Bangkok

Jennifer and I needed to leave Indonesia before mid October in order to renew our visas. This was the basis for our friends Matt and Rita coming then, so that we could also share the experience of exploring another country with them, besides Bali. We chose Thailand. Jennifer and I had both been there, independently, before we met, and both had liked it (for me that was 27 years ago). And since this was to be Matt and Rita’s first time in Asia, Thailand seemed like a great place to start. Definitely exotic and altogether different from Bali, but also relatively westernized. So a plan was hatched: 9 days in which to split Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Bangkok is huge. It’s not so tall -though it does have some tall buildings. But it is big, and busy, bustling, and dense -everywhere: colored lights, signs, music, narrow alleys, alcohol, cement, billboards, sex, wide streets, food carts, tuk-tuks, fashion, overpass stairways, buses, exotic people, steam, grit, sidewalk stalls, skyTrain supports, grills, woks, traffic, glass, people scurrying everywhere, or sitting in a smoking haze, futuristic electronic billboards lighting up the sides of buildings. Bangkok is both worn down and modern at the same time. It’s both repelling and seductive. It often reminded me of the movie Bladerunner.

Matt and Rita arranged for our hotels in both cities ahead of time (we benefited greatly from their willingness and desire to comb through TripAdvisor for rooms and restaurants). Our Smart suite was nice, with a touch of Art Deco, and a very nice staff. After checking in we ventured out on foot to find dinner. Our immediate street was fairly quiet (though typically, still with several food stalls with groupings of small, dirty plastic chairs). Up a few blocks we turned a corner, and things changed fast. This was Bangkok! The restaurants were packing them in -or at least, the groups of pretty young women in short skirts near each entrance were trying to. But the sidewalk was where the action was: an endless, bustling stretch of party nightlife. Food carts side by side by side forever: fish; fruit; satays; eggs; noodles; shrimp; rice; lassies, crepes, soups, mysterious skewered things seen only in Asia; smoothies; dumplings; fried egg rolls; and variations of everything. There were shade umbrellas to dodge, and tarp ropes. People to walk around or through. Women beggars. Curbs and cracks to watch out for. Pulsing music coming from all directions. Up above, many tall buildings, and toy hawkers launching small glowing hovercrafts high into the air, to then float straight down into their open palm. The narrow streets were filled with brightly decorated tuk-tuks, taxi’s and other sorted vehicles. Across the street were several old-but-renovated VW buses. Their tops and sides uniquely folded up to double as open mini bars, complete with disco balls, loud music, stools, and a full range of alcohol to imbibe. We’d see these VW bars throughout Thailand. At our dinner table, Jennifer first dialed in to the realization that our lovely, pretty young waitress, was in fact, a he. This too, was something we’d see a lot of throughout our stay. And this was just a routine Tuesday night.

Jennifer and I hit the ground running the next morning -or at least, that was our intention. We hailed a cab to take us to the Myanmar embassy about 1-2 kilometers away. It took over an hour. The rush hour traffic in Bangkok is ridiculously congested -the worst I’ve ever seen. Fortunately, that was our last cab, as we learned about alternative ways of getting around. One night while exploring our neighborhood, I turned left instead of right, and stumbled upon the Khlong Canal, and its water taxi system, just a short distance away from our hotel. The canal runs east to west, and connects to most everywhere we needed to go -or close enough to the (SkyTrain) public transit stops. The water taxis are sort of like a Disney experience, except the water is putrid, and the scenery that lines the canal is often semi-squalid apartments and the stressed out underbelly of civil engineering rot. That said, I loved it. This canal is how many thousands of Thais get to work and about each day, all day. There are hardly any foreigners on the boats, which are maybe 50 feet long, and rickety, and can hold about 200 people. I almost couldn’t believe how tricky it was to get on and off, as the boat chugged quickly up to each wooden platform stop -briefly. There are no doors or gates or steps on the boat nor on the platforms -no designated place at which to get on or off. Instead, everyone must quickly squeeze through the various horizontal ropes and tarps that line the sides of the boats, find something -or someone- to hold onto, and hoist themselves up or down onto something that is hopefully stable, and wide enough for a foot. The boats are longer than most platforms, so sometimes one would need to shimmy along the thin outer edge of the boat to reach the platform -before the boat pulls away. I often watched in amazement as hordes of people on the crowded boat and crowded platform would somehow seamlessly change places -quickly- while the boat was still bobbing and drifting -a cascade of knees and elbows. Then off it would rush, to the next stop, again and again, all day long.

