamine onto my tongue. Instantly the bitter tablet starts to dissolve into the saliva, filling my mouth with an overwhelming bitterness. The bitterness is reinforced by the sick and stomach acid, creating a disgusting mixture. I quickly swallow it down. The pill is gone but the afterglow remains, reminding you of its futility. I look out the window at the rice paddies and roadside villages. At the farming huts and CPP offices. At the dams and the lakes. At endless fields and the passing gradient of trees passing by. Soon the dramamine kicks in and I fall asleep.
I wake up at the border, still drowsy from the medicine and disoriented by the sheer brightness of the midday sun. The border was quiet, so we went through rather quickly. Again I was confronted with the question of which passport to use. I had a visa on my German one, but since I could get the Asean Visa on my Thai one for free I could use it too. Which one to use? Try the german one and risk having to do the whole thing again - wasting everyone's time for a symbolic victory? I queue up and wait, both passports and my visa documentation in hand. This is a communist country, if they’re as strict and paranoid as we say they are what’s going to happen. 2 Passports with 2 Different names, My face also barely looks the same in the two any ways. What if they search me, my wallet which has my Military reserve and Move Forward party membership cards in them. What would they think? That I'm an informant. Military personnel getting information for the neoliberal MF movement? Shit, I’ve fucked it. They're going to arrest me. The line moves slowly as the X-Ray machine is out of order, so they have to individually open up each bag and inspect every bag individually. Opening up the suitcases then rifling through everything. Shit, they’re going to find my books. I have Karl Marx, they’ll like that no? What if it’s suspicious, what kind of 19 yr old backpacker reads Karl Marx. What if it’s too on the nose? Oh shit, Kropotkin. Marx broke with the Anarchists and Bakunin in the first Internationale, right? What if it’s banned, Shit! They do dialectics in school here, right? What if they know who Kropotkin is? Damnit, why did I bring it? I’m done for. Not to mention Camus’ The Rebel with a title which will definitely cause some suspicion. Shit, It’s my turn at the front. Don’t look suspicious, smile, wait don’t smile, that’s more suspicious, normal face - Okay. I hand my papers over to the man and ask to be stamped in on the German passport, this time to little protest. I wait, looking nervous, switching between smiling and pulling a deadpan face with a schizophrenic Uncertainty. Smiling, dropping it, looking at the man, then looking away as to not stare, etc. Not one mention of International Law or Standard procedure, he just opens up the two passports, scans the pictures with his eyes, then looks at me, then stamped both of them. So easy was it this time. I walked over to the luggage inspection point, where they had just confiscated a Large pomelo from the lady in front, ready to hand my luggage over. I stare at them, still nervous and gently smiling. They just look at me holding a bag double my size with straps tied around it in an incomprehensible manner and wave me through. Nothing to worry about after all?
I wake up, not on the bus but in the cargo truck. The driver is intently focussed on the road ahead. He doesn’t notice me slumbering up on the passenger seat. The sun is out. The flooded metropolis finally visible. Now I can see the wrath of nature in full. Sky scrapers, sticking out of the water, like pillars of a lost empire. The base is far beneath the surface - only God knows how deep the water is. The streets are now rivers, covered in a film of trash. Most likely junk washed out of homes left behind in the evacuation. The waves are crashing on the sky scrapers, corroding its square edges into soft corners. The glass panes of the office building now blinded shut by a gradient of green to black. Of algae to dirt to smoke. How long has it been this way? In the water I notice some signs of life. Occasionally what could be fish would pull down the trash from the surface, hoping for food. Small paddle boats fill the rivers. Random people parsing through the trash looking for something, anything usable in the rubble.
“You’re up.” The driver speaks suddenly, pulling me back onto the truck. He is still looking out on the road. The endless highways and overpasses connected by hastily built bridges. A network of overground roads. Or should I say overwater. The driver is scruffy. Scruffy stubble, scruffy hair and scruffy clothes. On his cheek a long straight scar, leading to a deformed ear, hidden underneath the cap. The truck is a mess. The dashboard is scratched up and covered in a solid layer of dirt and litter. Next to my seat, a rolled up sleeping bag and a hard square Isaan pillow. On the windshield mirror a series of half rotted jasmine wreaths (พวงมาลัย) and buddha amulets swing with the swaying trucks. The windshield mirror has a crack going across, with pictures of monks and soldiers taped to it. Ajahn Sao Kantasīlo, Ajahn Mun, Ajahn Chah. Next to them, a group portrait of soldiers in the forest. Smiling with their arms embraced around each other's necks and M16s hung on their shoulders.
“What were you doing all the way in Bang Khun Thian?” he says looking over to me with a smile.It takes a moment for me to register what he said, another to respond.
“I don’t know” I say, still getting my bearings of the city. Bang Khun Thian? In Bangkok? Is this Bangkok? What the fuck happened? “Where is this place?” I say softly.
“Where? What do you mean? We’re in Bangkok.” He looks at me now with a slightly concerned face. “You do have your permit to go to the port right?” I don’t answer. “You know, the stamp from the office for reconstruction and survival in Mahanakorn tower.” He looks at me again, now ignoring the road. The road is completely empty anyways with the exception of abandoned cars occasionally passing by. “Don’t tell me you swam all the way there!” He says and lets out a loud chuckle, accidentally swerving the truck to one side. “Which tower do you live in? I’ll drop you off.”
“I don’t know.” I reply again “I remember falling but not much else.”
“You’re telling me, you fell from one of the towers and washed up in Bang Khun Thian? The trash is like a metre thick, you wouldn't have survived.” He reacts with a slightly confused face.
