Work

Making stoneware on the street.
And then last night a less than balanced bimble around pp, quite an intriguing place...it all began with cocktails, as it ought in such places-he says laughing at the madness, but it has that kind of vibe-and two for one happy hour, as it always seems to be, somewhere...

And then walking through the bars, unlikely combinations passing hand in hand, dreary looking places, almost seeing the air peeling as time passes in looks of boredom over iPhones and noodles...seedy I had been told...I go in to a garden bar peopled with sexy santa outfits, order a beer and fund myself sitting with Karl from Germany who bemoans the changes in this place, the lack of young women for his wallet to fund and a fair amount of more sordid hue, flesh as meat alone. I drink my beer and leave hum to his disillusionment... and then I wander, shanghai in the 30's theme but closed roof garden; sports bar of another ilk, others which leave no trace upon memory, and, being the possibility of a customer I am approached in almost all; I talk and listen, a sequence of stories from the women, echoes of their histories: failed marriage, children and violence recurring upon voices. But I offer no business just talk, occasionally scribbles upon notepad and after enough pubs I look for the heart of darkness club...
Sadly I find it...the book warns, in an extremity of understatement, of disappointment...a generic space which has little hold other than the time it takes to drink an overpriced beer...and then the last stop, another club but one which bounces slightly...
sat in a corner scribbling and watching, a trickle of offered company as the night stumbles by...later I meet ann from Vietnam, other echoes of earlier stories...no business I tell her, she doesn't care, not working, only arrived today so we talk and eventually i find myself eating spicy soup with her on a pavement table under netting, in the god knows what time it is place, at the end of the night. Here the stragglers pass by, gather upon plastic chairs for slow food and the slight postponement of the journey home...offered company, one last time, the no business a Mantra, until, in the still darkened city, my night drifts to an ending and taking a tuk tuk rather than risking my sense of direction in this place, at this hour, I head back to my room...

Today...coffee at this local place I found near museum, fifty cents hot, seventy five iced and utterly exquisite; one if the best coffees of the trip and cheap spicy noodles if you want them.