The engine was noisy, and covered by a big metal box in the middle of each boat. Tightly set rows of benches filled the front and back . Two young ticket sellers would patrol and navigate that thin outer ledge of each side of the boat, and shimmy from front to back constantly, finding each new passenger, by leaning down and in to negotiate the price, through the wind, or drizzle, and belching smoke, clutching the rope under their arm pit while deftly handling the cash and tickets. They worked hard. When other taxis would approach from the other direction, passengers sitting near certain ropes would take it upon themselves to raise the side tarps to prevent water splashing onto anyone. The tarps blocked the view, but as one man explained, you don’t want that water to touch you.

We had one scary moment while using the water taxis (getting on and off was always a bit nerve-racking, but not scary). once during evening rush hour, the packed boat stopped at a particular platform where everyone must get off (I never understood why, as the empty boat would continue on in the same direction). On this occasion, the platform was already packed with people quietly standing like sardines, waiting for the next empty boat to appear. Now, many more people squeezed on, and then another packed boat came up behind us. Something seemed to have gone wrong, yet everyone remained silent, and squeezed tighter. And there was no order to who was there first. We were pinned in, on that wooden platform, hoping that something wouldn’t panic anyone, and that the submerged platform supports could handle the weight. Eventually, relief boats came and remedied the tense situation, which we never saw repeated again.

-matt

I’m surprised to discover a lack of photos of these described aspects of Bangkok. But I do have a lot of videos, and will try to post them…

Afterglow

It’s been 2 months since the last post. I’ve missed the writing, but a string of planned events came to fruition, which took us away -literally and figuratively- from our routine environs.

I’m still amazed somehow, with the process of planning and executing travel adventures. You formulate ideas, read travel posts and books, look at maps, discuss, debate, and evaluate for some time. Then you choose a starting point, book a flight, and carry along with your day pack, a loose set of expectations, hopes, and assumptions about the next 6 weeks. Those 6 weeks are going to pass no matter what, and you hope that once they do, you will be looking back fondly at them, versus wishing you had made different decisions -stood your ground, or relinquished it- when you had the chance.

Jennifer and I travel well together. Not perfectly, but well. We bring different strengths to our experiences, and continue to learn what those are, and to trust the other when we should. An important travel philosophy that we largely share in common has to do with prearranging. Neither of us believe in doing much of it, though we define that differently. I prefer to make things up as we go along; to strike a certain balance between reacting to what we encounter versus trying to control what that is. Jennifer prefers to do some research, and I’m still learning that a little bit of that can be really helpful. I know that our travel adventures have benefited from her extra efforts.

I’m still amazed when a trip is over, and all went relatively well. The planes took us where they were supposed to, as did the trains, buses, boats, taxis and bikes. The visas worked. Hotel rooms materialized. Our language skills sufficed. Strangers emerged to help us. The food was tasty -or not, but we managed. We improvised as needed, and encountered worlds we’d never seen: cultures, sights and sounds that we were hoping to see, hear, touch, smell, and feel. Our awareness and understanding about this earth and our place in it expanded a little bit more. We were challenged, surprised, disappointed, made the best of things, and rose to the occasions in the ways that matter to us.

