Matt’s feet know the walk from his hotel to Khao San Road quite intimately already, though it’s only his second day in Bangkok. He walks up the soi [Thai for ‘lane’, an integral part of the city’s urban layout], passing the frequent street dogs and cats. Do they belong to anyone, everyone, or no one? Matt doesn’t have the Thai vocabulary to ask, despite his mission to learn at least two Thai words a day. If he gets more, amazing, but two is his minimum goal.

He gets his impromptu Thai lessons from that market that lines Chakrabongse Road, the main street leading up to Khao San Road. Block after block of vendors sell strange fish out of stewpots, sugary confections in inflated bags, and grilled meat on sticks. The crowd it generates provides an earnest traveler with ample opportunities to learn some Thai. Usually Matt just gestures at something and raises his arms, palm up, in a questioning stance to get it all going.

“That.” Matt points and assumes the position.

“Ten baht,” the sun-ripened woman on the other side of the greasy, aluminum cart says. When she sees he’s not reaching for any money she adds, “Pork! Pork!”

“How say in Thai? In Thai? Pork in Thai?”

“Pork! Is pork!”

“I know it’s pork. How say in Thai?” he speaks slowly and makes a gesture with his hands that he hopes implies translation. It might also be sign-language for ‘waterwheel’.

And she understands! “Moo,” the woman says with what Matt strains to comprehend is the ‘rising’ tone, “Moo,” she says again.

“Moo,” Matt parrots and smiles, reaching into his pocket for ten baht.

The pork is delicious.

When he reaches Khao San Center, Johan, Andy, and David are easy to find, front and center of the bar’s patio. The three slump in their chairs, stare off into space, and move only to raise a bottle of beer to their lips. They’d stayed out at the bars the night before while Matt had gone home early. ‘Early’ at about 5am. He plops down into an empty chair beside them, unsure if they’d even gone to bed last night/today or had just stayed where he left them.

“I am starving!” Johan declares to no one in particular.

The group listens briefly, though they’re not the only ones hearing the Swede’s proclamation. The bar, and the entire road, is packed with backpackers swigging beers and cooling down in the late afternoon overcast. In twos and threes, they’re approached by a local Thai lady moving slowly but surely down the line. She’s carrying a tray of skewered black things, the sun glinting off of her wares. No one is buying what she’s selling.

She’s selling grilled scorpions.

She approaches Matt and his Europeans compatriots and pushes the loaded tray under their puffy faces. The backpackers wave her off and after a few insistences she gets the message, striding up to the next group of revelers.

Matt orders a Chang from a green-shirted waiter and watches a couple at the edge of the street fend off the scorpion lady. The lady-half of the couple is young, can’t be more than twenty-five, smoking a cigarette and sipping a mixed drink at their table. Bikers and pedestrians pass her maybe a foot away, though many aren’t looking at this pale and tattooed young woman. No, most of passersby and patrons nearby are watching her partner. He’s leaning on the table, his face beet red, and he’s squinting and moving as though chained to a rock in the desert. He’s a large man, not fat, just tall and broad. He puts the ‘bro’ in ‘broad’. The scorpion lady tries in vain to take advantage of his inebriation to make a sale, but he doesn’t even register her or the arachnids even when they’re thrust just below his nose.

“I want a woman like that.” Johan points. “Look at how she puts up with everything!”

Andy nods behind a pair of sunglasses.

Matt isn’t convinced. “Yea, but it always goes two ways. Imagine what kind of shit he puts up with from her.”

“Maybe.” Johan is spent after this intense debate, and goes back to people watching.

His eyes are off the couple for only a second when there’s a commotion. The Khao San Crew looks back in time to see the drunk fall out of his chair and tumble to the ground. He takes his plastic chair and table with him, flinging bottles and plates clattering onto the pavement.

His lady is by his side in an instant, mixed drink already lost to the earth. She flicks her cigarette away and struggles with both arms to help her man back up. She’s too small to lift him on her own and he’s no help to anyone with his monstrous BAC.

The green mass of wait staff are there in a flash, a pit crew of energetic Thais surrounding the man and helping him to his feet. Three, four, five, six of them are needed to hoist him up into a new chair and table that has hastily replaced the old one, sweeping the broken glass into the gutter.

A minute later and he’s back in action, no worse for the wear. The blonde is fawning over him, showering his sweaty face with kisses as he struggles to register her presence.

“These fucking Americans,” a middle-aged man just to Matt’s right says in an Australian accent, “fucking slobs.”

Matt nods, not eager to break his own cover.

“They get drunk,” the man continues, “and make a mess of everything. What a disgrace!”

Matt doesn’t point out that Khao San Road is a place defined by its pan-national debauchery and doesn’t engage. Instead, he turns back to his crew, raising his empty bottle. “So we doing this dinner thing or still drinking? Or both…?”

“One more drink,” Johan decides, looking around for consensus, “and then we get food!”

David nods and searches for a waitress to order another round. While they wait, Andy pulls off his sunglasses, asking if his eyes still look hungover. Johan clears away his haze of smoke and squints at his friend for a better look. He stares Andy down for a second or two and tells him there’s no need for the shades anymore. Andy tucks them into his neckline and sprawls back in his chair, sighing.

With this new posture, Matt notices the string of bold, black Thai characters running up Andy’s right shin. It’s a big tattoo. “So what’s that mean?” He points. “On your leg?”

“Oh that,” Andy half rolls his eyes. “It means ‘I love elephant’.”

Matt looks askance to the nodding Johan and back to Andy. “Uh, why would you get a tattoo that said ‘I love elephant’?”

“So you know Chang beer, yea? Chang means ‘elephant’ in Thai.”

Matt looks down at the label on the bottle in his hand. Sure enough, it’s covered in elephants. “Okay. So?”

