32/32 WORLD CUP TEAMS COMPLETED
MY ULTIMATE GOAL
Day 22 of the World Cup arrived. I'd watched a game of the World Cup with someone from 31 different countries and only one remained. Uruguay had been near the top of my list since the beginning. Senegal and Iceland were bigger worries initially. But the Uruguayans remained the most elusive in the end. I'd exhausted every avenue of connection in my search for one. There was a rumour floating around that two Uruguayan chefs worked in one of Bangkok's upmarket restaurants.
In all honesty I had run out of leads. Uruguay has a very small population and is nearly as far away from Thailand as you can get on earth. There just isn't many of them here. At a friend's suggestion I made my way to the Kao San Road area of Bangkok documented here https://steemit.com/travel/@highselfesteem/my-world-cup-quest-khao-san-road-is-the-centre-of-the-backpacking-universe. My last hope was to meet a traveler. It was very likely Uruguay could lose to a strong French team and my mission would end in failure. This looked like last chance saloon territory. I decided to print up a Uruguayan sign and take my chances trawling the back alleys of backpacker Bangkok in search of the elusive 32nd country.
IN SEARCH OF MEANING
Kao San Road can be a screamingly attractive, frenetic and demanding place to visit. I decided to go first to Kao San Road's more relaxed, quieter and more mysterious younger sister Rambutri. The bars are influenced by the sedate island life Thailand is also famous far. There is an unwelcome but nonthreatening sea of elephant pants. The printed pyjamas worn by future lawyers from New York will never get such public use upon their return home to the real world. But for now everyone looks like an extra from The Beach. Colourful drinks come in glass jugs. People eat chicken and cashew nut and pad thai by the table load. There are colourful motifs and designs from competing cultures from Morocco, Japan, Indonesia and hill tribes all combining in a peculiarly Thai mixture to create a laidback vibe. A half century of new age trinkets, lava lamps, bronze throws, gongs, feathery wind vanes and wooden frogs set the scene on Rambutri. Like the thrown together ingredients of pad thai, it just works.
TWO WANDERERS, ONE ROAD
As I walked along the street I began to get strange looks from strangers as they looked at my sign that read "Uruguay?" Strange. With minutes to go before kick off I saw a solitary figure sitting in a crowded restaurant. He stuck out as least as much as I did. His flag looked similar to mine. He was surrounded by a French family to his rear. He was draped in the flag of Uruguay. I made first contact by showing him my sign. Smiling helps when you are accosting a stranger and I eventually got my message across. For him I'd be a nuisance in his life for the 90 minutes while his country plays its most important game of football in 4 years. For me, he was my saviour.
Saviour told me how he had been living in Australia for the last few years trying to improve his English. He had just spent the last month travelling around South East Asia and was returning home the following week. He had carried that Uruguayan flag with him through every hostel, farmyard, office, airport and bar he'd passed through since leaving Uruguay. He'd brought it to Rambutri and put it on his head, where I saw it.
THE FINAL WHISTLE
There is no meaning to that series of events that I can objectively discern, nor any series of events so far related in my mission. The meaning never lies in the facts but in the imagination. And if meaning exists anywhere it exists only where we create it.
*Join me in my quest. It started here https://steemit.com/sport/@highselfesteem/i-m-going-to-watch-the-world-cup-with-a-fan-from-every-country-in-bangkok-or-sleep-trying and will continue for the duration of the World Cup.
*Other words, pictures and sounds at my website http://www.thisthailife.com/
*Twitter @ThisThaiLife
*Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thisthailife/
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