It was the sort of Saturday when nothing important was scheduled to happen. I made a decision to do something I had wanted to do since I first arrived in Bangkok: I was going to ride the Skytrain… all day. Bangkok’s citizens make countless trips on the BTS without ever really paying attention to their surroundings. Typically, they pass through the barriers, drift into a state of semi-functionality, and by the time they are awake they find themselves at their destination of choice. There they are, cooped up in the same space, trying desperately to blend in with the scenery, watching endless cycles of the Preppy-G music video. ‘Tis torture!

Taking my inspiration from the great blog Overheard in New York, I decided that to keep myself entertained for the duration of my day out, I would try and eavesdrop on unsuspecting people. I imagined discovering people’s fears, their dark secrets, their anecdotes and musings and whims. It all seemed so exciting. I bought a one-stop, 10-baht ticket at Victory Monument. My eavesdropping began almost immediately:

“Let’s see if I can do this without it killing me this time,” said an awfully English-sounding lady. She was a little large and I could understand why she was afraid of the electronic barrier. I watched as she passed through without disaster. I was a little disappointed. I couldn’t tell if she was a tourist, but she looked like the sort of person who would be great to have for aunt, but a little excessive for a mother.

I walked to the platform to wait for a train heading in the direction of On Nut. My eyes lit up at the sight of a farang in a short-sleeved shirt with a tall, thin, unbelievably plain Thai girl as his companion. The girl was crying. I edged closer with one earphone in my left ear to fool people of my intentions. I was also wearing an anti-coup T-shirt in the hope of distracting people from my intrusive presence.

I was distraught because I was less than a meter away from the couple and I couldn’t hear a word they were saying; they were speaking so quietly. They seemed caught up in a frenzy of erratic whispers that stirred the air into an uncomfortable cocktail of tension and paranoia. I began to feel light-headed and so I tip-toed away from the couple and hid out of sight.

The train came and I boarded enthusiastically. Too gay guys immediately saw me and started giggling and pointing. I glared at them with daggers and they each winced a little and looked away.

A British family of three, each wearing shorts and a T-shirt, was stood looking subdued. I walked over to where they were.

“We should have got off at that other one,” said the wife to her husband. The train stopped and they got off.

I took a break from walking around and stood in the corner for a while. Nothing interesting was happening. I got to On Nut and made the first of many transfers to the opposite platform. I spent longer than I could fathom riding the train between Moh Chit and On Nut and back the other way. Eventually, a British man with a hairy chest caught my attention as we pulled up to Thong Lor. He was wearing glasses and had a small, cute girlfriend with him. They boarded the train together.

“Alright lads, how are we doing?” he said cheerfully to a group of frowning Thai boys. There was no response. He sat down, with his girlfriend to his right. I stood in front of them and lent at an awkward angle in order to get as close as possible without falling over. I avoided eye contact and seemed to go unnoticed. The man was laughing a lot. His laughter sounded like it should have been coming from a much larger man. The only thing I heard him saying was: “He ate the whole plate up in about five minutes. I hadn’t even finished mine. I thought I was a bit overweight, but Christ, he’s about four times the size of me.”

I was struggling to find any real gossip. A tall man wearing an over-sized white T-shirt got on the train. He took his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Hello honey,” he said, in what was a voice far camper than I had been expecting. There was a pause. “You don’t have to work, you’re the boss. Just watch a DVD.” I put my face into my hands and rubbed my eyes so much that when I looked up again all I could see were black smudges and indigo sparkles. The fog soon cleared and I noticed that there was a Venus Flytrap music video playing on the in-train television screens. I was distracted for a few minutes.

I sank back into the shadows and dissolved until nobody noticed what I was doing. I looked at each of the faces, directly into the eyes, and none of them saw me. The expressions were all blank and sad. Each person seemed to be trapped within a spiral of deep, impenetrable thought. I could not help these people. They were lost already. I decided to change lines at Siam. A whole new line! It was like two adventures in one.

Three Americans (two men and one chubby lady) were sat down together. Their voices boomed. They spoke of jobs I could not understand and industries I had not known existed. Then came the clincher from the mouth of one of the men: “A friend of mine through school, he had a sauna in his basement. We’d all get drunk and just hang out in the sauna. He was Finnish. That’s all Finnish people do: they just drink vodka and hang out in the sauna.”

I was being culturally educated. But there was more; the story continued: “We used to get really drunk and then run outside butt naked.” Oh, the hilarity!

I suddenly realized that the three Americans were a lot younger than I had thought. They were still wet behind the ears, speaking of concierges and restaurants. One of the men left to go and get a massage. I disengaged from my listening and rested. Time passed slowly; I had lost almost an entire day. Each time I would arrive at Saphan Taksin I had to casually leave the train, only to board it again almost instantly as there was only one platform. People were suspicious because I seemed to know exactly what I was doing; they saw that I wasn’t just confused.

Arriving at Sala Daeng for the fourth time, I noticed that there was a middle-aged farang man in a white polo-shirt staring at me. He was making a face as if he had just drunk a gallon of sour milk and then eaten a sandwich full of bees. He was looking at my T-shirt. I’d forgotten I was wearing an anti-coup logo across my chest. I became unsettled and engaged the man in a game of wits. I stared at his feet with one eye closed for as long as I could. Strangely enough, his feet responded and at first moved away from me, but then they shuffled towards me. I looked up with one eye and the man was still staring at me, but I had won the silent battle because he looked away instantly and moved around uncomfortably. He got off at the next station.

Out of nowhere, a tall Danish-looking man appeared with a tiny Thai girlfriend. He had jet-black hair slicked back over his head, but he was going bald and looked old. I turned my right ear towards them.

“I went to Switzerland in July,” said the man.

“I’m going to Yemen soon,” said the girlfriend.

“I like going to Germany when it’s warm,” replied the man. “People like to go out, eat, happy. Thailand is good also.”

It was getting late. I despaired at the lack of interesting things people had been saying. I decided enough was enough and I changed trains at Siam and went back home to Victory Monument. The sun had set and the day was done. Nothing important happened, and nothing unexpected occurred, but I had achieved a long-time goal and made a thousand friends who would never remember my face.

Techno’ tags: Overheard in Bangkok, Public transport, People watching