“I don’t know,” I say again. “I don’t really remember anything. What happened to this place?”
“You don’t know anything, huh? The last twenty years, that's what happened.” He looks at me now with a face of real concern. “The Insurgency? The flood? The emergency period? None of this rings a bell?” I shake my head. “Oh Gautama. You must have hit your head pretty hard on that fall.” He lets out a chuckle.
“What year is it?” I ask him now, also concerned.
“2589 (Bhuddist Calendar - 2045 Gregorian) 13 years since the emergency period started. You don’t remember any of this?” I shake my head. “We’ll need to get you to the field hospital. There's one at the Baiyoke tower.”
“The emergency period?” I ask him.
“That’s what the people call it. Officially it's the government for reconstruction and survival. The Americans set it up in the war, but we left it in place when the water started rising.” He explains. It’s been 13 years, only 13 and everything’s gone. We drive past what is presumably the old town. The spires of the palace and democracy monument, its four peaks shattered, barely poking out of the trash and water. Most of the old town is submerged, except for a sky train line popping out of what used to be Ratchadamnoen, heading towards the towers on the horizon. The driver sees me looking out the window. “The war pretty much destroyed most of this. And the flood didn’t help, "he continues.
“The war?” I ask him, now looking out the windshield at the spider web of overpasses.
“The Civil War.” His face drops the gleeful smile and he pauses for a second. “Some communists wanted to destroy the Monarchy - We put them down” I looked at him with a confused face. “It doesn’t matter anymore, all that revolution-nonsense, It’s over. People are just trying to survive.” He continues in a sombre tone.
“Who won?” I ask him after a moment of painful silence.
“No-one won. We fought for a couple years then bombed the living shit out of each other.” he goes on “Then they called a cease fire when the water started rising - There was no point fighting about anything anymore.”
“I thought we had more time - More time to fight climate change…” I say to the man.
“You think climate change did this? I mean, it was going to at some point, but…” he pauses.
“But? But what?” I reply.
“The wrath of nature is nothing compared to the idiocy of man.” He says in a sombre tone looking over to the group portrait of the soldiers on the windshield. “The Indians decided to put an end to the Kashmir-conflict and just invaded Pakistan. The whole thing went nuclear, raised the global temperature by 5 degrees. It didn’t help that a stray, meant for Uttarakhand, accidentally hit the Himalayas causing all the glaciers to melt - The flood came from all sides. The coast and the mountains.” The man falls silent as we continue driving.
Kilometres on the overpasses, occasionally crossing from one to another on wooden bridges. Gradually more and more life can be seen. First other cargo trucks, then people selling jasmine wreaths and energy drinks from bicycles. Red Bull is still going strong. The bed of the car is littered with empty bottles, the glass clinking with every bump. That’s what keeping him going I guess. Hope doesn’t cut it anymore, just speed. Something to keep the mind racing, no chance to stop and think, if you do you’ll just end up weeping. Broken down and immovable husks of something which used to live. The towers pass by, now with some resemblance of life in them. At least the windows have lights and silhouettes of people. Maybe they’re ghosts, maybe they're humans - What’s the difference afterall. The sky scrapers, now like desperate arms reaching out for salvation, hoping for someone to pull them out. But there's no one, just the uncaring sky. “What the fuck is this place?” I think to myself as I fall asleep.
I wake up again, now in Ho Chi Minh city. The city is a contrast to the countryside, or even the city I just came from. The streets are filled with motorbikes weaving in and out in a chaotic flow. Like water in the streets. The Helmets poking out of the chaos, little round buoys bobbing about weaving their way through. The traffic is almost incomprehensible, it is chaotic, but perfectly organised. The constant blaring of horns and rumble of motors create an aggressive choir of noise. Every helmet knows exactly which way to go, how to weave and flow, in an intricate dance of man and machine. The bus, like a boat, breaks its way through forcing the motorbikes to flow around it. Then we arrived and I got off, more disoriented than when I left. Was that real? Is this real?
Click. Flash! Click. Flash! Click. Flash! As quickly as I came, so were my photos taken. The usual passport photo rules. No smiling, no glasses, hair behind the ears and looking slightly down to make one's chin less prominent. I left the photo-shop as it would take half an hour to print and cut my portraits down to size. 48 mm by 33 mm as was written on the chinese visa site. I left to get some breakfast. It was still 6 am, my first day in Ho Chi Minh City will be spent mainly at the chinese visa centre. I walked out of the store to find some food. Took 2 right turns and found a small Bahn Mi stand on the street. Another remnant of the French Empire are the Banh Mis. The word Banh literally derived from the vietnamese pronunciation of ‘le Pain.’ A baguette with various things stuffed into it. The perfect mix of French white bread and Vietnamese fillings also has the benefit of being the cheapest thing you can buy virtually anywhere. The Banh Mi place I found was just a push cart on the protected motorbike path on the road. A small old lady falling half asleep behind the comparatively gigantic mobile restaurant.
“Xin chao” I said to her, jolting her awake, in a thick German accent coming out more as “Tsing Tschau.” The lady stood up, but was still overshadowed by the pushcart in front of her. I said “One Banh Mi, please” to her, holding one finger up, then handed her 15 000 Vietnamese Dong. She quickly made the sandwich and I ate it right there on the street, asian squatting on the pavement and looking at the street.
