ช้าง และ สับปะรด (khang leh saparoht): Locked in a Toilet in Bangkok

Ok, so in the spirit of full honesty that didn’t really happen to me. Nor did it happen to the person who gave me the blog title idea, but I got your attention, didn’t I?

First two full days in Thailand- complete!

Let me just put it out there, it has all been pretty jam packed. I definitely feel like I got a fairly comprehensive crash course on Thai culture, and… South African culture weirdly enough. I include the latter because the group of teachers-to-be that I have found myself with are about 81% South African. It’s been such a blast trying to pick up the lingo and slow down their fast speech in my head; I’m sure they know that sometimes I just smile and nod along to keep the conversation moving.

You'll notice from my Tokyo blog post that it took me quite a while to actually arrive in Bangkok. The lovely Jill took on the chore of taking me to Chicago (in all honesty we had an amazing time chatting and listening to Hamilton the whole way up) and our journey began at 530am. Needless to say, we got to the airport with plenty of time for my 1100am flight but although we joked that we could have woken up a lot earlier, both of us were just relieved that we slipped into the city right before the bad traffic began. Leaving even a half hour or an hour later would have put us at least 2 hours behind.

I think she's ready

My flight to Tokyo was 12 hours. I lucked out by not getting a neighbor, and also getting an aisle seat in the middle chunk of seats, meaning no one had to hop over me to get to the bathroom at any point. There was a guy three seats down from me (there were 4 spots in the section) who must have (MUST HAVE) purchased 75% of the seats in the row, because as soon as we sat down he skipped over the seat directly next to him to shove his bags under the seat next to ME, therefore claiming all seats and discouraging me from spreading out at all. I can only explain such assholery away by saying that he sadly bought the two extra tickets for his wife and mother-in-law, but was left a day before for a 23-year-old underwear model with a trust fund and he put his stuff under the seat that would have been his mother-in-law's so that he could pretend for a minute that he was merely saving her seat while they wandered in late. Either that, or he's just the biggest jerk to travel.

I slept pretty much the whole time in the airport in Tokyo, after giving up plans to cross off an item on my bucket list (eat sushi in Japan) since I didn't want to deal with converting dollars to yen, having no idea what the exchange rate was, nor how much sushi would cost there.

My next flight was 6 hours and put me in Bangkok at 11pm. My instructions from there were to go through customs, collect my bags and go to departure gate 3. Then I was to wait for a driver who would have my name on a card along with "XploreAsia." If no one showed up after 25 minutes, I was to call a Thai number to contact the driver. This was obviously something I really hoped wouldn't happen since 1. I couldn't make calls from my American phone in Thailand, 2. I didn't have any change for the pay phone, 3. the pay phone didn't actually have an amount written on it so I had no idea how much change I would need anyway, and 4. I wasn't entirely sure if the person answering the phone would speak English and I certainly hadn't practiced enough Thai language on the flights. Remember how my trip was kind of an emotional mess at this point? Well, I waited 45 minutes before deciding that I needed to make the call or take a taxi.

At this point, I had no energy to be nervous or upset or angry. I just had to get it done. So I went to a 7 Eleven (those are EVERYWHERE here) to get change that I could use in the payphone and then I kind of stood in front of it with my change looking lost before someone else's driver, who had been waiting as long as I had, took pity on me and came over to gently pluck a 5 coin from my palm and stick it in the machine. When he dialed the number for me and it didn't work, he offered to let me use his iPhone to make the calls. This was my first impression of Thai people. Although this message will literally never get to him and I know it, I want to thank that driver for saving my world in that moment. It made me feel so grateful and positive. And soon after my ride appeared and took me to the hotel. I arrived by 2am.

The next morning (Saturday) I started off the day with a free breakfast in the hotel and a swim on the roof, yes, there was a roof pool at our hotel in Bangkok. As soon as we were floating in the chlorine with our chins resting firmly on the deck overlooking the city, we spotted some pretty incredible temple-looking structures in the distance. We had already decided to venture out into the world but the stuff we saw on the roof really helped direct our afternoon outing.

We didn't actually make it to THIS temple, but it's what got us moving in that direction.

We spent the day eating Thai street food, pausing for some iced tea, and finally slipping into our first Thai temple! You have to be respectful when in the Buddhist temple, being sure to cover most of your body and remove your shoes at the entrance. It was a very spiritual experience to see all of the different religious traditions that were upheld. It was like a living museum, each room hosting a different ritual.

I will have to look up what the ash on the forehead means (it's not the same as Ash Wednesday, folks!) but I was just super pleased to have been welcomed and included as a foreigner. I merely had to walk past the monks giving out the forehead art and I got one too!

This is from the outside since there were supposedly no photos allowed inside (I say "supposedly" because I have found pics online of inside...)

Me and the ladies! When an American, Canadian and 4 South Africans walk into a temple... Selfie cred to Imogen.

Our group got a bit separated right before lunch and there was a storm rolling in, so half of us made our way back to the hotel (which I was proud to be able to confidently lead us back to) and ate lunch in the lobby (they charged way too much but the alternatives were going out in the monsoon or starving).

At night we went to the ultra famous Khao San Road Market! How do I describe this experience? Well, for one thing, it is at night, every night and it is a street that gets closed off for vendors and bars and night clubs. Basically, we came to learn that anything goes on Khao San; everything from general drinking, dancing and merriment (clothes on or off), to scorpion and tarantula consumption and taser and laughing gas abuse. What's more, you can bring your kids to the show!

Normally, excessive and insane partying is really not my speed, but there was a way to be on the sidelines and just observe and I actually had a very nice time. When we were getting home however, there was a little confusion with our tuk-tuk (open air, amusement park-looking taxis) drivers who thought we wanted to go to a strip joint (I guess "hotel" and "ping-pong show" sound similar in Thai?) but we made it there safe and sound.

Today we spent the morning arriving at Hua Hin! The place where we will be doing our month of training. We all got up in over 10 giant party vans that eventually took us to the mall to exchange money and shop.