Hello everybody! It's your brother Jack with an update from Bangkok. My elation from arriving safely after our twenty hour plane ride has yet to wear off. I'm loving everything about Bangkok; as a fellow English speaker at my hostel put it, "When the only downside to a city is that the pineapple is too sweet, you know you've got a winner."
I'm quite self-conscious about the entire idea of a blog. It seems like something you should do for yourself rather than suggesting people spend their lives reading about yours. In keeping with that theme, I'm viewing this post and others as simply a travel diary that my friends and family have the option of peeking into.
First, a little history. I'm only here because my wonderfully ambitious girlfriend Sara put in the time, effort, and money to enter a program for teaching english as a foreign language (TEFL). Her program did all of the legwork within Thailand; getting her a relatively hard to come by work visa and shopping her resume around the country. She was given the option of suggesting where she'd most like to be placed, and she picked Chiang Mai, a northwestern city known for its "college town" vibe. Although no jobs were available in Chiang Mai, Sara got the closest placement relative to Chiang Mai of the eighty-five teachers-to-be in her program. She'll be teaching at a high school in the town of Hang Chat, Lampang province, just a few hours southeast of Chiang Mai.
We are in Bangkok for her TEFL program orientation. I’m incredibly grateful Sara convinced me we should arrive three days before her program started because, quite sadly, that was the only time Sara got to really explore the city. The only negative sensation I’ve had outside of the expected longing for my cats is picturing Sara stuck in a hotel conference room for nine hours a day while I am having the time of my life in one of the biggest cities in the world. I am going to treat her to a trip back down here as soon as she has a break from work - she deserves it, and it is bittersweet that I wouldn’t be having this experience without her and yet I am.
It has been a week since my family dropped us off at the airport in Chicago and I still have the surreal sensation that everything has changed without anything really happening. The ease with which the trip here and every experience within the city has occurred has only added to the surrealness. The patience and nonchalance of the Thai lifestyle, even deep in the insanity of Bangkok, is obvious enough to smack you in the face. Outside of the aggressiveness of the countless drivers, nothing seems rushed, pained, or, most obviously, stressing. You read in a guidebook that Thais consider it bad etiquette to be angry or impatient, but the more time I spend here the stronger the impression that everybody remains calm and relaxed because it is an awesome place to be, not because of any cultural mandate. I’m a naturally easy-going, grateful observer, and I feel right at home walking the streets surrounded by smiling (and sleeping) Thais.
As I mentioned, Sara was smart enough to get us here a few days before she was locked into her program. We certainly made the most of them - see her previous post about our first full day, and our fantastic interactions with Eric Fitzgerald, a now mutual friend of the lovely and much missed Bridget Collins we had been introduced to via Facebook a few months before we left America.
The day following Sara’s previous post, we followed Eric’s advice, and took the BTS Skytrain from the On Nut station near our hostel on Sukhumvit Road down to the Chao Phraya river. Despite spending the previous day exploring the central shopping district of Bangkok, it wasn’t until we got to the river and its many, many boats that we bumped into a lot of tourists - “fa-rang” meaning foreigners. I have to laugh to think that it was a huge bummer to realize Eric, Sara, and I weren’t the only non-Thai smart enough to enjoy Bangkok.
Yet again Eric’s advice was a huge help, as we took the cheap and efficient orange line express boat instead of paying extra for an unnecessarily guided tourist boat. The Chao Phraya runs north-south through Bangkok, and in my three experiences in the past week, it is the best way to get to the Grand Palace area, which seems to be the number one tourist destination in the entire country. The boat ride was so peaceful and exciting that Sara and I “decided” to miss our stop completely and continue riding another fifteen minutes before a friendly but curt Australian man sitting behind us pointed out our error. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise; we got off at one of the northernmost stops and shared a Coke at a very typically Thai mom and pop restaurant. Sara wandered down on the dock to take pictures of a Malaysian girl feeding bread to the hundreds of swarming fish. The girl offered Sara some bread to share in the fun, and the smile on Sara’s face afforded me the first tears of joy since arriving.
We made our way back to the correct stop and planned to tour the Grand Palace. Naively, we believed several Thais who told us it was closed for a holiday, not realizing until the next day that is one of the most common rouses to trick tourists into rerouting their destination in order to gain a fare, and perhaps a commission from their suggested replacement attraction. Unfortunately, that change of plans left us a bit out of sorts, and we spent a solid half hour aimless in the baking sun, with Sara craving coffee and myself craving a chair in the shade.
Our moods were saved when we arrived at Wat Pho, home of the inspiringly gigantic reclining buddha. On the first half of our visit, we explored the main grounds of the wat, taking pictures and enjoying the scenery. The temple, like all of Bangkok, is home to many beautiful cats. Sara and I had two truly life-affirming experiences with them. First, we offered a particularly exhausted cat a saucer of ice cold water and squealed with glee watching him lap it up. Second, we encountered a very friendly and affectionate cat alternately rubbing against us and a water spigot. Putting one and one together, we took turns pouring cold water on the noticeably appreciative little girl, with Sara giving her a cool water massage for good measure.
Exhausted by the heat and dehydrated despite constantly chugging water, we made our way back to the vibrant and fragrant market which served our heavily trafficked boat stop. We ate a delicious meal of cashew chicken and another, even better, chicken dish with a red curry sauce. The restaurant was the only indoors, air conditioned option in the entire market, and it was run by two Thai girls who would pass the orders to a woman I assumed to be their mother, and she would cook them up in a windowed kitchen the size of a tollbooth just a few feet from our table.
Relatively re energized by our meal, the second half of our visit to Wat Pho was even more enjoyable. We saw the reclining buddha, and took a pro tip from Eric to listen to the chanting monks in the main temple at five PM sharp. Perhaps it was all the tourists talking and taking photos, perhaps it was the fact that I’d seen monks out in the streets smoking cigarettes and drinking Coke while shopping, but I did not get a spiritual vibe from the temple’s various landmarks nor the monk’s activities. I felt much closer to god giving the cat a cool bath. Regardless of meaningfulness, it was extremely satisfying to have visited such a world-renowned landmark.
With just enough energy to take one more piece of advice from Eric, we made our way to the Deck, a four-floored restaurant and bar on the river that clearly caters to farang as it was the first place we’d been with no Thai people! Surrounded by fellow tourists from all over the (caucasian) globe, we had a drink and watched the sun begin to set.
Looking back now, if Sara and I could only have one day to spend together in Bangkok, I’m very happy with the one we got. The next day was spent switching accommodations, with Sara moving to the Louis Tavern Hotel in the northern tip of the city and myself moving to the Bansabai Hostel in the much more centrally located Lat Phrao neighborhood. She’s spent three days in classes while I’ve got to experience several of the cities countless points of interest.
I’ll write about my singular, solo adventures in my next post, but for now, I’ll close by saying thank you yet again to Sara for giving me something so beautiful that I never knew I wanted. With all this time to myself, and a freedom as exhilarating as the city I’ve been blessed to enjoy it in, I’ve traded my comfort zone for something infinitely more comfortable. With gratitude to Sara and much love to all my friends and family in America, this is brother Jack in Bangkok, signing off. Until next time friends!
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