Despite being 6 am the city was already lively and the streets were already filled with the flood of motorbikes. People here got up very early, often going to get communal breakfast with their friends before work at 7 am. Opposite me, on the other side of the motorbike lane, partitioned off by trees and the main street, was a Chinese temple. Spires decorated with dragons and hundreds of glued on fliers, decorated the walls leading up to a small door. I couldn't see inside, but a constant stream of people, mainly Vietnamese but sometimes tourists, filed out. After them often a cloud of white smoke, smelling of incense. Occasionally some of the temple goers, after having made their offerings for the day, would cross over the street to get a Banh Mi. Walking directly through the oncoming traffic in a slow but constant pace, letting the traffic flow around them. Everything, almost in perfect choreography. The bikes, weaving around them as they walked on. I finished my Banh Mi and went back to the photo-shop. The photos were ready so I promptly left for the Visa Centre.
The Visa centre was located somewhere on top of a glass and metal giant. After getting stuck in traffic and mistakenly going to the Embassy first, I arrived at the building 5 minutes before my unmovable appointment at 8 am. I spent ages going up one elevator only to find out that it didn't go to the 16th floor, going back down and up another, which turned my 5 minutes early to 5 minutes late. The Visa Centre itself was packed and for the first time in 2 years I was asked to put on a mask, then they asked me to leave my bag at the door and walk through a metal detector. I waited in line with a large bundle of documents, my german passports and 5 perfectly cut photos in hand. The whole ordeal was fairly quick. The line moved very fast as everyone after getting to the counter was told the same thing. “We need more documents for your trip.” Flights, Hotel Bookings, Health Certificates, etc. Then quickly filing out through the metal detector. Very few people actually sat on the rows of waiting chairs in the second stage of the application process. My fate was the same. "We need more information about the trip, please leave and come back in a minimum of 3 days.” So I left.
Annoyed and Defeated, I go to the park to sit down on one of the benches and spend a few minutes in my head, complaining about what a waste today was. Having to get up early just to not achieve anything. Running around for an hour, getting photos taken and documents printed only to be told off in under 5 minutes. I spend a good 20 minutes this way. Grumpy and miserable, mumbling to myself incomprehensibly. Likening myself to Syssiphus because I had to set an alarm. Then I looked up. The canopy, now a silhouette under the midday sun, makes me forget everything. The slow swaying of the branches of the 30 metre tall tamarind trees makes, creating a slow oceanic wave. The occasional squirrels daringly jumping from one to the next then vanishing into the thicker foliage. Titans of nature forced to shift by a gentle breeze. Then I finally hear the bird song, which fills the space. I look down again now completely present and finally notice the park.
The parks in Vietnam are a mythical place. A third location for people to go to do things alone, together. Different crowds minding their own business doing their own stuff, but in a shared space. In front of me is a Tai Chi circle, slowly moving with the swaying trees and fighting a battle with their own stamina. Old men and women standing in line, with their arms stretched out slowly bending them upwards, and contorting their bodies to the side. Right beside them is a circle of teenagers rehearsing a K-Pop dance, stepping into a circle, striking a pose then stepping out, as K-Pop music plays in the background. I stretch my arms out to mimic the grannies, swaying to the rhythm of K-Pop. Next to me on another bench is an old man meditating with a walkman playing buddhist lectures from cassette tapes. The sound of flutes fills the space and after investigating briefly, I discover it coming from a shy quartett of florists, practising inside a bush of banana trees. The sight is beautiful, people trapped in their private worlds and with their private obsessions choosing to share this public space. I think back to Thailand where this is rare. The same things happen but enclosed and privatised. Community partitioned by entry fees. Teenagers still practise K-Pop dances but inside shopping malls where there are dedicated dance rooms costing 150 baht an hour. Tai Chi still exists but as guided courses in meditation studios, again somewhere in the maze of shopping centres. The parks are for the poor. All the cool Hi-So kids can't be seen there. The heat would be too overwhelming for them in their layered fashionable outfits.
I go for a stroll around the park. Briefly towards the banana bush, until the florists notice me and gets performance anxiety. So I left, walking past rows of badminton players. Then I notice an intense match of a game I have never seen before. Similar to Sepak Trakaw but played with a feather shuttlecock like Badminton. Two teams of four, standing ten metres apart separated by a pile of bags marking the net, take turns passing the shuttlecock back and forth. Setting it up by kicking it straight up in the air then kicking it with extreme force and precision over to the other side. Everytime someone misses, they are subject to friendly ridicule and are forced to go find the shuttlecock in the bushes. I spend a while watching them play. How one man does a cartwheel to kick the shuttlecock from over his head to the otherside, then they catch it with their chest, setting it up and kicking it back. The men are clearly pros, all of them at least 45. Catching it with their foot from behind their back, passing it over their head and doing a spin kick to pass it over. No points were being counted, the goal was just to play the game. Back and forth over and over again with no winners or losers. An American expat watches and cheers on, shouting “Way to go Spiderman! Nice one.” I try to join in but fail so spectacularly that I was asked to stop. I return to my hostel in a slightly better mood.
