Thailand Travelogue: Continued

Yeah, tonsillectomy... hm. Not exactly a walk in the park. You're VERY uncomfortable for the first five days. You're dehydrated because it hurts like heck to swallow anything at all for the first three days. You force yourself to eat something soft by the fourth day because the doc said you should, only to find out that he actually knew what he was talking about; I think all the muscles in my mouth and throat had atrophied from disuse! Those first couple bites were a major workout and, even now that I've been getting some food down for a few days, I still have a limit on how much chewing I can do before I'm worn out! Good thing my stomach shrank or I would be perpetually hungry. Funny thing is that I could only tolerate super cold stuff the first couple days (e.g. popsicles, even an iced coffee) but suddenly by about the third day anything cold hurt too much. Weird, huh? Now I can have nothing but lukewarm, non-spicy, and not too chewy stuff (mm-mmm... yum!). I better have lost some weight for all this effort!

My mom and I, and sometimes my dad, have been doing some touring around Bangkok the last few days now that I am able to handle being out and about all day again. We've been seeing mostly old Bangkok lately which is a welcome change from the incredible traffic and smog of the rest of the city. Traveling by river taxi is fun! Traveling by the smaller long-tailed taxis is much faster but rather painful for the person sitting in front. That was me the first time, by the way. Every jolt across the wakes left by other boats made me think my innards were going to disconnect! Sunday we went to an island where they specialize in making pottery and got to see the process which is mesmerizing. I watched one fellow make a simple pot about ten times! They must have very strong hands to handle that heavy clay so easily.

Today, my mom and I ventured into Chinatown. That gave a newer definition to my recently redefined concept of walking in tight spaces with a bustling crowd! We walked down Sampaeng Lane (really more of an alley) and browsed around the different stalls for a while, which consisted mostly of beads, textiles, and nail clippers. Every so often a courier on a motorcycle or delivery trolley would rush by as everybody jumped out of the way. One fellow there really struck a chord with me. He was hopping around on a pair of crutches and one good leg, selling nail clippers, scissors, etcetera which dangled from his hat, shirt, belt, and pants. Instead of trying to look as pitiful as possible like most of the handicapped beggars I've seen, he had a smile on his face and sang whenever he wasn't selling something. I liked him a lot.

We also saw the Erawan Shrine before the evening was over. It was built right on a busy intersection in the middle of town because some astrologer told the people building a hotel that they had begun on a bad day according to the celestial bodies. In order not to bring upon themselves a curse they were required to set up this shrine on the corner as well as a spirit house within the hotel. The shrine is unique because not only are there the usual people offering prayer and incense but also some Thai dancers and a band of musicians. You can buy dances of different duration from the troop as your offering to the shrine. We watched a few of them. The person who bought the dance offering would kneel in front of the troop facing the shrine. The dancers knelt and sang a prayer before performing a traditional dance. The dancing was pretty but kind of weird too to have this Buddhist idol on a street corner for worship. Some of the people who bought the prayers were serious about their offering but a couple of them did it more for the photo opportunity than anything.

This Friday I fly back to Michigan. Then I have the weekend to recover from jet lag and move to my new apartment before school starts again on Monday. Sound like fun? You betcha. I can't believe my visit is almost over. It has been nice to spend so much time with my parents even if a third of it was spent in major discomfort.

