Trying to get lost in some big city like New York or San
Francisco is not easy. But why try to get lost in the first place? Getting
lost is the last thing that anyone who is new in a strange city would want to
do. It’s like being dropped from a helicopter in the midst of a thick forest
and trying to find your way home. You’re lost the moment your feet touches the
ground.
Getting lost in New York is not easy simply
because the streets are arranged in an almost straight, parallel and
perpendicular manner, and the street names are found on each corner with
readable and understandable English. People you meet also understand what you
are asking for and readily give you the directions that you can comprehend.
On the contrary, finding your way around Bangkok is
not an easy job, which means that getting lost here is very probable and
predictable, especially if you really want to get lost. This type of adventure
really beckons to me, and I succumbed to its lure one hot and humid morning. I
had all the chances of getting lost; the unreadable street signs and bus
routes, the Thai who can’t understand or speak English, the curved and jigsaw
puzzle-like streets, and the low hanging clouds to hide the sun and diminish
all bearing of east-west orientation.
I decided to leave the security of the house, which is just
outside the main city, across the Chao Phraya River, and stake out on
my own on foot or by bus. Taxi and Tuktuk would be out of the picture now to
make it easier to get lost, although they could be on hand just in case I
couldn’t get home by bus and because I finally would have acknowledged the grim
fact that I was lost. I made sure that I had enough cash and that my passport
was inside a pocket. Breathing a prayer for protection and courage I closed the
gate behind me and started to get lost.
My trip that day took me by bus, then train, then by canal
boat, then some 3 bus-rides more and a lot of walking in between, while trying
to decipher and unlock the mystery of the colors of the buses, their numbers
and eye and tail-like figures, and I was finally approaching the familiar
bridge that told me that I was just a few miles to home.
This was the most challenging yet frustrating trip I had
ever made, because I didn’t get lost. Calcutta? Maybe.
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