As I am a tourist, I decided to actually go do some sight seeing. I spent the morning at the Vietnam War museum, parsing through crowds of identically dressed americans. All of them in identical uniforms. Gymshorts, high-tech sweat proof shirts with the entry stickers from the last week still on, a baseball cap, a pair of sunglasses which stays fixed on their foreheads, nike shoes, a small day-pack and a large camera hanging from their necks. The moment you see the uniform you know they’re American, later confirmed by the loudness of their speech and the fact that they cluster in front of doorways seemingly unaware that other people need to pass. Large clans travelling together, often a mom and dad with their 13 kids, never having a good time. The parents are angry and shouting at the kids about every little thing. The kids whining that they were bored and wanted to watch Youtube. The war museum itself is traumatic. Mainly composed of pictures of atrocities committed by the Americans against the Vietnamese people. A whole floor dedicated to war crimes, another dedicated to chemical warfare. All these rooms filled with people, silent and with a look of shock on their faces, seemingly having never googled the history of their own countries before. Not surprising given the book bans and that American schools prioritise American Exceptionalism over actual history. Nothing unfamiliar, in Thailand it’s the same. Outside the museum crowds gather in silence either waiting for their tours to pick them up or scared to say anything as to seem like they weren’t as ‘impacted’ by the exhibit as the others. Darting their eyes around to gauge the sombreness of the group then adjusting their faces appropriately. Eventually someone breaks the silence and says they're hungry. Opposite is the infamous ‘Street Food Market’ which is ironically neither on the street nor a market, but the food part is technically correct, even if rather overpriced. The food court has an assortment of western places with the occasional Vietnamese restaurant in between, all with the word ‘Authentic’ somewhere in the name. Half of these dishes were Thai food, as the foreigners won’t even realise, they just order fried rice or spring rolls anyway. It’s all Asian, right? And even ‘Authentic’ as the name implies. Everyone wants Authenticity but, the real is often smelly and sat on squatty stools by the street, so they settle for this. Each with their own horror story of how they got a stomach ache from eating real street food and now are weary of all non-western food. The food court was also filled with Americans, all dressed in the aforementioned uniform. Taking photos for instagram by the big mural saying ‘Saigon Street Food’, figuring out how to tag it on their Stories and talking about what social media stars are getting cancelled or gossiping about their friends at home. Physically they are in Vietnam, but mentally they are at home. Middle class moms shouting at their kids for wanting to talk to them and talking to any vietnamese person as if they were the waiter, even if it was just some asian tourist. The place felt frankly depressing so I ate my Gyros and left.
I’ve been told by other Backpackers that the south is worse than the north. That the long lasting influences of Americanisation is very evident in the individualists mentality of the people here. The hostel staff that moved here from the north even joked that you might get robbed in the south. That christianity brings with it criminality. As I walk through town, this fact becomes very apparent. The constant harassment of everyone by everyone to sell tours, coconuts and photo opportunities. Physically trapping you in your walk to try and sell you something, is more extreme than in Thailand, despite being superficially socialist in Ideology. The hostel upon arriving made me sign a dozen forms absorbing them of any and all responsibility. It was all up to me, they just provided the beds. The expats here often complain that the people are too capitalist, always asking for money and trying to sell things. Ironically, when they don’t, they call them unprofessional and primitive. They taught them these tricks. They can't be angry that they are using it against them. Maybe in Thailand they ignore me because I’m local, they can tell from the way I walk, dress and act. The tourists are very obvious, they walk slower, look around more. Dressed differently, carrying different stuff, like cameras and metal water bottles. Knowing this I try to blend in, dressing in plain clothes and wearing long pants, which westerners do not do. When confronted to buy stuff, I speak Thai and Lao gibberish at them ,hoping the tonality will trick them into thinking that I’m Vietnamese, speaking in an obscure dialect, but this also doesn’t work. Sitting in a park, a shoe shiner corners me, telling me my shoes are broken and need some glue. I try to tell him that I don’t want it, but he ignores me, immediately bending over to apply some glue on my feet, talking very fast to fluster me. I try to walk away but he holds my feet down, so I let him. I let him glue my shoes back into shape, then when he's done, I get up. Of course he demands money for the glue, which I don’t ask for, but I pretend to not understand. Thanking him for the glue and saying how kind he is and begin to walk away. He follows me asking for more money, I just keep thanking him and smiling. Eventually he gets angry, and shout ‘Fuck You! Give me Money!’ at me. I just smile and keep walking, thanking him and wishing him a nice day. Smiling with purposeful Naïveté.
On the way back I decided to take a purposeful detour, walking into every alley I could find, getting myself lost and finding a way out of it again. Trying my damndest to escape the hyper westernised downtown with its McDonalds and Starbucks coffees at every corner. We have that in Thailand. I don't need it here. The alleys of HCMC, a labyrinthian second city hiding behind the facade of streetside shops, goes on forever. Caves in the streets, corroded through by individuals choosing where to settle down and carving out homes into the concrete. I briskly walked away from the tourist centre and came across a crack in the wall. A small gap between a cafe and an apartment building. Damp and dark with a streetside Pho shop obscuring the entrance. I walked in, not knowing where I'd end up. First there was nothing, just concrete walls and dripping electric pylons. A black serpent of tangled cables hangs over my head, leading me further into the jungle. The dampness, obscured from the daylight, results in a drop of temperature. I kept walking, coming across a fork in the alley, I took the smaller, more cramped path and walked. The second city began to take shape. The concrete walls turned to homes, the cliffside growing progressively more colourful. Then I heard the faint sound of Karaoke singing echoing through the canopy of narrow houses, all stretching up to the sky, blocking out most of the light. A motorbike squeezes its way by me then turns into another dark alleyway. I followed him, I followed the music, I followed the sound of distant chatter, I followed the smell of fried dumplings. I arrived at a clearing. The loneliness of concrete walls immediately evaporated. The space, a hundred metres deep in the city block, was teeming with life. I found where the music was coming from. It was a communal karaoke machine standing in the alley underneath the umbrella of a tea shop. A group of old women, sitting around it, taking turns cranking out a rendition of classic Vietnamese songs. Besides them children playing badminton, using a low hanging electrical cable as a net, jumping around to the rhythm of their grandmothers’ singing. The houses here are open, no longer shackled by the burglary protection bars and barbed wires, like the streetside homes. Their gates opened up directly to the living rooms and I could see into every home. People watching TV, rolling spring rolls and doing homework, individually, but together. A breeze of belonging snakes its way through the homes in one and out the other, smelling a little like roasted duck. The locals, no longer hustling to sell me a tour or shine my shoes, were more concerned that I had gotten myself lost, than about selling me something. The grandmas, none of them speaking any English, immediately stood up to try and figure out where I was trying to go, pointing to various alleys and trying to tell me where they led to, but I couldn’t understand anything. It didn’t matter. After a while they realised that I was just walking around and invited me to sing some Karaoke with them, bringing over a cinnamon tea, and rushing me to a seat. One lady, missing all her teeth, but still smiling wide with a youthful charm, kept nudging my shoulder and saying something, which grandmas laughed at. I laughed too, not knowing what she said, but going along with the sentiment. Eventually after huddling up they managed to collectively muster up a sentence to explain to me what she was saying. “You look like her grandson.” one lady said to me, with long pauses to think about the next word. Then “How old?” to which I replied ‘19’, causing them to all react with surprise, then pointing over to one of the girls playing badminton, saying “She 19 too.” The girl laughed then hid her face with embarrassment, which caused everyone to burst out laughing. I watched the old ladies sing for a while, enjoying copious amounts of tea, feeling momentarily at home.
