Signs: absent, visible, implied...

The highly recommended hotel I opted for was an enormous distance from the elevated train, when negotiated with 30 kg of luggage in the sweltering high humidity weather. Thank god for friends of friends: Komson Nookiew (is that the most riotous name or what?) went to school with Heidrun Holzfiend and she told me to look him up. He told me to meet him in the new, bombastic guggenheim-like art museum, a really strange creature for this town. He explained the museum lives in a state of suspended animation, except when public relation effforts (such as the current show of contemporary art from Japan) are under way. I told him that in spite of the idiosynchrasis of the place and its administation (or perhaps because of them) I felt, for the first time during my trip, right at home. It was wonderful to be shown around by a native, a successful artist and a friend; we talked shop some, as Komson teaches at a local art school and told me how the art system works in Thailand (or rather, doesn’t). Then he took me to dinner, to a market/food court that had been displaced by encroaching development. We had a wonderful time and a delicious dinner.