fin

It's been two weeks since I left Bangkok. Acceptance -- and boredom -- have set in.

In the last two weeks, I've read three novels, applied for a job as a donut baker's helper, cooked two dinners, gotten over jet lag, helped with a garage sale, and sopped several inches of standing water out of the dishwasher with a towel.

It's high time I reflect on what I've learned in the last 10 months, in the form of newly acquired skills I might add to my resume. They are, in no particular order:

zookeeper
animal trainer
competitive athlete
event coordinator
environmentalist
translator
travel agent
detective
professional buyer
chef
crash dummy
barista
diplomat
mind reader
crisis manager
editor
taste tester
exterminator
propagandist
entertainer
graphic artist
financial planner
dancer

This list is scattered, bizarre, and disconnected -- so appropriate to how I felt for much of my time in Thailand.

So what did I learn?

I guess I learned that living abroad and working with locals requires you to be ready for anything and prepared to find creative solutions to whatever problems you face.

I also learned that it's not as difficult, stressful, or intimidating as people may think.

Really, there's too much to say. It's been fun, Thailand. Thanks for teaching me to eat spicy food and dance to pop music. Thanks for the daily sauna treatments and the rainy season soakings. Thanks for the memories. No thanks for the fish balls. I hope to see you again sometime.

shopaholic

It just takes one look at Bangkok's shopping malls to know that Thai shoppers mean business. The two malls nearest my apartment, Siam Paragon and CentralWorld, make American shopping malls look like a joke.

According to Wikipedia, Paragon has 10 floors with 400,000 square meters of retail space. That's over 4 million square feet. CentralWorld has 11 million square feet of retail space. And these two malls are within walking distance of each other!

Shopping is the Thais' favorite hobby. They're pros. It used to boggle my mind; I was never a big shopper in the U.S.

Now that I'm home, I've found I have a much better understanding of the Thai shopping obsession.

I think it's due in part to the fact that life in Bangkok is basically one big shopping spree. As soon as you walk out the door, you're shopping. It can't be helped. The streets are lined with vendors selling anything and everything, from puzzles to ties, sunglasses to lingerie, massages, fresh honey, fake watches, donuts, flowers, cashews... everything!

In the last 10 months, I bought myself more earrings, scarves, and clothes than I know what to do with. Of course, now that I'm back in the land of the dollar, I've gotta curb my habit.

ขี้เกียจ

I've been home for a week now and haven't left the house much. I promptly fell ill after my roommate's outdoor wedding in Houston. The (comparatively) dry, cold, pollen-saturated air was too much for my tropically acclimatized lungs to handle.

I'm improving. Yesterday, I was well enough to go out for my first meal of Tex-Mex at Ta Molly's. It was divine. I tried hard not to convert the meal price into baht in my head. Sheesh. I won't be eating out much, that's for sure.

I noticed that I've become used to a different standard of customer service. I ate half my meal and told the waiter I needed to take the rest to go. I started to hand him my plate, but he walked away and returned with a styrofoam box in hand. I was thrown off for a few seconds, as I'm used to having waitstaff box up my food for me.

Another slightly galling fact of life here: I have to prepare my own food if I'm at home and hungry. In my Bangkok apartment, I could pick up the phone at any time and order something from our first-floor restaurant. They brought it to my door in 30 minutes or less. It was so easy!

Or I could walk down the street and have a takeout box full of pad thai in about six minutes for less than 80 cents. Or a pineapple half, or a slice of cold watermelon, or papaya, guava, and all kinds of other fruits. I could walk to the corner and have a fresh fruit smoothie or a latte with cinnamon. Oh! How I miss that!

Even in the heat, humidity, and pollution, walking to get food was easier and quicker than driving or -- heaven forbid -- making it myself!

last day

I had a splendid last meal in Bangkok -- hummus and naan bread, mandi rice, and chicken tikka masala at Sultan's on Sukhumvit soi 3/1. I'll miss that place. Especially since ethnic cuisine (beyond Tex-Mex, which really doesn't count) is non-existent in Greenville.

My morning was stressful. My luggage was a little overweight. My carry-on was way overweight. I combed through my bags several times to see what I could throw away. I can't even remember what I threw out, so it must not have been anything essential.

Bright offered to drive me to the airport, and it's a good thing, too. Trying to manage two 50-pound suitcases, a 20-pound carry-on, and a shopping bag by myself would have been frustrating and exhausting.

I curled up on a sofa at my gate in the Seattle airport when I arrived and cried a little. I already miss the smells of Bangkok. Only the pleasant ones, of course -- the jasmine garlands being strung together by flower sellers on the street... burning incense wafting onto the sidewalk from a nearby shrine... chai yen brewing at a street stand. I don't miss the bursts of black smog from buses or the occasional whiff of sewage.

