Cult status

So I'm standing at the taxi rank at Bangkok International Airport 'avin' a fag. It's a new airport and very imposing with lots of levels, walkways, glass elevators etc. That dire antiseptic feeling that makes you think you could be anywhere in the world. I'm a little disoriented (NOT disorientated! The extra syllable is redundant. Luckily my soapbox is portable so I'll fold it away now) because I've never been to this airport despite having been to Bangkok many times before. It was built sometime in the last ten minutes and is holding up well, all things considered, with only a few areas closed for repair.

This taxi rank, then. It's around 7.30am local time, I've been flying for 12 hours jammed into a seat on an exit aisle which had a handy electronic gadget for controlling the lights, volume of crappy tinned music etc which stuck about two inches into the seating area (and therefore my thigh). The bruise is excruciatingly painful, my feet are the size of basketballs, I failed to brush my teeth before we landed, I'm wheeling a bright purple flowered monstrosity of a suitcase (for easy visibility on baggage carousels. It works.) and I'm very cold. Having expected tropical heat I had forgotten that at 7.30am in the depths of midwinter (yes, Thailand has midwinter, not to mention 7.30am, a fact of which I had been previously unaware) it's probably only 15 degrees. So I've crossed to the sunny side of the street to have a cigarette and I'm standing there admiring the glass and concrete monstrosity of an airport when I hear violent bibbing. The taxi queue, previously moving at a good speed under the direction of several whistle-bearing, uniformed parking atendants, had ground to a halt while one cabbie, geticulating wildly, with his eyes goggling, screams at me that I'm 'soooo biiig!'. In case I had missed the point, he repeats this in several languages whilst pointing at my midriff. He knocks his lucky charms, dangling charmingly from his rear-view mirror, into an accomanying melody as he sings his joy at seeing such a freak so early in the morning. He will no doubt dine out on the tale of this giant, fat 'farang' with a psychadelic suitacse for weeks. Meanwhile, all the other cabdrivers, initally angry with my admirer, have turned to check what he is so excited about and slowly I see an entire line of cabdriver's eyes pop out of their heads as they gawp. Many immediately pull out their mobile phones and take pictures or phone friends.

Before this turns into an paparazzi-fest I decide to exit left sharpish, dragging my floral nemesis with me. O the joy of arriving in a country whose inhabitants have neither tact nor inhibitions. Nor much of a life, I'm guessing, if I'm such a thrill.