Then I left, telling everyone ‘Tsing Tschau’, the locals laughed at my accent and waved me off. I kept walking through the alley ways, coming across a roadblock. A tractor hauling a pile of sand is trying to squeeze beside a group of electrical workers, huddling around an electrical pole. The workers in bright orange, huddled together to make themselves small, holding up a bamboo ladder with another orange suited man at the very top, digging through the chaotic bundle. The tractor, already barely fitting the alley way, manoeuvred its way around the group with less than a centimetre gap between it, the workers and the concrete wall besides. I followed the tractor for a while, following it to the construction site it was delivering sand to, arriving at an incomplete chinese temple. When the tractor finally made it, the construction workers at the site sprung up from their hammocks, and looked a bit annoyed. Their break was over as the sand arrived and they had to go back to work. I kept walking through the alleyways, randomly for a while until I miraculously arrived at my hostel. Turning a corner and it was there.
I can’t sleep. The noise, the sound, reverberates off the walls and fills the room. The pulsing, rhythmic guttural growl. It comes in waves, builds and fades, and just at the moment of falling asleep, it crashes back with rage wafting in the scent of its last meal. The snarl of a beast or the snore of a man. It comes and goes and comes again. I pull the pillow over my face, as to suffocate myself. Hoping that the lack of air will put me to sleep, but my conscious mind won’t let me, stopping right before I would pass out. I try to plug my ears, but the noise reverberates the plastic ear plugs resonant frequency. It rattles my skull. It shakes my bed. Then I can hear the birds sing again. What time is it? Fuck man. The death rattle of a bent windpipe. Maybe it’ll kill him. It's a him, that's for sure. I get out of my resonating bunk bed to see. It lies on its belly, its own weight crushing its lungs. I stare at it, lying there, growing with every in-breath and wheezing itself small again. I am enraged but I do nothing. I want to wake it up, sneak back to bed and fall asleep before it sleeps again. But I don’t. I return to bed defeated. The sun is coming up, the lights sneaking in through the lateral gaps in my blinders. How long has it been? FUCK! The beast startles itself awake, drowsily walks its way to the bathroom. I try to sleep but it quickly returns to the room and collapses onto the bed. The metal bunk bed lets out a hollow shriek. I am awake again. Fuck! I will kill it I swear. Like a mercykill on an inbred pitbull. It’s for its own good - And also for me. Christ, the sun is fully out now. The sound of bikes fills the air, the sweet scent of carbon monoxide seeps in through the window. Maybe that will put me to sleep. Finally, fuck.
I wake up in the cargo truck again, now deep in town. The overpasses are filled with pedestrians and traffic walking to and fro. The truck is stuck. At least Bangkok’s traffic hasn’t changed.
“Do you understand?” The driver says to me very slowly. “One more time. Off the Grand Arterial you take a Tuk Tuk. Tell them to drop you off at Phaya Thai and take the sky train, one station. It’s cheaper than going direct - The water by the tower is fully clogged, so they’ll take a long shortcut and rip you off. Then the sky bridge, it's on the 16th floor.” He asks me to repeat what he said and stuffs 25 dollars in my hand.
I hop off the cargo truck, climb down, down the shoulders of the beast and onto the overpass. The smell of the trash hits me first, then the smell of food. Roasted chillies and rosemary with a hint of still water. I slither through the stationary traffic. Apparently a connection bridge collapsed, so all the cars are taking the Grand Arterial. That’s the colloquial name of a network of overpasses and connection bridges that goes out to Pathum Thani, right through the city. At Least whatever is left of the city, anyways. I make my way across the deadlock 16 lane overpass and on to the crash barrier. The barrier is a metre tall and packed with food stands, wafting the familiar smells of fried chicken and chillies onto the highway. Little kids, with baskets attached together by a stick, resting on their shoulders, run in and out of the traffic, taking orders, then running to the barrier to collect the dishes, returning into the overpass to deliver it. I tried to buy some Muu ping but was asked for a digital account, so I continued down the crash barrier and came across an opening.
