Post 4: In and Out

Yesterday I caught up with my friend Andrew from college. Though our time was limited to a day, as he was concluding his month-long journey in South-East Asia, we had a grand time exploring Bangkok. Our improv traveling put us on a commuter boat to East Bangkok, where we discovered a part of Bangkok that is more honest with prices. As I shipped him out last night, I picked up my childhood friend Paul from the airport. What better way to catch up on the lost times over the open road?

In the next little while, we'll be very mobile. Our plan is to tour Bangkok in 4 hours, hop on a train to the Thailand's ancient capital of Ayutthaya some 70km north of Bangkok. We'll return by dusk to catch the sunset ferry. And have a few drinks to cool off at the night market.

To save a little bit of time and money, we'll take whichever train over-night train that's available to get closer towards Surat Thani. It is now 6:43AM and we better go.

Epic journey time? I think so.

Post 3: First Things First

What’s the first thing you should do when visiting South-East Asia? Different people will tell you different things, depends on who you ask. It usually boils down to ‘how to say something’ in the native tongue - “Fuck off!” if you’re American, and “Sorry” if you’re Canadian...

Just kidding. And excuse my language.

But before you learn the “Hello’s” and “Thank you’s”, and “Where’s the washroom”, what I think is the most important first-lesson is how to cross the road. You are bound to have to cross a road at some point during your travels, and this isn’t so straight forward in South-East Asia. There are two “unconventional” problems. First, not all roads have traffic lights with a little green dude that lights up and tell you when to cross. Second, even if the lights are in place, not all drivers follow those signals. Avoid getting killed is probably everyone’s top priority.

Crossing a road is more complex than it appears; I think of it as in terms of game theory and amateur psychology. The game is played many times per second throughout the walk. It only ends in the top-right quadrant when the person crossing the road walks and the driver stops. Of course, both players need to co-operate to win!

The most interesting outcome lies in the top-left quadrant, which is a high-risk situation where both the driver and the walker stop. The game then becomes a signalling game based on amateur psychology. The person crossing the road needs to analyze whether the driver will slow down or stop, and the driver needs to decide whether the person will move or not. They make their decisions based on the signals they observed. Since the foreign traveler and the driver are both unfamiliar with interpreting the other’s signal, they may be stuck in this outcome. As we all experienced before, indecision in the middle of the road is a dangerous business...

So to cross a road safely, it starts with observation – watch how the locals do it, study their body language or any other signal they may send. If there’s no one around, then create signals of your own that are obvious to the human race, such making eye contact with the driver and pointing in the direction you’re going before you move.

Stepping off the Bangkok Sky-train yesterday, I crossed my first 6-lane Thai road in under 8 minutes. It’s all part of the journey.

Pedestrian bridge near Pantip Plaza - Bangkok, Thailand

Post 2: Dimensions

Some people say lightning doesn't strike twice... I recently found out that it does. Last night, I missed my flight again. I planned to have breakfast in Hong Kong, dinner in Bangkok. I guess I'll have to save that for another time. The city doesn't want me to leave just yet. There is something magical about Hong Kong. Often we travel to places in our dreams. This morning I woke up in a 19th century castle by the sea. For a moment I wasn't sure whether I'm in the dream world or the real world. The word "deceptive" describes Hong Kong pretty well for me.

There is an age old problem of representing 3D space on 2D plane. People try to do this more often than you'd think. The obvious example is the map. On a piece of map, Hong Kong looks incredibly small and easy to navigate. In reality, this is the farthest from the truth. The uneven geography and mountainous terrain added many layers and complexity to the city. The curvy streets and intertwining roads made navigation less boring and mistakes more frequent. What appeared to be a 10 meter walk turned out to be a long climb along a steep slope!

Certainly there is a vertical dimension to Hong Kong that is often misrepresented. Those who have been to Hong Kong can attest, the city taller than it is wide. Hong Kong is densely planted with skyscrapers. The list below may come as shocking, the list ranks world's cities by the number of skyscrapers. Hong Kong tops the chart with over 2,300 buildings over 100m, totaling 333km!

1	Hong Kong	2354	333,836m
2	New York City	794	109,720m
3	Tokyo	556	73,008m
4	Shanghai	430	59,958m
5	Dubai	403	66,248m

14

Toronto

216

27,867m

48

Montreal

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Backpacking through the financial district of Hong Kong earlier this evening was awe-inspiring, yet I've only scratched the surface of this magical city. In the next four months I'll look deeper and unravel dimensions beyond the physical space.

Three outstanding buildings