In light of being honest with you, usually, I let a hangover get the best of me. I mean, I’m precious. Wallowing in the pain of my head pounding through the tops of my eyes, my stomach convulsing; threatening.
I sat in the hotel bed in Bangkok, dressed in my black cotton skirt and grey tank top, backpacker garb. Was I, or wasn’t I? Jenn offered to let me stay in bed, call her later and meet up. Yea, okay, I agreed. But, it was already 12:30pm on our last day in Bangkok. I stood up, sat back down, a wave of nausea washed over me. Stood up. I was going to see some temples.
In the cab Jenn kept trying to make conversation. My clenched jaw only allowed me to grunt and shake my head. All I had to do was make it outside of the cab on Khoa San Road. When I got out, the chaos enveloped me. I can’t handle this, I thought. Then I saw Johnny approaching. He reached out to hug Jenn and I, took one look at me and said, ‘Let’s go get you a coconut’.
Let’s do that.
Thirty baht and I had a fresh green coconut in my hand, pink straw and all. I was hoping I was on my way to being hangover free.
Johnny led us down the road, into one alleyway or another to his favorite Khoa San restaurant. Jenn and Johnny ordered a feast of green curry, Tom Yum Kung and other tasty treats. Which I eyed from the side of the table, head on hands, pink straw in my mouth. Later, I’ll have my feast later, I thought.
I had told Jenn at 12:30pm, sitting on the edge of the hotel bed, halfway between staying and going, two kinds of hangovers exist in my world; the 2 o ‘clock hangover and the 5 o’clock hangover.
‘Let’s hope this is the 2 o’clock kind,’ she’d answered.
Sitting at the table outside the restaurant, miraculously, a cloud lifted. The headache pounds into dissipation and the nausea subsides. I’ve beaten my hangover into the submission of 2 o’clock. Score.
After the feast, we bought day tickets to the Bangkok water taxi and squeezed into spaces below deck. Jenn and I hopped off as our stop at the Grand Temple approached while Johnny stayed on, heading to the Indian Consulate in preparation for his next big adventure.
We spent the day wandering the Grand Temple, admiring the intricacies of the gold and ceramic tiling along the walls and ceilings. Taking photos where we could, pretending not to where we couldn’t. We donned nun-inspired; pink scrub shirts and long sarongs as skirts. We looking like daggy nurses in all of our souvenir photos.
The hangover may have been gone but that didn’t mean that my granny attitude wasn’t exhausted from a very unlike-me 4am turn in.
The vastness of the Grand Temple wore us out, and with early closing times, we didn’t plan to see much more. Then we realized that Wat Pho was just around the corner, we decided we couldn’t leave without paying a visit to the famous reclining Buddha. Admittedly, I hadn’t done nearly enough research in preparation for Bangkok; pre-trip, my mind had been on aqua water beaches and white sand. I’d been dreaming of fresh off the street cart pad thai and buckets of booze for ridiculously low prices. But Wat Pho was absolutely on my radar, and I knew I couldn’t pass it up. Thankfully, it’s maybe the tiniest temple in all of Bangkok and it took all of 15 minutes to get in and explore.
We even employed a tuk tuk to take us back to the boat pier just for fun. I think our driver enjoyed our girlish squeals as he slammed around corners and darted out of the way of passing buses just in time. What a full day of Thailand. We finished off with a feast at one of Johnny’s favorite local haunts and more Chang before admitting that we just couldn’t do it again and heading back to our last night in our Bangkok hotel room.
I’m happy to report that our hotel room showed no resemblance to the daggy hotel room that the boys find themselves in unexpectedly in The Hangover II.