A hole in the concrete growing out of a crater in the asphalt. The opening is round and roughly 5 metres in diameter. I climb through it and onto the hastily built ramp, constructed of rusted metal plating, presumably scavenged out of the trash. The ramp is rather steep, but plank steps nailed into the ramp eases the descent. It leads down to a labyrinth of floating footpaths, made out of buoyant oil barrels nailed together with the same metal sheeting. The labyrinth leads towards the buildings. The skyscrapers sticking out the water, with improvised crater like doors on the floor of the water surface. Looking beneath the water surface, you can see a series of these doors going down the old facade. One after the next until the water gets too dark to see. A hole, blown into the walls of the building, every time the water rises, they just move up a floor. I continued down the footpath for a while, looking for a Tuk Tuk. Whatever that is in a place like this. The path shifts with every step. Your weight pushes down on the floating oil barrels, causing you to lose your balance and the metal plating to flex. The bending metal lets out a shrieking cry, sounding almost human. The locals walk on it without seeming to notice the wailing in the background. The steps, reverberating in the barrels, creating a cascade of sound. A wall of shrieks and echoes. I keep walking on the path until I hear the familiar sound of a tuk tuk. The rhythmic farts of an old vespa engine, tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk. I turn around to see a familiar sight. A tuk tuk, but now frankensteined on to a paddle boat with a jet ski motor stuck to the back. The steering handles, instead of leading to the front wheels, leading to a rudder. The vehicle sways with the waves, bobbing up and down, tilting to one side as a fast boat passes by sucking down the water with it. I tell him to go to Phaya Thai. First he tries to rip me off telling me that the river’s blocked but I tell him to go anyway. After a couple minutes of haggling, he relents and tells me to hop on. “Tsing Tsing (ซิ่ง ซิ่ง)” I tell him and he grins, revving the engine up to 60. We were off.
Driving through the city, an uncomfortable deja vu washes over me. It’s the same city I know, the one I grew up in but now grotesque and frankly, depressing. It’s still brimming with life, human and animal, The skywalks connecting one skyscraper to another filled with people walking. The rivers, filled with paddle boats and Tuk Tuks. Street dogs still wander the floating footpaths, occasionally jumping into the murky black to catch a surfacing catfish, before climbing back out, soaked black with plastic wrappers stuck to its fur. Restaurants built onto fishing boats selling boxed lunches to boats passing by. We drive past, and under the sky scrapers, shooting up a cloud of black water behind us. Their majesty still comes across, their facades now painted by the reflection of the water. A slow weaving of golden light. The city glows with reflections. Glittering on the windows, water and pieces of trash.
We arrive at the station, the sky train, no longer in the sky, is now barely above the water. The tuk tuk brings me right to the platform and tries to charge me another 5 dollars for doing so. Nothing ever changes. I hand the driver 15 dollars and climb up the metal pipe ladder to the station. The ride costs a further 5 dollars and I had to ask someone to buy a ticket for me with their digital bank account. On the short ride I look off the side of the track at the blockage the truck driver mentioned. I see it. A sky train piling up its carriages in the gap between. Baiyoke tower and neighbouring skyscrapers. Half submerged under water. The robotic Naga defeated, its corpse left to rust in the rain. I get off at Ratchaprarob station and walk over to the tower, on a cramped walkway, then into the tower.
The central air conditioning system seems to be off, so the inside is sweltering hot. The heat, sucked in through the building's dirty black walls, is reinforced by the humidity of the water all around. The inside is cramped, packed with sweating bodies walking through the narrow corridors. All the offices, luxury hotels and window side bars have been converted into impromptu apartments. Poking my head through a door I see it houses 4 - 8 people in one room, with a miniature kitchen consisting only of a sink, a microwave and water boiler. The beds, essentially bunk beds with a small curtain closing it off, are littered with random personal belongings, charging cables and food packaging. I keep walking down the corridor, neatly sorted into two lanes. I hug the left wall and come across the central bathrooms. A long line leads out the front, rows of people with towels and toothbrushes in their hands, waiting their turn to clean up in the sinks and impromptu showers. I keep following the corridor, coming to the elevator room. Again it is packed, the doors open and a horde of people file out. Two of the elevators are out of order, with a worn out sign saying “Operational soon”. The text is faded, but the real estate ad it was written on, promoting a new housing development, with water barriers, still vibrant. People flood into the elevator, before it is even fully emptied, trapping whoever didn’t leave in there for another ride up. I snake my way through the crowd towards the stairwell, which was contrastingly completely empty.
The ascent to the 16th floor is long, hot and dark. Decades dirtied steps, with a rusty railing that disappears for certain floors. I look down the middle of the stairs and see the water again. Maybe 10 floors below me, maybe twenty. The spiralling stairs leading your sight towards the black. It bobs up and down, almost calming - Calling you in. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt, a quick bath, was off all this muck. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt. It’s just a fall away. You’ve fallen before - You survived that one, maybe you'll survive this. I make it to the top, completely exhausted, collapsing before the stairwell then getting back up - Only to hear a familiar voice.
“Syddhartha, My Boy!” a large man says out, before coming in to hug me “It’s been Gautama-knows how long, you look the same as last time I saw you.” I look up from the tight embrace to see a grinning 40 year old, scruffy stubble and long greying locks. He looks at me as if we’ve known each other for ages. A warm welcoming smile, a rare sight in this cold sweltering land. Then I realised who he was.
“Rody?”
