Bright lights, big city

Bangkok, thriving metropolis, and the first time we saw it we were coming from India and so thought it was the cleanest city we had ever seen. We’ve hit the streets of Bangkok quite a few times now heading in and out as it is jumping off point to most places, and while roaming the city streets we did what many tourist do: got a custom made suit, and while we were at it something probably no tourist ever does, I’m getting a custom made wedding gown! We also stayed with a Buddhist community in the city, but that deserves its own whole blog so more on that later.

And while in the city we have realized yet again what a small world it really is. Being almost exactly half way around the earth from our home in America you don’t usually expect to see familiar faces. So when we ended spending time with a friend of mine from Colorado (who I hadn’t seen in seven or eight years) and a friend of ours from Peace Corp Jamaica in the same week, we had to do redo the math on figuring how small the world really is. Our linking with Ginger (CO) and with Lauren (PCJ) were both wonderful, but very different if you were to compare the two. Lauren, like us, has caught the travel bug and I am not sure I can name a country she has not been to. Our time together was spent eating street food and hula hooping with locals in the park.

Our time with Ginger was more like a scene when the Beverly Hillbillies role their dilapidated wagon into Beverly Hills for the first time. Ginger is the Secretary to the US Ambassador here in Thailand and her plush apartment in a skyrise building in the center of Bangkok is a little bit off from the open air, bamboo mat huts were we stack our dirty clothes underneath our head when we lay down to sleep for the night.

On our arrival Ginger and Doug were open to trying our vittles and sticky rice (although they used fancy chopsticks to eat the rice instead of their hands) that we brought from the countryside and in exchange added in delicious wine (made from grapes) and a magical heating contraption they called a stove. The next day we hours marveling at their washer and dryer and even more time trying to figure out how a little light in the closet automatically turns on and off each time you open the door (light goes on…light goes off…light goes on…light goes off). Is this heaven?

Really though, a couple friendly faces and short escape from the developing world was just what we needed to refresh us and prepare us for our next projects and adventures. It was great seeing you, Lauren and Ginger, and thank you Ginger once again for the wonderful hospitality!

Karma:

(noun) the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person's deeds in the previous incarnation.


So we apparently did something good at some point in our lives since our karma seems to be pretty great. Or perhaps it is just how wonderful the people that we encounter are in gaining good karma for themselves. In any case, our second big hitch hiking success since getting back to Thailand came right after Koh Chang when we met Pata. She knew the obscure forest monastery we were trying to head to and took us out of her way to get there, only to find that it didn’t so much exist in the way we thought it did for us to go and stay for meditation. Ooops! (and thank goodness she picked us up or we would have been trying to find it for hours and hours it was in such an obscure place with only Thai alphabet signs!) But when one door closes, another opens and at her suggestion we went and stayed at a wat near to her house where she has a rubber farm. The monks at the wat where we did stay were so warm and welcoming, I think we were the first foreigners that had ever been there. The Wat itself was still under construction and we slept on the marble floor with a thin reed mat for “cushioning,” got up at 4am with the monks for meditation, took our meals with them and enjoyed the tranquility and novelty of it all (as did they as one monk took pictures of us while we were meditating one morning- interrupts the tranquility when you see a bright flash through your closed eyes!).

After a few nights with the monks we moved next door to Pata’s who turns out used to have her own Thai restaurant in Canada where she lived for 20 years and she taught us to cook! Cultural exchange, cooking lessons and great conversation, doesn’t get much better than our time with Pata and her wonderful hospitality. She certainly has some very good karma coming her way.

What a Thumbs-Up Will Get You

While we understand that standing on the side of a dirty, desolate road waiting for the awkward meeting of a complete stranger to pick you up and take you to who knows where is not for everyone, it is amazing what just putting yourself out there sometimes will bring you. The start of our trip back in Thailand was one of these times. Not to mention other rides by wonderful people, the crowning jewel of this trip was getting picked up by a smiling Thai local named Toat. At the time we were heading to a forest monastery for meditation about 100 km past where he was going- which was to Koh Chang. Koh Chang is a beautiful island we had read about and originally planned to go to, and when he said it was where he was going we decided to utilize why we keep ourselves flexible and told him we’d love to go along with him if that would be ok. He not only said OK but included in the trip a wonderful visit at his mother’s house first where we were given heaps and heaps of delicious fresh fruit to gorge ourselves on, then keeping on going in his truck a ride across the ferry to the island and down to a secluded little tip aptly named “Dead End” where he had 2 bungalows, one of which was generously given to us for the 3 nights we stayed. It was on a quiet cove of crystal clear blue water and snorkeling right off the shore, meeting other locals, waterfall hikes, sharing delicious meals and learning to cook some of them. All of this and never even asking us for a dime, though in the end we offered a nice “donation to the cause”- I guess that cause of being hitch hiking friendly travelers that are looking for an adventure and real cultural experience. Thanks Toat, Chang, and everyone else we met on Koh Chang, it was incredible!