“So I wanted it to say ‘I love Chang beer’, but we forgot the Thai character for beer. So we just stop at chang.”

“And that would have been… better?”

“I love elephant.” he shrugs. Andy picks up his beer and toasts the pair of mouths gaping at him.

Matt’s laughing. “That’s ridiculous!”

“No! This is not true!” David erupts.

“Is true! When I go home, my mom, she sees the tattoo and asks what it means.” Andy grins. “I tell her it means ‘I love Sweden.’”

Matt thumps the table as an accepting smile creeps over David’s face. Johan and Andy share a look that says ‘just another Monday’ and they finally flag down a waitress for that round of Chang beers.

They’re sitting and draining their bottles, sharing stories relating to tattoos (of which Matt has none). Barring getting a new tattoo, Andy figures on the next best Thai souvenir for his new friend. “Captain, I will get you a bracelet,” Andy waves over the Thai woman with a sign pegged with handwoven bracelets meandering around the bar. “What do you want it to say?”

“No, I don’t need one of those crappy bracelets, man.”

The bracelets in question usually bear quasi-nonsense vulgarities like ‘I HAVE GOOD AIDS’ or ‘PUSSY COCK FUCK’. The woman standing by their table with her board of accessories is no different, the bracelets have all the usual curses and memes that can be seen around Khao San Road.

“Nah, we make it say something good,” Andy presses. “Whatever you want.”

“Can… we do Captain America?” Matt relents after a bit. “In red, white, and blue?”

They can and they do. The woman is off and weaving as soon as Matt writes out the block letters into her notepad. The crossed-out entry on the page just above ‘CAPTAIN AMERICA,’ and presumably her last custom order, reads ‘I H8 CONDOMS’.

She weaves the bracelet by folding the strands over and under in perpendicular directions to create the grid of lettering. Matt is watching her go, enthralled by crafting of any kind, but David is eyeing two cute blonde backpackers who just sat down at the table nearby.

“Where do you think they’re from?” he asks Johan.

“I don’t know, I just want to eat and now we are waiting for a bracelet!” Johan’s beer is empty and he’s nearly glaring at the woman to weave even faster.

“I think… they are German,” the Belgian says.

“Fine. We bet; if they are German I will give you ten baht if no, you give me ten baht.” He pauses. “Go on, go talk to them.”

David is surprised. “What? Me?”

“Of course! You are making the bet.”

David takes a steadying breath, mumbles a practice opener, and is crouching beside the young women’s table moments later. His friends watch as he smiles, gestures, and chats with them. A minute later and he’s standing up and walking back to the group shaking his head.

“They are South African.” he says, fishing a ten baht coin out of his pocket and tossing it to a smiling Johan.

“What about these two?” Matt gestures at yet another blonde young woman and the equally blonde young man with her. “I think they’re English.”

“Then go find out. Ten baht!” Johan shoos Matt with his cigarette hand.

Matt is out of his seat in a flash, squeezing past the still-weaving Thai woman. “Hey there! Just get into Bangkok?” He grabs a nearby chair and swings it over to join their table.

It is their first day in Bangkok they explain with delightfully British accents. The girl with piercing blue eyes is named Tamara and her companion is Bonnie. They’re from London actually, have been in Indonesia for a month, and are just now finishing up their vacation together. Both are still studying in University and are finishing up their summer holiday. The conversation is easy.

“I gotta say, you two make a cute couple.”

“Oh, we’re not dating,” Tamara quickly explains, “Bonnie’s my cousin.”

Matt’s smile goes from ‘polite’ to ‘flirting’. “Surely a young lady as pretty as you would rather travel with her boyfriend, no offense to Bonnie.”

Bonnie’s expression conveys that none was taken. He knows how attractive his cousin is. This happens all the time.

Tamara grins. “I don’t have a boyfriend either!”

“Well if this is to go on any longer, Miss Tamara, I’ll have to come clean. You see my friends over there? We made a bet as to whether you were English or not and I have to say, this is the most pleasant ten baht I have ever won.”

Tamara beams. They chat a bit more and discuss evening plans, maybe seeing a Muay Thai fight? A ping-pong show? Matt isn’t sure where he’ll be later that evening, so he gives the pair his number to find him on WhatsApp, before retracing his steps back to Table Northern Europe.

“You owe me ten baht,” he tells Johan. “London, England.”

“It takes you ten minutes to find this out?”

“I mean, we talked a bit more too; I took my time with the lady, unlike Mr. Belgium over here.”

There is a general grumbling and chuckling and Johan slides the ten baht coin (still just about $0.31) across the table.

The blonde Swede is beyond mollification and demands they go eat something right now. “I don’t care where, but now, now, now!”

Andy holds out Matt’s finished bracelet and they tie it around his wrist. ‘CAPTAIN AMERICA’ now reads just below ‘Shambhala Crew’ on his right forearm. The juxtaposed colors of red, white, blue thread and lime fabric blend surprisingly well. Matt thanks Andy again for his great idea and generosity, but the thinner Swede waves it off.

The group of four continue on out toward the street, weaving around the Londoners’ table as they do so. Matt has been fingering the ten baht coin since it was handed to him a minute ago, and he already knowns where he’ll spend it. As his group snakes past the young travelers’ table, he softly plinks the coin down between their bottles and keeps walking.

“Is this ten baht?!” Tamara squeals when she realizes what he’s done.

Matt turns around, shrugs, and bows all in one movement. “See you later!” he calls out, narrowly jumping out of the way of a speeding motorbike that hadn’t anticipated his sudden change of course.

The driver curses at him in Thai as he rushes past, but he should know by now that the streets of Bangkok can be unpredictable.

This is pretty much shoved under your face every fifteen minutes or so out on Khao San Road