Day 22, travel day - part 2: I Will Follow You into Dark.

(Posted by Andrew about the events of Jan 2; in transit from Mandalay, Myanmar to Bangkok, Thailand.)

As we left Myanmar we got to meet a different set of people from our cruise than we had during the week. For the shore excursions, the 75 passengers had been divided into five buses according to primary language, so we really got to know the dozen or so fellow passengers of “bus #4 – orange”. However, we all had various exit strategies from the country according to our flights and ongoing tours, so for the last day we got paired with others who were on the same flight to Bangkok as us. As such, we got to meet people I had given nicknames to throughout the week, including “Mexican Kenny Powers” (who turned out to be neither Mexican nor Danny McBride) and “the Gay German Foodies” (the American hangers-on, at least).

After a long travel of day (during which we didn't actually cover much distance – lots of slow connections), we arrived at our hotel in Bangkok. Turning on Aljazeera on the TV to see what's happened in the world while we've been away, we were promptly greeted by... a five-minute report on Rob Ford's bid for re-election. Good grief, Toronto: please stop embarrassing your fellow Canucks.

First impressions of Bangkok: Ben Gibbard is an idiot.

I should explain.

Gibbard is the lead singer for the band “Death Cab for Cutie” and they have a song called “I WillFollow You into the Dark” which features these lyrics:

You and me, have seen everything to see, from Bangkok to Calgary.

Calgarian journalists were curious about this choice of cities to which Gibbard responded “I wanted to have two places that aren't exactly 'destination cities.'” I won't try to defend Calgary in this choice; I know we're not the most international city in the world.

But Bangkok?

The streets are alive with people from all over the world; throngs of tourists. I would say this is American ethnocentrism at its worst, but there are lots of yanks here as well. I guess it's just a rock star with his head so far up his arse that he doesn't realize the world extends beyond the cities where his fan base lives.

But Jessica wants me to say that it's still a good song.