I’m an afterglower. I like to revel post-trip as much as possible. The few days immediately following them often leave me feeling high. But in this case, it’s more than just the 6+ week travel adventure we just returned from. When we arrived here 7 months ago, our hope was that we would have friends come and visit, and that we would take trips away from Bali to see other countries in Southeast Asia. The past 2 months have seen both hopes realized, and the template established, and it leaves us feeling like this crazy idea is working well.

Matt and Rita are dear friends from San Francisco. They have been an inspiration to us, and were extremely helpful and supportive of our plans to unplug and travel -something they’ve been largely doing for years. We’d Skyped and emailed for months in advance of their late September arrival, and picked up our 4some right where we’d left it when we last slept over at their NOPA flat in mid-April just before flying away. The collective loose plan was to spend about 10 days in Bali, and then 10 days together in Thailand. We packed a good balance of doing stuff and not doing stuff into our all-too-brief time together. We enjoyed showing them some of Bali. We took some lovely day hikes through gorgeous rice fields; sampled many tasty restaurants; witnessed a wonderful temple birthday celebration in our own village; went on a fabulous bike ride that started at the top of a volcano, and spent 2-3 days at the small fishing town of Padangbai. But our favorite time with them in Bali was spent sitting and talking all day(s) on our porch, and swing dancing at home to Rita’s music one lovely evening. Plus, acting kudos to Rita for faking an illness one day in order to return us all home at dinner time -only to discover our house full of friends who were silently waiting to surprise me for my 55th birthday. (How Jennifer arranged for everything and everyone is beyond me. My deep thanks and appreciation to her, and to everyone who was there. It was special).

Then off to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, the 4 of us went. Jennifer and I had specific medical and visa tasks to run in Bangkok that kept us busy. We appreciated that Matt and Rita were able and willing to give us the space and time to do so. It was fun to meet up at night and hear about their days, especially their biking adventures (they are extreme bikers, I give a shout out to their rare, beloved tandem recumbent in SF!), and an elaborate gem scam that enveloped around them “like a David Mamet film.” It included a team of disparate characters in many locations. Fortunately, Matt and Rita’s movie smarts and common sense allowed them to escape the trap, albeit abandoned on the outskirts of Bangkok –but with a great story to tell.

Chiang Mai was far more relaxed. We visited some fabulous temples, saw some bustling street markets, and spent a lot of time biking from meal to meal. Some hits and misses, but all good and enjoyable. Save for one scary bike moment as we ventured into a mysterious, distant wooded compound, only to be suddenly confronted by a large pack of angry, charging, growling dogs that came around the bend up ahead and gained on us quickly as we reversed course and tried to get back up to speed. Our thanks to the woman of mystery who just happened to come up behind us on her motorbike at that moment, and called them off as she passed our collective white knuckles, and then disappeared around that bend. We never quite knew what hit us, but figured the compound to be some military -or drug- operation, that needs a guard -or better signage.

The days with Matt and Rita went by much too quickly. Before we knew it, our driver Yut was tuk-tuking them away to the airport, and suddenly, Jennifer and I were on our own, standing in the street of Chiang Mai, ready-or-not to start the next phase of our Autumn adventure. We’d need to spend 10 more days in Thailand to complete our medical and visa related tasks, and then our long-anticipated (but hardly planned!) trip to Myanmar (Burma) would begin. Details of our experiences in Thailand and Myanmar will follow in future posts (soon!) -which I look forward to writing.

I used to love the travel epilogue of returning back home from a vacation to San Francisco, which I always liked even more than wherever I just returned from -no matter where that was. Now, we return to Bali, which is the same sort of thing: a wonderful place to call home and return to. In comparison to Thailand and Myanmar, we appreciate it even more than before this trip. Our taxi dropped us off at the foot of the Campuan steps late at night. It was quiet and still, and familiar, and was where we wanted to be. And when we walked through our gate a few minutes later, we were further delighted to see Jingga, the orange catling who adopted us in the early weeks of September. He’d gone missing for a spell while we were away, but now welcomed us back.

-matt

(The photos will appear as the techno Gods are pleased…)