Oh, Bangkok.

people

Most of my actual travel time getting to/from/around the south of Thailand was done solo. In my last post, I talked about the boy who gave me his watch necklace. He sent me an e-mail telling me he had worried about me riding the train alone. He also attached photos of some of his artwork. I think I have a new pen pal.

I met my second random stranger on an overnight boat from Koh Samui back to the mainland. He introduced himself as Nik -- short for Nikolai. He said he was from Russia and handed me a CD called "Guitar Sounds by Onyx: Shadow of Your Love." He plays on the streets of Moscow for money. He tried it out on Khao San Road in Bangkok, but people weren't so generous.

Nik told me he was cutting his vacation short because he wrecked a motorbike into a car on Samui and had to pay for the damages. He also shared that it was his father's lifelong dream to play music on a Mississippi riverboat. I guess I looked like the right kind of person in which to confide such factoids.

Several days later, I was waiting by the pier on Koh Phi Phi to start my trip back to Bangkok. I had a couple hours to kill before my boat arrived. A Thai man working for a tourist agency sidled up and struck up a conversation.

He was 37 years old and unmarried. I asked why, and learned that he'd spent 14 years living in a forest in the northeast as a monk. He meditated for 10 hours a day for the first seven years. Sometimes he fasted for a month at a time, surviving only on sugar water. For the next seven years, he lived in a room with a bed surrounded by a thousand books. He read them all, and people thought he was a little crazy.

He studied international relations and philosophy in college, including some Western philosophy. His favorite, though, is Indian philosophy. His dream is to move there to study. His other dream is to go to the U.S.

I'm back in the U.S. now, sitting in the Seattle airport. I suppose some sort of reflective post is in order soon. My first observations:

1. It's weird seeing fat policemen.
2. It's weird hearing English spoken without a foreign accent.

More to come.

Fine Dining on Sukhumvit

Just a brief overview of some of my favorite restaurants on Sukhumvit.

Sultan's
Sukhumvit soi 3/1
Middle Eastern
Recommendations: Hummus (creamiest I've ever had), Naan bread, Chicken Tikka Masala, any of their curries, Mandi rice. Go with a group and order a couple of dishes to share.

Kuppa
Sukhumvit soi 16
International
Recommendations: The entrees my friends and I tried were just OK. Go there for dessert. Try the cheesecake with blueberry compote. It's the best I've ever tasted.

Govinda
Sukhumvit soi 22
Vegetarian Italian
Recommendations: Don't let the fact that it's vegetarian scare you away. Everything on the menu is delicious. Highly recommend the lasagna.

Tacos and Salsa
between Sukhumvit sois 22 and 24
Mexican (So legit, the owner is from Mexico City)
Recommendations: Anything on the menu. The margaritas are especially delicious here.

Sunrise Tacos
Sukhumvit soi 12; Second location in Siam Paragon
Mexican
Recommendations: Black bean tacos, guacamole. Good desserts. A little cheaper than Tacos and Salsa, but also has less atmosphere.

a gift

On Saturday night I made my way to Hualamphong train station alone to begin my trip down south. My three friends had already flown to Surat Thani that afternoon. I decided to go the less comfortable -- but more affordable -- route, taking the overnight train followed by a midmorning boat to Ko Samui.

I was in the train station food court getting some pad thai, since the train didn't have real food. I was hot and tired from walking from the bus stop to the station with a heavy backpack.

I ordered my food and flopped down into a chair, observing my fellow diners while I waited. A guy was standing in line wearing a blue polo shirt, a navy coat with big, gold buttons, and a tiny pocketwatch hanging on a chain around his neck. He asked if he could sit with me.

I said OK and asked him if he worked at the train station -- the pocketwatch made me think he was a ticket taker or conductor or something. He said no. I complimented his necklace and we had a nice chat. I learned that he was an art student from Chiang Mai attending university in Bangkok. He was going home for the break between semesters.

As I ate my pad thai, I separated the nefarious bits of tofu from the rest of my food. He eyed it and asked if I didn't like tofu. I asked if he wanted it. He nodded, so I pushed the tofu pile onto his plate.

We finished our meals and as we walked toward the platform, he took off his watch necklace. "Here, I want you to have this," he said, as he dropped it in my hand. I tried to object, but he insisted. I put it on, and he told me it looked good.

His train was at the platform. He asked for my email address and we said goodbye. I sat down to wait for my train. He came over to me a few minutes later, handed me a bag of Bugles corn snacks, and boarded his train.

That's Thai hospitality for you. You know a person for less than an hour and they give you a memento and a snack.