You stay classy, Bangkok.

Yesterday was my first full day in Bangkok. After spending most of the early afternoon sitting in the Soi 8 Restaurant and Cafe waiting for our entire group to assemble, change, change back, and visit the chemist, the 8-man (another manstravaganza?) group took to the streets (and the skies) of Bangkok.

We had our first trip on the SkyTrain to the end of the line, where, after a trip to a museum nearby, we were to hop into a cab to take us to "traveler's ghetto" area. Sadly, the SkyTrain (a really nice, above-ground subway-esue train) only covers a small fraction of the city. From what I've been told, the project, while ambitious, hasn't been implemented so well. Besides the relatively small amout of coverage, only 3-car trains are being run on tracks that could support 6. Not a huge deal when I traveled late last night, but problematic during rush hour.

[Excuse my while I deal with the persistent kitty attempting to remove my hat. He is currently perched on my right shoulder. Yes, the entire cat is just chilling on my shoulder. It's funny how "cute" one day can be "irritating" the next. I know now why John calls him Little Bastard.]

The trains, like most of the city, is teeming with people hustling and bustling and mostly wearing yellow polo shirts. I saw these shirts first when we were in Laos. All the Thai tourists (of which there were many) were sporting them. I initially thought they were tour group shirts (much like DC tourists frequently wear the same ensemble when irritating the shit out of me in the metro), but it turns out that these are shirts to celebrate the 60th year of the King's reign. Their monarch is currently the longest-sitting in the world and is beloved in a major way by his people. There are pictures of the Royal Family everywhere and, since last weekend was the Queen's birthday, there are little celebratory shrines outside many of the establishments dedicated to her. (I managed to find my way home last night by recognizing one featuring a giant-size portrait of her.) The Royal Palace, by the by, is gigantic and quite the sight to behold.

[Ok, the cat is cute again. He's now napping on the chair between my butt and the chairback. Awww....]

So, you have the Royal Family, the yellow-clad, robust middle class, and then, as usual, you have the poor. We chartered a boat (which sounds more badass than "Moose haggled with an old lady") and took a trip down a few of the city's canals. Apparently, quite a while ago, Bangkok was known as the Venice of the East. Immediately after a huge sluicegate from the main river, we saw rows and rows of shantytowns on stilts. The people here, I assume, make their living primarily from fishing. It was fascinating to see the shackfronts turn into spiked iron gates as we ventured into a more posh part of the river, and then back again.

But worse than the poor are the destitute. I was immediately saddened as I was walking to meet the boys yesterday and passed my first Thai street child. I saw my first (of many) street children in Bombay. Babies would run up to you yelling, "Hello!" and moving their hands in an eating gesture. It's affecting and you want to give until you hear about how begging has become an organized trade in some places. Beggarmasters (think Fagin in Oliver Twist) send the kids (and adults) out to beg. Their earnings are kept by the beggarmasters who then feed their charges. This racket goes beyond just recruiting the poor with some beggarmasters even going so far as to having their beggars' limbs amputated to make them more pathetic.

Anyway, on Th Sukhemvit, I saw my first Thai street child. I thought about the stats you always hear in the states about kids without health insurance. And I taught kids who lived in shelters and who didn't have enough to eat at night. But I can't imagine even any of my kids sleeping on the street day after day, begging for food. In India (and in Laos) I gave away the errant banana and once even a bottle of water. One child came to our table in Laos and specifically requested (by pointing, not English) John's chicken bones (but, strangely, not his leftover potato wedges). John obliged.

But what the hell is going on? How can India and Thailand, both hailed for their seemingly functional economies, both experiencing significant growth in their middle class (growth much stronger than many of their peer nations) allow such poverty -- no, not poverty, complete destitution to continue seemingly unchecked? Part of the KSG-ers work in Bombay was to analyze how to better meet the educational needs of the street children population. At the meeting with the city council to present their findings, the councilmembers concentrated on only one thing: Dennis's figure of the number of street children in Bombay. Through conversations with organizations and people working with the population, Dennis opted on the conservative estimate of 600,000. The council's number? If I remember correctly, approximately 78,000. What is it that they say in therapy? The first step is admitting we have a problem?

We have a problem. Why won't any of the governments here say so?