'Twas a good night slept tight but Gosh Darnit those bed bugs did bite!
Though not my first time in Bangkok, it was my first time on Khao San Road, the infamous Bangkok backpacker magnet. In 1997, I first dipped my toe in the waters of Southeast Asian travel and had no idea what I was doing. At that time, my first night in Bangkok (Yes, I had “One Night in Bangkok”) I slept in a cozy bed in a proper hotel and just marveled at how easy, comfortable and inexpensive my adventure was. Throughout that first trip, as well as the following few years, I learned how to travel more budget-minded and experience-focused, discovered how to independently navigate new waters, and basically, how to be a backpacker.
So I returned to Bangkok, wiser, and more experienced, and was looking forward to my journey as a seasoned, veteran traveler. I got a room at one of the hundreds (thousands?) of options available, with little more research than “well, this one is in front of me, so why not take a look?” The room was the typical offering–shoebox of a room with plywood walls that didn’t go up to the ceiling, no bathroom and a padlock to secure the door–and it was enough for me.
That first night, as I lie in bed, with half a sarong partially covering me, I noticed tiny bugs crawling around the room, on the bed, and–most noticeably–on my shirtless body. (note: though these bugs were in my bed, they were not “bed bugs.” I never bothered to identify them, actually.) I casually brushed them away, and didn’t pay them much mind except when they started to bite me.
And through all this, I wasn’t upset or bothered. I lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling fan above me (the rooms could never get dark since the hallway lights were on 24 x 7, and even if it was dark, the pop music blasting from the streets was enough to overwhelm the senses), I took stock of how I was a hard-core, battle-tested backpacker, and this is what Khao San Road was all about. The Jay of three years earlier may have been uncomfortable by the conditions, but this was all just part of the experience. If you can’t take it, then get out of the game and go back to your cushioned life of pampered, air-conditioned, clean sheets travel. Let those bugs crawl all over. That’s part of the deal.
For the record, that is NOT part of the deal. In all my subsequent stays on Khao San Road (and other Bangkok neighborhoods), I never again had issues of bugs crawling all over me, and I even found cheaper places to stay. I don’t mean to say I didn’t have occasional visitors and unwelcome roommates from time to time in my travels, but, yeah, I did come to realize that bug-filled rooms were not, in fact, a standard amenity of budget accommodations, and certainly not a requirement for maintaining hard-core, independent adventurer credentials.
So as it turns out, as much as I had learned about travel over the previous few years, I still had a lot more to learn. Then again, maybe that’s the real lesson–there’s always more to learn.