One of the many delightful inevitabilities of aging are the nocturnal peregrinations. On this trip my bladder has been in a constant state of horrified disbelief.
Our hotel in Bangkok is groovy and retro in a street lined with hidden cafés and hip bars. A thin building, with a normal staircase that gently winds to the upper floors. It has good sized rooms with celestial ceilings (we’ve now stayed in all the “big rooms”). However our latest is death-defying. The others had beds on the ground. The current bed area (think of it as a mezzanine) is reached by what can only be called The Stairs of Death. Perpendicular rungs straight to the upper floor. One false move and…kersplatt.
This ladder makes the iron-bolted ones at Carnarvon Gorge look easy – and late at night, unbespectacled, groggy with sleep, darkness all around – well one creak of the floorboard and we’re both awake encouraging the other, attaching the safety harnesses and whispering “slowly, slowly, take it carefully”. Bill, carefree spirit that he is, performs these Death-defying feats peekaboo, I don lavender shorty pyjamas ~ We care not that we might startle the natives or scare the animals. Surely this is the right of The Elders.
The Dislocated Hippies 