Bangkok

At a hostel on Rambuttri Road. I am trying to read while I wait for Jake to return from getting his 30-baht haircut, but I am feeling too expressive to intake someone else's words.

Bangkok continues to be the best place on Earth. I liked Korea while I was there - the food was fun and the country was surprisingly easy to navigate - but it doesn't hold a candle to Thailand. Here, all pleasures in excess (food drink, cheerfulness, heat). I am loving life, and especially the food.

Jake and my first meal was at Chote Chitr, where we overate the crispy noodles, green curry, and fried fish, then topped ourselves off with our favorite street dessert of heavily buttered bread and bananas (see last post in Thailand for reference to very same meal).

Yesterday we visited Thammasat, where, as I was munching on my gloriously-simple-but-all-time-favorite-Thammasat-meal of chicken, rice, and spices, I was accosted by Pam, the old exchange coordinator. She looks the same and said that after I left Thammasat started getting many students from UT, as many as 14 in one semester. When I studied abroad, I was the sole representative from the entire southern United States. (Perhaps I can attribute the rise in UT exchange students to the huge poster of Meris and Lily paying alms to the Thai monks in Ayutthaya hanging outside the UT BBA exchange office?)

Today we made a trip to the old tailor's, where Jake is getting three new shirts made. I didn't want to because of the hassle and the fact that my job does not requre collared button-ups, but sure enough, I found a navy blue I liked, and before I knew it I was coughing up the less than $30 for a custom-made shirt. It turned out to be no hassle at all, because the tailor keeps everyone's measurements and what they have bought in the past in a big scrapbook with little samples of cloth taped directly on to the pages. When he pulled out my file, there they were - the sheer white, bright blue, and light pink swatches of cloth my shirts were made of two years ago.

Then came the remeasuring. While my waist seems to have stayed put, my hips have expanded by a full five centimeters. The Thai/Indian man taking my measurements laughed and said, "You need to run!" Sigh, only in Thailand is that sort of comment endearing.

Got to go. My bowels have quickly returned to the state they were in when I left!

First few days in Pattaya

Greetings from Bangkok!

First, the flight was really easy. I got bumped up to first class on one of the legs (Houston to Seattle), which was super cool. First class, which I have never been on before, has its own restroom, coat closet, tons of leg room, and instead of the cart that gets pushed down the aisle one time, all the flight attendants serve you the whole time, constantly refilling your drink. Oh, and the alcohol and headphones for the movie are free, so I had two glasses of red wine and fell asleep. Not. Bad.

Anyway, upon arriving in Thailand and figuring out that I was once again the victim of an airline that lost my luggage, I tried to explain that to the more official-looking people at the airport. Most spoke no English at all. When I did find an airport employee with broken English, he would ask me the color of my bag and then walk me over to the carousel to help me look for it, thinking I just couldn't see my bag. I was simultaneously frustrated and amused, and took many pains to try to explain that I had definitely looked at all the luggage going round, it was definitely not there, and I definitely needed to file a report. Eventually I found the right person, and it came two days later. I was prepared to do without luggage, since with three flights I figured it would get lost in there somewhere, so I was fine. (Remember Mexico?? That was a mess!!)

Tyler's family is absolutely amazing. From the minute I got there they thrust me into tons of really fun activities. The activities were:

1. I got "Thai-lights" in my hair, which are very thin pieces of gold strings tied into two pieces of hair all around my head. I really like them because they're similar to my hair color, and they catch the light really beautifully. All the Thais have them, except most of them do more adventurous colors, like red and blue. You can get any color, really.

2. I got an hour and a half aromatherapy massage on my very first day. Unfortunately, it was at 9 p.m. Thailand time, and I fell asleep. Jet lag has been a bitch.

3. I ate my first very spicy Thai meal. It was seafood with squid and shrimp and tons of other stuff. Couldn't finish because it was so spicy, but soooo yummy.

4. I don't know how to describe this, but I jumped off of a 56 story building on a cable. I was attached to the cable, which stretched at a diagonal to the ground, by a harness. It was incredibly terrifying, not helped by having to sign a note prior to jumping that said I couldn't sue them if I died.

5. I went to an "ice bar," which is a bar literally entirely made of ice. For 500 baht for boys (girls free), the bar gives you a fur coat and gloves to walk in with, and all drinks are free. 500 baht is about $15. The bar is made of ice, as are the seats and shot glasses they give you, and after you take a shot you're supposed to smash the shot glass on the ground. Super fun, let me tell you.

Here's a picture of us at the ice bar:


Those are just the concrete activities. It's about 85 degrees here and sunny, so one of my favorite things to do was just to sit by the Cummins' pool. They live in a beautiful high rise condo that overlooks their entire beach town and is on the beach, but has an "infiniti pool," which when you're in it looks like you could swim out to the ocean. They've were really amazing to take me in. The restaurants we went to were wonderful, especially the one we went to for New Year's last night. It was a set price for the fanciest, most expansive buffet I've ever seen. Sushi to my heart's content, as well as everything else I could have wanted. I almost tried pigeon, in fact. I would have but by that time I was just too full.

After dinner the parents went back to the condo to see the fireworks with their view, and Tyler, his brother, his brother's friend and I walked along the beach. Crowded as hell, let me tell you, but the atmosphere here is so nice. It's crowded beyond belief and has absolutely the worst traffic I've seen, but there's no anger to it. There's no honking or yelling. Anyway, we eventually found a place to sit on a metal box by the street that had a "Danger: High Voltage" sign on it. I was scared but it was okay and really the only place to sit. Now, the fireworks started going off about two days before New Year's, because in Thailand New Year's is the biggest holiday, but as we got closer and closer to midnight they got incredibly intense. And without pesky American regulations, they were in our faces. Full sized fireworks shot up just high enough that they would burn out before they hit the trees, but not higher. It was incredible!! I think I'm deaf now, and it's not to say we weren't in any danger, because in the time we sat on that box there were two misfires, and I'm willing to bet people got hurt. One exploded in the street in front of a car, and the other exploded on the beach sort of sideways. But other than that it was amazing. At one point the electricity went out, which enhanced everything else.

Pattaya on New Year's:



One last thing about the New Year's celebration: My favorite, more subtle celebration was that people would light these really pretty helium filled bags, which would fly off into the sky. There would be a dozen or so at a time, but they were impossible to capture with my camera, so I'll just have to remember them.

Up to that point I was not homesick in the least, then yesterday (New Year's Day), as my stay at the Cummins' wound down, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach, and it more or less stayed that way until today, when they dropped me off at my hostel. On my own in Bangkok! I cried as I hugged them goodbye, because staying with them was just a vacation. This is reality.

After I got settled into my hostel I walked around, but was really too scared of getting lost to go very far. The street food, which looked so delectable in Pattaya, while I was eating with the Cummins at fancy restaurants, now looked heavy and homogenous. The street vendors, whom I adored before, now seemed too pushy.

I calmed my nerves by having a beer on the street and people-watching, then buying a Thai bag for 120 baht, the equivalent of less than four dollars. I'm in my hostel's room now, watching tv and writing this, and soon I'm going to hit the street again for dinner.