33 floors, a tuk tuk between Bangkok and Muscat

“Oman is okay now, right?” the tuk-tuk driver suddenly asked, smiling at us through his rear-view mirror as we gripped the sticky handrails, plastered with stickers advertising nightclubs, while he zig-zagged through Bangkok’s relentless traffic.
We were somewhat surprised by his familiarity with the state of affairs in our part of the world when he suddenly started complaining about “Donald.” Impressed, but also tired of talks about the war, we asked him to play some loud music.
He almost immediately started crying as he put on a local song. Perhaps it reminded him of the princess who had recently passed away. Like Omanis, the Thai seem devoted to their Royal Family, and music has a way of unlocking grief, even in a nostalgic or poetic way, without warning.
The tuk-tuk’s diesel fumes now started to cling to our hair and clothes, and as I looked around, Bangkok’s pollution started to irritate me even more than the plastic litter on the beach in Seeb.
The city had suddenly made me miss Muscat’s low-rise buildings, lighter traffic, quiet luxury, and coastline. Perhaps a panoramic rooftop view from 137 Pillars housing suites and residences in the middle of the city, would help cure my homesickness.
As we headed straight up to the 33rd floor, an older gentleman stepped into the lift. He wore loafers and a matching shirt that screamed Louis Vuitton in a crime boss, Tony Soprano sort of way. A small dab of shaving cream still behind one ear, suggesting he was travelling alone.
“Are you the operator?” he small-talked my husband in a strong American accent as the lift doors closed.
Once one of the first Omani students in small-town Oklahoma, my husband had learned how to navigate many kinds of people, including initially standoffish Americans. Yet around unfamiliar Westerners, he can still become slightly cautious at first, as I have seen many Arabs do, not out of hostility or lack of hospitality, but more out of assessment. Like a cat.
Still waiting to reach the rooftop of 137 Pillars in Bangkok, my husband entertained Mr Tony Louis Vuitton, who had started reminiscing about a world that no longer exists. Not in the mood for small talk, I read an online interview with a Syrian refugee working at a museum in the Netherlands, who said he had not been taken seriously as an archaeologist by colleagues because of “his looks and his Middle Eastern background.” Snobs.
When we reached the rooftop of the 137 pillars in Bangkok, the infinity pool revealed an expansive view over Bangkok where modern towers stood beside older buildings softened by some greenery. The sounds of loud tourists from currently less popular countries shouting at each other floated all the way up from the streets below.
A bit of a snob myself in terms of aesthetics and nature, I found this city fascinating, stinky, crowded, and yet full of hidden gems.
One man lounging on a sunbed told us he had originally planned to stay in Bangkok for four nights but was now entering his fifth month. Given the Thai girlfriend he introduced shortly afterwards, it sounded like love. Or escapism.
Who was I to judge? I had once come to Oman for a short assignment and ended up staying much longer, first for the country, and then for someone in it.
I understood this wanderer and foreigner, although Bangkok will never make me fall in love with it at first sight the way Muscat once did.