Thailand Travelogue: Of Summaries and Surgeries

I write to you a smaller man than I was a couple nights ago - two tonsils smaller to be precise. My parents decided Thailand was probably as good a place as any to get them out so we did it. With the amount of discomfort I'm in right now though, I'm not yet convinced it was worth it. It seems like I just traded a bunch of little crypts for a couple of painfully sore gaping caverns in the back of my mouth. I hope it was worth it.
We spent most of last week in Chiangmai, northern Thailand, which is definitely the idyllic and beautiful part of Thailand I had hoped to see - even if it is a big tourist trap! The area was rural, lush, and green, the air was much cooler and of course we were outside of big busy ol' Bangkok (which I may have taken a slight disliking to - it's so noisy and full of smog). In fact we couldn't have timed it better because their annual floods came early this year and took everyone by surprise with chest high water just the day after we left. Turns it this year was the worst flood they've had in over eighty years. The guest house where we stayed must have gotten flooded too as the night market was just down the way from us and they were on the news for the flooding. Sadly, though, there have been some casualties and they are still underwater out there.
While we were there though we did the whole thing, we: visited Buddhist temples on the top of mountains, saw traditional dance presentations, rode elephants and bamboo rafts, saw people working the rice fields, hiked through forest and saw some rural villages, cruised the river by our guest house, watched jewelry, paper fans, and silk being made, bargained at the night market, etc. I was so worn out by the time we came back to Bangkok! But that evidently wasn't enough as my mom and I shopped ALL DAY Saturday at the biggest marketplace I have every seen (maybe the biggest in the world).
This week there is a Harvest conference for some Burmese students here in Bangkok. We attended a couple hours on Monday. My mom and I tried attending today, Wednesday, as my dad starts his portion of the teaching but I didn't make it past noon before I was in major discomfort from the tonsillectomy and just had to go home. I wish I could have heard more of the guy Monday and Tuesday as he was from FHI (Food for the Hungry International) and apparently discussed stuff that could have been applicable to medical missions but I had a small bout with traveler's diarrhea which gave us the idea to pay the hospital a visit about the tonsils, where I ended up staying Monday night for in-patient surgery. The hospital is huge and feels almost more like a mall in that they have a huge food court and you have to go to different sections to see doctors that specialize in what you need. They have a lot of people who come to Thailand from the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere expressly for the purpose of getting cheap(er) medical care. I think it is called medical tourism - where you can get a package deal for plane tickets, hotel, and hospital visit. The waiting areas were full of ladies with all but their eyes covered in pitch black fabric. I shared my room with an older Arab fellow who wasn't coherent while I was there but his son, however, was rather friendly and chatted with me a bit before my surgery. This was my first experience getting full anesthesia... I guess there isn't much to it: the first drugs go into your IV, your eyes cross, they put the mask over your face and you wake up in the OR recovery room unable to lift a finger and choking on a breathing tube! Not really pretty either as my throat was paralyzed for quite a while and I couldn't swallow. I went twenty four hours without food and am on nothing but liquids now for another couple of days. Sniff... poor me...

Thailand Travelogue: First Impressions

No, I have not recovered from jet lag yet. It is almost 8pm right now and I feel like I've been up all night! My parents and I have been doing a lot of shopping these first couple of days for office odds and ends. Bangkok has an entire 5-story mall dedicated to computers and related paraphernalia; I think Asians like technology more than even we westerners do! One thing I keep noticing is that most people here in the city wear earbuds. I can’t tell whether they like to be connected to their cell phones at all times (everybody has cell phones and they use them often) or they are listening to music. Maybe both – aren’t some cell phones able to double as mp3 players now?

To say that Bangkok is a bustling metropolis doesn’t cut it. The city is packed - bursting at the seams! I could never drive here. Today our taxi got in a fender bender with another taxi. This must happen often enough though because they simply pulled over, inspected the damage, and our driver flagged down another taxi to take us while they figured it out. No one seemed very upset. If I were driving, on the other hand, I would have a nervous breakdown just trying to take a turn! Of course, such fear and hesitation would guarantee me an accident right then and there anyway so I’d have good reason to be scared spitless.

And boy is there a lot of people. You feel too large and clumsy to walk around without bumping into stuff or people. One can be overly courteous too; I quickly found that letting someone by means I can’t move for a couple minutes as fifty people stream by. You simply assert yourself – walk wherever you’re going to walk and it all starts to work so much better! Don’t even think about wanting personal space.

