OK, so we left home at noon on Monday, February 7th, and now it’s 7:00 pm on Friday February 11th – and what have we done? Traveled. An amazing set of uneventful days in which we were blessed with absolutely perfect weather, smooth connections and delightful rest stops along the way. But still…. the whole journey was a wee bit on the long side. Monday: having checked and double checked that we’d left nothing behind, we loaded up the Honda, kissed the cats, and left Vermont heading south to sleep in Darien with the kids. Tuesday: a limousine took us to a hotel near JFK to get a ‘good night’s sleep’. Wednesday: up bright and cheery at the ridiculous hour of 3:00 a.m. to begin one of the longest series of plane rides I’ve ever experienced: JFK to Los Angeles to Narita airport in Tokyo, Japan… to Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 36 hours of air travel! Let’s just say that for those of us unable to sleep on airplanes, those hours filled with movies, reading, Sudoku and crossword puzzles seemed endless.
What is somewhat sad about modern day travel is that for all that distance and all the hours spent getting between two places, all airports, all roads leading to and from airports, and all official signage seemed very similar be it in Thailand, Japan or Los Angeles. Our fellow travelers, be they Thai, Japanese, Chinese, American or other, all behaved the same: their mobile phones were an appendage to their ears; their wheelies never fit comfortably in the overhead compartments; their lap tops were in use at every possible moment, and the veneer of necessary civility made everyone ‘play nice’ as we flew to exotic places. Even EASY PASS existed at toll booths as we whisked our way to our hotel in Bangkok.
Unlike travel in 1927, the visible differences, which add to the romance of arriving in a new country, are almost non-existent. This might be considered a good thing in the world of globalization: that comfort of knowing that the signs will be clearly marked (in English along with the local national language); that check in and upgrades and security announcements will be handled identically, and that only the food courts in the airports will help to remind us that we are somewhere ‘different’. But I wanted more.
As we drove from the airport in Bangkok, I kept looking out the windows, through bleary eyes, trying to find those differences that would tell me I had traveled 5000 miles: advertisements for Compaq or HP gave no hint, and large office structures near the highway could have placed me anywhere. But there were small things that told me that we were not in Kansas anymore: little gold statuettes along the road placed along the cement guard rails; overpass structures designed to look like Thai temples; pictures of the revered King; others of the chief of police located at strategic places; lush and unique vegetation; and the climate - we were in the tropics and at midnight it was 76 degrees and balmy.
And here we are. We’ve read the local English language newspapers which remind us of the real world: the current conflict between Thailand and Cambodia; the imminent parting of Mubarak in Egypt; the drought in China, and nothing, absolutely nothing, about Lindsay Lohan or Charlie Sheen. Having read the hotel’s information booklet to be sure I knew what was what, I enjoyed a most curious note under the topic of ‘guest Courtesy’: “Various fruits and perishable food items that may create strong odors are not permitted in guest rooms, such as durian, jack fruit, etc.” I promise that once we figure out what these are, I will avoid these fine delicacies so as not offend the delicate noses of our fellow travelers.
Having scoped out the layout of the resort, we enjoyed a simple but satisfying dinner on a pier, and with the next wave of tiredness, headed back to bed. Twelve hours of difference between Vermont and Bangkok will take a few days to conquer.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
We thought we’d have a bundle of energy having slept entirely too many hours, so we joined our fellow travelers for a relatively early breakfast – a nice mélange of every possible food choice: Asian noodles; sushi; salad, fresh fruit – NO DURIAN - waffles and syrup, eggs and toast. You ask for it, and the buffet provided it. We sat outside on the patio enjoying the warmth, people-watching and trying to put a story around each grouping, and deciding out plan of attack for the day. Markets and Jim Thompson’s House were on the agenda.
We took the hotel’s courtesy boat - designed to look like an old Thai royal barge - and traveled down the Chao Phraya River along with colorful longtail boats available for tourists, tow boats hauling cement barges, and other hotel boats heading for the central dock closest to the Sky train. As we started toward the train, a young man who worked at our hotel suggested that the market today was probably not a great idea since there were to be Red Shirt demonstrations going on around the market area. So not wanting to get too involved with the politics of Thailand, we chose to head for the Jim Thompson House instead.
Thompson, an American working for the military and the OSS, fell in love with Bangkok and has been personally credited with reviving the Thai Silk market which was dying out with the loss of skilled craftsmen. He turned this passion and his love for Thailand into a thriving business which exists now in cities all over Southeast Asia. His home, a wonderful complex made up of five different houses which he restored and merged, represent traditional Thai architecture enhanced with American ingenuity. The mystery which surrounds him adds to the allure of the place – at the age of 61 (an inauspicious number according to his horoscope) he disappeared while visiting Malaysia and has never been found. But his non-profit foundation which he started, the silk production and sales which he encouraged, and the compound he so lovingly created speak to the power which one man can have on a country. It was well worth the visit. A delightful lunch of cooling Spring Rolls and Tiger Beer topped it off.
But that was pretty much it. Having conquered the sky train and the steamy hot streets, and having avoided demonstrations, we were exhausted. So back to the hotel by boat for a another cooling drink by the pool before another nap.
Part of me feels guilty that we’re not doing more, but the other half says, ‘hey, we’re on vacation and can do as much or as little as we want’. We still have enough days here in Bangkok to see the highlights, and maybe that’s all we really need to do. There were times in the past when I would have driven myself to do much more, conquer more geography, visit more sites, find new adventures…but today, all I really want to do is relax.
I do so love being in truly foreign places where the challenges of map-reading, communicating, and figuring out transportation while watching everything from people to buildings to signs makes the mind feel very acute: Is this the right place to find the train? Is that group of people sleeping on the road going to be ok? Are those stray dogs going to ignore us? Does that word mean Coke or Pepsi? Are we going in the right direction? But at the same time, I’m very glad to retreat to the familiar, and turn off the antenna for a while.
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