I woke up in my bed, tired. I must have slept through the whole day as it was now evening, and the rain came in. The infamous Monsoon which google has predicted for a week finally arrived and the downpour was deafening, but still quieter than the roar of my stomach. I put on my sandals, fished out the umbrella from my baggage and left to find food. The rain was intense, everything 5 metres from me hidden in the violent haze. The traffic was even more frantic now. All the motorbikes, racing through the streets trying to get home as fast as possible. When the water comes the harmonic flow of traffic breaks down, becoming frantic. It’s every bike for themselves now. The sidewalks were covered in rushing water, coming down from the rooftops down through drain pipes onto the pavement. A constant urban mudslide washes over the pavement into the sewers, making it hard to walk. But I kept walking, with my tiny umbrella over my head, only covering my head and right shoulder. The left was already soaked. Through the streets and into the tourist area, where the shiny water surface reflected the giant glowing billboards and neon signs, creating a cyberpunk atmosphere. The roundabout full of racing motorbikes whizzing by, every driver in a colourful rain poncho. Those with dogs, put the dogs in their ponchos and let it stick its snout out like a living totem pole. I kept walking down the street, passing the park.
The park was empty by now with the exception of an old Vietnamese man who is still running laps in a poncho. He was going to be soaked either way, whether from the rain or sweat. Another man was waiting to cross the street, poking his head out from behind a minibus looking for an opportunity to cross. The headlights of the cars cause the streets to glow a blinding white, as traffic lights glitter little red and green dots on the asphalt. He waited for a minute, then started walking. The noise of the crashing rain, traffic and car horns was disorienting, but he kept walking with a small umbrella held in front of him and a large plastic bag full of rice in the other hand. He crossed over and headed for the large pond in the park. The hard rain falling on the lotus lilies, banging a rhythmic drum. He headed over, then set his umbrella down and climbed over the fence, with the bag of rice in hand. Then he carefully cleared a space by the water and dumped all of the rice off. Out of the water wandered a rat, alone and scared of the man, it slowly walked over. Walking a few steps, then sprinting back a few, gradually getting nearer to the pile of rice. The man stood still, smiling. The rat sniffed at the rice for a moment before sprinting back into the water. Then suddenly, from the tranquil pond, a shapeless black mass rushed out. From all sides, sprinting in a frantic disorder. The creatures sprinted over into the white rice, then back into the water. The man remained stationary, rats running through his legs, drowning him up to his ankles. Slowly the white pile of rice shrank, as the black swarm grew. Smaller and smaller until there was nothing left, but the black swarm kept rising. More and more rats, climbing out to find nothing left, then angrily running back into the water. Like the rats I was also starving, so I left.
Running across the street, bikes blitzing by at speed, falling into a puddle and getting up. Then I ran from roof to roof, in a game of rain parkour, through islands of dry in a sea of wet. My little umbrella, down by the side as I was already wet anyways. The security guards in front of the hotels stared at me with interest, some white teeager sprinting through the backpacker distric and made a joke to his friend. My speed putting out their cigarettes as I passed. I arrived at the restaurant, soaked and trembling, in dire need of some hot Pho.
The door is heavy, industrial. The music barely seeps through. Just the soft rhythmic pounding and a muddy bass, like water seeps in around and through the crack.
“Ready?” I say to Leila, inhaling the last breath from my cigarette, then stamping it out on the floor. She is standing there, in a jean skirt and ripped sweater. The last smoke from her cigarette weaving through her bleach-blond overgrown mullet.
“Lassn wa ma,” She says and puts out her cigarette, reaching for the handle of the heavy door. The door lifted like the frequency knob on a low-pass filter, letting in the higher frequencies gradually, until all we could hear was the pitchy singing of Blink-182. We walked in and paid the 250,000 VND entrance fee, receiving a glow stick wristband and a jello-shot each. Jello-shots? What is this some high school party at the it-girl’s house? We struggled with the jello shot for a minute, the host clearly skimmed on the vodka part, most of it being solid jello. We tried everything, slapping the bottom, scooping with our tongues. We gave up and scooped it out with our ashy hands. Giggling to each other holding our jello-stained fingers to the disco lights. “Can’t be punk without getting your hands a little dirty” She tells me before going to the bar to get some beers.
‘Punk’s Not Dead Saigon’ was an interesting crowd. Middle-ageing Millennials dressed head to toe, in their scene clothes they found in boxes at their parents house. 40-ish people, head to toe in smart clothes most likely from uniqlo and flip-flops, chatting about their tech startups and artisan coffee shops. What did we get ourselves into? All of them white with the exception of the staff which was fully Vietnamese. Standing in circles to network, occasionally interrupting each other, to belt the chorus to their favourite Yellowcard songs, then looking confused once the Dj puts on Joy Division, even walking to the back once some proper thrash comes on. The Dj, a dracula looking fellow, around 40 with a fringe draping over one eye and skin so tight you could see his arteries pumping. Leila was already in the line to the bar. The line was long, full of smartly-dressed Chogeys, with blazers and loafers on. All of them order a fruity cocktail, then scream into the staff's ear “Can I pay with Credit Card?” Leila looks at me and rolls her eyes, orders 2 beers then pays in cash. We walk through the venue to explore, Beer Saigons in hand, inspecting the handmade zines, made by the only punk in the room, a 14-Year old Vietnamese, then heading to the back. The venue is a catastrophe, a kitschy mismatch of various trendy objects, placed randomly in the 1 bedroom flat we found ourselves in. The walls decorated with metal plated posters of NFTs, a couple Bored-Apes™ and the fucking Brick™. On the nightstand sits a Supreme™ money gun, a sight which would make Buarillard cry. The beds, littered with dog plushies which recently went viral on instagram ads of fake tweets - or rather xeets, with captions saying “I didn’t know this existed, now I need ten! Crying laughing emoji - OMG I can’t.” This seems like an Elon fanboys paradise. The postering of revolution with the aesthetic of counter-revolution, underlined by religious brand loyalty. Hipsterism at its finest. Simulacre without simulation. The crowd wasn’t about being punk, but feeling punk. Dress the right way and sing along to the songs which you know before turning around to monologue about the comforts of being a digital nomad. We walk over to the back room where some guys dressed in Nirvana shirts are playing FIFA 2k23™ on a PS5™, and lie down on the dog-cushioned bed.
