ALTHOUGH I don’t write a diary these days, I thought I’d write one here to give you a glimpse of the life of a touring troubadour upon arriving in town from my just-completed Bangkok Metropolitan Region Tour 2023 last week and over the weekend.

Day 1 – Wednesday, October 27

My brother had offered me a ride to KLIA – my flight was at 8.50pm – but I’m the sort of traveller who prefers to drop in my luggage as early as the counter opens.

So, a quick shower and some finishing touches to my luggage packing – my load was one medium-sized hard case luggage, a laptop bag (which I maximised to keep other stuff for the journey) and my hard case electric TSA-approved guitar case for my Telecaster electric guitar.

Nowadays, I prefer to tour with my electric guitar as it’s hardier and the electronics within stay intact, unlike an acoustic guitar which generally has a higher chance of things going wrong (although I’ve never had any horror experience flying with it).

I flew Thai Airways as it was at least RM500 cheaper and gave me a luggage weight allowance of 30kg (as opposed to 20kg by MAS). I landed on a rainy night at Suvarnabhumi International Airport without a hitch and promptly took a taxi to my hotel in the neighbourhood of Wong Wian Yai in the Thon Buri district of Bangkok.

I checked-in late, at around 11pm, showered and called it a night.

Day 2 – Thursday, October 28

I wandered around the neighbourhood, it’s not a touristy part of the city, which I love. It is a very local working- and middle-class neighbourhood with several wet markets.

After a 10-minute stroll, I found myself facing King Taksin the Great Monument in the middle of a big roundabout.

I put on a mask and bought some street food from a stall and a couple of refreshing drinks from a 7-Eleven outlet and returned to my room to write last week’s column.

My hotel room window faced the quiet neighbourhood behind the hotel and a large garden veranda (attached to the hotel) with a Buddhist altar. A blissful view that certainly helped me write.

My bandmates – guitarist Lohan and drummer Ammar along with our videographer/photographer friend Brigitte – were only arriving late in the evening and would directly go to the venue called The Overstay for our first of two band shows tonight.

I spent the afternoon catching up with my Thai friend Tunya – whom I’ve known from university – knocking down a plate of duck noodles at an old restaurant before walking along Charoen Krung Road, one of Bangkok’s oldest main roads, with me as usual entranced by the tangled labyrinth of the electrical (and telephone?) wires that hang over most of Bangkok’s streets.

I love walking and Bangkok is definitely a walkable city until after a while the heat gets to you and we both decide to catch a taxi to an interesting watering hole Tunya recommended by the river.

However, the taxi driver dropped us off at another spot, so Tunya improvised and found another interesting place we could go to also by the river.

The catch: we had to enter a temple in order to access the place at the back of the temple.

When we finally found the place, it was a bed and breakfast with a nice cafe/bar through a nondescript entrance next to a house on stilts above the Chao Phraya River. 

After we caught up over drinks with a great lazy view of the winding Chao Phraya, I realised the time and I needed to rush to the venue, but as we were walking towards the main street, rain poured down on us as we both waiting for a taxi with our umbrellas (travel tip: waterproof shoes always come in handy).

Long story short, we both took the same MRT train but I had to change to a BTS metro train to head to my hotel first.

After parting with my friend at my stop and I walked along the elevated walkways that link the train stations, I looked at the famous Bangkok rush hour traffic crawl from above and saw some streets flooded, but life carried on as usual.

I made it in time to my hotel, took a quick shower, ordered a Grab ride, and off I went to my first show of the tour.

Time to rock n’ roll!

Note: Check out my Instagram account for a  complete account of the tour! – October 6, 2023.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.