Flightster

Online Notoriety, Beauty and Free Deep-Fried Fish Chunks

• by Colin Wright
• on October 18th, 2010
• 5 Comments

I’d been dodging the deep-fried bullet for weeks, but the other day I was finally the right combination of hungry and lazy while walking by the small line of food carts dotting the long street leading back to my soi to take the hit.

After weeks of pre-launch work, I’d finally gotten three new projects out the door. To make up for all this work, I’ve been spending hours every day since then mindlessly meandering around Bangkok, taking in the sites, eating the food and sweating out every ounce of water I’ve ever ingested.

Ah, the food. You can’t go far in Bangkok without seeing or smelling something delicious and forking over the equivalent of $1 USD for a portion. I can spend $5 a day in Bangkok and eat like a king if I subsist on street food.

And it’s this availability that had kept me from eating anything too horrible. Why would I eat junk food when there’s delicious fried rice and noodles at the next cart over?

Speaking of horrible, there’s something about deep fried-fish chunks that make them hard to market. The cart selling them is what I’d been dodging, and with good reason. The smell was pretty bad, the cart of questionable cleanliness, and the cartoon fish adhered to the front of the cart didn’t help things. Don’t personify my food if you want me to eat it. Thanks.

But on the day in question the sky was starting to spit down sprinklets of water, telling me and anyone else who has spent more than a few days in Bangkok that a downpour was imminent; probably within the next 5-10 minutes.

The less-desperate cart-handlers knew it, too. They had started to pack up a few minutes before, ruining my plans to snag a hot box of noodles and a few spring rolls on my way back to home. All that was left were fried chunks of smiling fish, and in a bout of hunger-fueled bravery, I convinced myself that they couldn’t be THAT bad and walked up to the cart.

As I gestured to the ‘cook’ that I wanted a handful of his product, I did a double-take as a VERY attractive girl walked up to my right with wide-eyes and obvious recognition on her face. It was clear that she was trying to politely wait for me to finish up my transaction, but couldn’t quite hold it in.

“You are Colin (pronounced ‘caw-rin’)?!” she said. “You are the traveler!”

Now, I’ve been recognized in public by strangers before, but it doesn’t happen with the kind of frequency that I’ve grown at all accustomed to it, much less in Thailand, where I’ve been roughing it; seldom shaving, t-shirt and jeansing it every day, not looking in a mirror for days at a time…it was bad.

I was shocked to hear English, too, as not many people in my part of town speak it.

“Ah, yeah…?” I ask with more than a little question in my voice.

“I have read your blog and I know you are here, and you are!”

“I am! Hello!” I reach out my hand and get an awkward pause followed by an unpracticed shake. The fish-guy watched with a polite smile, clearly not understanding what was going on but interested in seeing what would happen next (as if watching a telenovela).

“I want to buy you this food,” she said, stepping up to the cart and speaking quickly to the fish-guy in Thai. I started to protest and she shushed me with a smile.

It started to sprinkle a bit as she handed me my small bag of fish chunks and looped her elbow through mine, pulling me back to the sidewalk, toward a nearby pedestrian park.

I say “So you’ve read my blog! How did you find it, out of curiosity?”

“My friend who is studying in the United States – California – sent it to me. She said I should watch for you because you were living in Bangkok and near the Victory Monument. I did not think I would see you!”

“Wow, what a small world!”

She asked me a few questions and then told me about herself.

In school. Working in marketing, modeling on the side to pay for school. Is actually a guy. Likes the Victory Monument area.

Wait, what?

My jaw must have dropped when it was revealed that ‘she’ was a ‘he,’ and it was explained “I’m pre-op, but I’ve had the top done already. See?”

“Yes, I  can see that! Well, ah, they did good work!”

I’m a bit disappointed, but also amazed that this beautiful girl wasn’t born that way. I had heard all kinds of stories, but wow, I had no idea how…thorough…they could be. Plastic surgery must be an art form in this part of the world.

We’d sat down outside a bathroom while talking (the only place that was covered in the park) as the rain intensified, and as it died down she indicated that she actually had to get back to work and that she was already late.

I thanked her for the fish and before I could see if she wanted to exchange numbers, she had dashed off.

It’s a strange world, and things aren’t always what you expect.

The power of travel is that it has the potential to break down preconceived notions like nothing else out there.

The deep fried fish-chunks were delicious, and the most beautiful woman I’ve seen since coming to Thailand wasn’t a woman at all.

A victory and a defeat? I’d say two victories, but in two very different ways.

Colin Wright

Colin Wright is a minimalist, branding expert and serial entrepreneur. While running his blog Exile Lifestyle ,his branding studio Colin Is My Name and his e-publishing business ebookling. Colin travels the world (moving to a new country every 4 months), meeting up with amazing people, giving talks (to audiences ranging from tech industry professionals to college students to Catholic school girls) and hunting down new and interesting experiences.