As can be expected when so many people live in such close proximity, there is an assortment of smells to assault the senses everywhere you go, such as: dirty dogs, food, sewer, flowers, body odor, perfume, car exhaust, etc. I’m amazed that the street food vendors can make a living. I'd have a hard time being interested in even the best looking food when I can smell the sewer near by but people either don’t care or are used to it. But they also don’t seem to mind eating right next to a busy street! Sometimes you can feel the grit from car exhausts hit you in the eyes yet you see people calmly eating away right next to traffic. Amazing. Some people do care about the fumes though. Most of the street policemen and other people who have to work by the road all the time wear those white face masks that you always see in the pictures. The ones I don't get are the nose masks! How on earth is a little piece of paper that isn't even sealed well over your nose going to help filter out the air you breathe?
And they like to keep everything open too. E.g. the stores aren't sectioned off by walls - you're walking a long through the mall and next thing you know, you're in one of the stores. And the restaurants are often just sectioned off spaces. We ate lunch literally at a table on the walkway right next to shoppers passing by.

Yeah, Bangkok is neither green nor romantic. It is a bustling city; foreign and Asian in many ways but familiar to experiences I've had in others. They took a lot of ideas from Britain I think, even though they never were a British colony. E.g. driver on the right side of the car (and drive on the left side of the road). Plugs and electricity same as England also. Surprisingly, my brain hasn't tried to speak Spanish (my mom keeps saying pesos instead of baht when referring to money); instead I keep trying to speak what little Hungarian I learned last summer!! Weird, don't you think? Or not, I guess, as that was my last international experience. Well, that is all for now. My parents are waiting to play scrabble (if I can stay awake).
Ever seen a squat pot before?

Thailand Travelogue: The Beginnings

Here begins a travel log of my first visit to Thailand on the pretense of seeing my parents during an all-too-short (three week) summer break from school. Thailand has been at the top of my list of places to go in this lifetime for quite some time now probably thanks to the 1999 film, Anna and the King, as well as thanks to a couple of my friends who got to go at about that time and told enough stories to awaken anyone’s curiosity!
Let me begin my tale with a pre-flight anecdote. As many of you know, I am a master procrastinator. Therefore one cannot be surprised this outing was preceded by the usual problem that plagues last minute air travel: a dearth of reasonably priced flights. In fact, three grand was the first rate I saw! After some casting about though, I discovered a gem that I think is worthy of sharing with all of you: hotwire.com. They beat the next lowest quote I could find for a round trip to Bangkok by a few hundred dollars! What’s the catch, you ask? Well, they do not tell you what airline you get or the flight time until after you purchase the tickets. They do, however, have a list of the airlines they use so at least you know what you won’t get; plus they let you know whether you fly AM, PM or redeye as well as the number of stops. Armed with those clues and my clever powers of deduction, I figured out the airline and the times from flights given on other travel websites. Pretty clever bit of detective work, eh? :o) WHAT?! No? Oh, fine. Say what you may, I still think it was a stroke of genius – and I bought the ticket.
So with my bank account not as badly drained as it could have been, with my bags not packed to the hilt, and with myself most definitely not unexcited, this adventure begins on the 4th of August with the 22 hour sitting marathon that is the transpacific flight to Thailand via a layover in Tokyo. Of that entire episode all I have to say is, why on earth does it have to be so grueling to sit all day? You’d think your body would conserve its resources with all that rest so that you can be a fountain of energy when you finally arrive. I mean, it works with kids during car travel doesn’t it? Sadly, we all know such is not the case with anyone older than eleven and, by the time I arrived at the Bangkok airport at midnight on the 5th, I definitely suffered the effects of sitting for so long. You know what nerdy thought kind of redeems it all though? The fact that after a year of medical school I actually have a decently thorough understanding of the body dynamics involved in leaving me feeling so crumby! The waning novelty of that thought will most likely not buoy me patiently through the return flight though; some other measures possibly involving chemical substances will have to be taken at that point in time. For now I am excited to see my parents again and to be in Thailand, the land of “Anna and the King”!