The Dj thanked everyone and started packing up as the Nirvana tribute band got set up. The band, also fully white, was off to a worrying start. The front man in skinny jeans, clout-glasses and flip flops, puts on a raspy voice imitating Kurt Cobain to get everyone's attention. The drummer in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and shorts goes over the setlist, whilst the Bass checks his tuning. Then the music started, and the crowds moved to the dance floor. The music was okay, but the atmosphere was off. No mosh pits, no pogo-dancing, just ageing Millennials nodding carefully, so that their Mai Tais don't spill and occasionally leaning over to their friends to tell them that they knew the song, and awkwardly standing there waiting for some confirmation that their friend also knew it and thought the song was good. Me, Leila and the 14-yr old Vietnamese girl were the only ones properly dancing. The girl came to us, seeking a refuge from all the Python vs C++ debates and asked us to mosh. So we did, got to the front and began jumping around like mad. Bouncing into each other, repelling the other off without arms then falling back to regain stability. We moshed for half of ‘Lithium’ before being asked to stop because the dance floor was right next to a glass cabinet encasing a rare collection of KAWs™ figurines and Off-White™ Nikes. The rest of the gig was rather boring, with the exception of the finisher, ‘Territorial Pissings’ when the bassist belted his heart out to the mic. “Never met a wise man, if so, it’s a woman - GOTTA FIND A WAY, FIND A WAY, I BETTER WAIT!”
In the intermission, me and Leila lay back down on the dog cushioned bed, when she gives me a frantic look. She slowly leans in scanning the room and tells me “Let’s steal something - Make tonight at least a little punk.” I scooch over to the edge of the bed to give some cover to Leila sitting in the corner. I pretend to yawn as to make my body larger, then receive a pat on the shoulder. I turn over and see Leila, with her small back now filled and a mysterious dog shaped gap to her side. The next band came in the room with an acoustic guitar, which was our cue to leave.
We spend a few minutes smoking in the stairwell of the old vietnamese apartment building. Looking out the window at the Ho Chi Minh Skyline, petting a street cat on the window sill. Leila looks at me, grins, and says “Punk IS Dead, alter. What was that? Gentrified punk.” She pauses and inhales from the cigarette. Its embers being the only source of light in the dimly lit stairwell. Occasionally lighting up our faces red before fading back into the black. “They take everything, strip it of its meaning and commodify it.” Leila inhales from the cigarette, her face lit by its red glow, “I hate modern life.” She exhales leaving the room dark. “Nothing needs to mean anything, just needs to look the part.”
We spend the next half hour sitting in the stairwell, occasionally getting up to let people pass into the cat-cafe above the venue. We talk about spray painting and Leila tells me a story of how she would spray up a Neo-Nazi Kiez full of dicks before running off, chased. She used to live in Berlin and told me she liked the political scene, which gave me solace. I tell her about the revolution going on in Thailand, about its aesthetic and how it was betrayed - How it will be betrayed. The Future Forward movement, despite its radical reformist rhetoric, is just another neoliberal movement. It’s Third-Way Blairism with some anti-militarist aspects. The counterculture is purely about individualism, which in a collectivist society might seem revolutionary. But its “Fuck you Oma, I do me” rhetoric will destroy everything - Pure Dandyism. The movement is led by billionaires who made their wealth from their Barami, all corporatist oligarchs. How revolutionary can they really be? The revolution has to be two stages, if not even a permanent one. If we stop at the first, just at Future Forward, we’ll just be replacing the dictatorship of the stick with a dictatorship of the wallet. If the second stage never comes, we’re frankly, fucked. We were interrupted by the only other punk we met that night, A 30 yr Vietnamese, who called himself Mr. Vang.
He tells us about his life. How he comes from a rich family in China but gave it all up to become a beggar. How he found his old life meaningless and even immoral. Living out of fear of losing his wealth whilst depriving his workers of theirs. How he hated it and had to leave, calling Deng Xiao Ping a betrayer of the Proletariat. Mr. Vang is skinny, dressed in yoga pants and a hoodie, holding onto a copy of Buddha's reflections and the screenplay to Quantum of Solace. He tells us of his daily routines. How he goes to beg everyday, just enough to buy a cheese burger and fries from McDonalds then comes back to this stairwell to sleep, following something he read in a Warren Buffet biography. Of course it’s bullshit anyways he goes on, Buffet, the son of an investment banker, the myth of the self made billionaire just being a part of the neoliberal mythological pantheon, but to him it’s meditative. The Cafe owners let him sleep in front, after a long argument about the middle way and that his loitering is only at night anyways, they gave in. Then he asked us for a little change, we gave him 10,000 VND each and left. On the way down the stairs we walked in silence. Just trying to remember the night we just had before the alcohol wipes it away. Then Leila looks over to me, offering a cigarette.
“Carpe Diem?” She says
I smile and pull a cigarette out of its carton.
“Carpe Diem!”
