Loy Kratong in Bangkok

Touch down in Bangkok again. Cant exactly say how many times its been now. This city never seems to be the same every time I come here the experience is so very different.
This time I spend four days work/shopping and crashing on my friends floor. Celebrating Loy Krotong and learning that sexual tourism not only can overwhelm some people but can become an all distracting force that ruins their life.
In a small garden apartment in Sukhumvit my friend has spent the last year, doing the basic farang (white people) activites customary to bangkok. Sleeping with underage thai women, teaching english, and overindulging in all kinds of drug and alchohol related activities.
I am not impressed by his hovel like apartment, or the stuffy days filled with exhaust and ciggarette smoke he shouts to the rafters about. Party here and party there and falling in love with this thai girl or that massage worker. Hollow exhistance for a hallow confused person. I find myself having trouble adjusting, the city traffic keeps me up at night and the days are spent sweating through the shopping markets for goods to send home. The whole time I cant wait to get out of there. The ciggarette smoke and floor sleeping are not helping my acclimation back into Thailand. I insist we do something more interesting than stare blankly into our computer screens after day two.
Saturday night we go to the flower market on the river for purchase of flowers and materials to make our Kratongs, The following day is the Loy Kratong festival. The theme of this festival is to create the Kratong a floating tiny raft made of a bannana tree stem covered in bannana leaves,flowers, candles and incense. Then place it in the river and light a floating lantern into the sky. You are supposed to ask for forgiveness when floating your Kratong for any bad deeds you have done that year and give blessings to the water goddess. You can buy kratongs along the street for pennies but due to the lack of creation in my friends life I insist we make ours from scratch.
We spend half the night wandering drunkenly through the flower market along the river collecting flowers we will need. Then make our way back to his apartment where I begin assembling our Kratongs. He sits staring into his computer. I cover mine in flowers and candles and start on another, somewhere around here the beer and boredom get the better of me and I insist if Im going to be sitting on the floor I at least have some company. A half hour later Opal a thai gogo appears at the door. She is beautiful and in traditional Thai style very interested in helping with the Kratong. Only however if she can have some drugs. By this time I am wasted and not interested in furthering my intoxication more with Yaba or speed. My cohorts take part intensively. The house is alight with cigarettes and Opal swirling around. Our Kratongs get bigger and bigger and more elaborate. Im trying to find a way to keep occupied but really just doing a good job injesting beer.
The morning finds us, me throwing up from injesting far to much beer and cigarette aftersmoke, Opal sitting in the bedroom doorway fighting with her boyfriend on the phone and my friend staring still into his computer typing feverishly.
I am tired and over this scene so I curl up in a ball on my sheet on the couch and wait for morning.
Sunday dawns and my hangover is immense, all overtaking. I crawl to the corner and eat my rice with egg as quickly as I can. The heat is making me sweat out all of last nights beer in a hurry. Deciding that the fear has crept in I pack my bag, the overwhelming stench of the apartment and debauchery is to much. I make my way to Kosan to a familiar clean fresh bed and room. Its loud here with revelers for the festival. The fireworks have started and tourists are crammed on the streets. I call my friend who is confused by my recent vacating of the apartment to the other side of town. We agree to meet back up and float our Kratongs across the river together. By this time I am so tired I fall asleep for almost three hours undesturbed. I wake just in time to shower and make my way back across town for the festival.
I float my Kratong down the river flowers incense and all. Take pictures of my friend and his Thai girlfriend who blew into town sometime in the evening. We watch the fireworks and mayhem on the river bank. I miss my mate.