Tag: Birthday

You all are owed a Hong Kong post. I’ll try to get to that, but I feel this one is best to write fresh, because it’s been a doozy of two days. Let’s start on October 21st.

Khao San Road is the most famous street in Bangkok. When you think of sin and excess and ladyboys, you’re thinking of Khao San. It’s about a 10 minute walk from our hostel, which was intentional, because prices are good here and entertainment is clearly easy to find. Bangkok is a great many things, including a highly religious city with ornate golden temples and Buddhist monks in their beautiful orange draped robes walking the streets, but it’s known for the sin. We’re old, we don’t need much sin any more, so we’re here to witness sin more than imbibe it (save a few beers, of course!).

Earlier in the day we had went to a shopping mall, a huge monstrosity that has shops as you’d expect, with stores and walls and whatnot, but also vendors set up in an open style floor plan packing in as many people selling as much cheap crap as you can imagine.  We know the rules here in Thailand, to truly be respectful, you have to wear pants that cover your knees or more and shirts that cover your shoulders. The outfits on Khao San aren’t what you’d call respectful, but they’re not expected to be. You can wear little to nothing and be OK there. If we’re to go to the famous temples we need to dress properly. So, after trying to get vaccinated and forgetting our all important passports, we decided to skip the heat, get into the mall, and buy some clothing items that show the proper respect Thailand deserves. Jason didn’t find much, but I grabbed two scarves, one shirt, and one pair of long pants that are very common here in Thailand. They’re light material, open and free flowing, and have elastic on the bottoms so they don’t drag on the ground. All this for about $15 USD and lunch for the two of us for about $4 USD. Pretty good!

Now back to Khao San, where our heroes are taking pictures, drinking beers in the streets, and getting ready to sit down to a nice meal of Pad Thai (a national dish) for again about $3 – 4 USD.  My camera is my phone (something I now am seriously considering changing) and so I often have it out taking shots of damn near everything. Wearing my new Thailand approved pants, I snap this picture below (didn’t realize how bad it was) and slide the phone back into my pant’s pocket. Well, these new pockets aren’t really phone approved and it slides right out and into the wet wash puddle that you see below. Whoops! Phones and waters don’t mix! Happy birthday to Jen!

I scramble to grab the phone as quickly as possible and RIP my pants in the process. HUGE HOLE! UGH! Jason, being the sweet man that he is, immediately jumps up and tries to find rice from the nearby 7-11. Meanwhile, I’m taking napkins (thank GOD this place has them, so many don’t) and trying my best to clean the dirt water off my phone. This is wash water that the street vendors use to clean their food dishes. It’s nasty. My phone starts freaking out. Turning off and back on again. It’s going into cardiac arrest. Jason returns with the rice and a flimsy plastic bag. Immediately, we empty the rice into the bag and deposit the seizing phone. I try to get rice all over it and massage it around and, of course, the bag tears a hole and now rice is coming out. Great. All the while I’m angry/upset and taking it out on Jason (not fair of me). He’s upset because I’m upset. The server finally comes to our table to take our order and I tell him I don’t want to eat, I want to go back, I’m so done with the night.

I storm home, Jason in toe, and go straight to our room. I transfer the bag to a better, stronger bag and pray. I’m still upset and Jason is too, so he leaves for a walk around to block to cool down. I brush my teeth, read some post on the internet about how life could be so much worse, and go to bed feeling guilty for how immature and upset I was over this stupid piece of property.

In the morning it’s my birthday. I’m not well. Physically, I’m fine, but emotionally I’m drained and depressed. Birthdays are kind of stupid. They’re suppose to be your special day and that level of expectation always leads to disappointment. I wake up at 6:00 a.m. and write Jason an apology letter. I see my mom has given me a sweet birthday tribute on Facebook. I’m crying. I’m up till 8:00 when I crawl back into bed to see if I can sleep and give Jason a cuddle. He accepts it, which is more than I can ask for after being nasty to him, but I still can’t sleep. I think of my family and friends. I think of my dad. I miss those that I love and wonder, “What the hell am I doing here?”. Before I left I knew my birthday would be difficult and I’m proving myself right in the moment.

Eventually, after being up and down and up again I do fall back asleep for a few hours. I wake up, tell Jason how sorry I am, cry some more, for a long time, and then eventually get the strength to go out for the day. Depression feeds on stillness and quiet. It wants you to sit and wallow. When you move, it helps move it away from the foreground and into the background. I suffered from clinical depression for years as a teenager. I recovered after finding some purpose in life in my mid-twenties and thankfully didn’t require medication, but I still know what depression looks and feels like and I certainly felt some of that on my birthday. Long term travel can be tough; I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but at least you’re afforded the opportunity to experience something new every day you want to. Far later in the day than I had originally planned we did just that, we left to experience something new and see a sculpture garden in a museum.

Entering the main road from our neighborhood we swam in a sea of people wearing all black. We’d been in Thailand for days and had seem many wearing black, but not to this degree. We trudged, slowly, so slowly that when Google said it would take 10 minutes it took nearly 20 to get near our destination. All black. Merchants sold black clothing on the street for those not prepared. Food stalls fed Thai people all manner of eats. Free water and bread was given out. It was hot, but the people wore black. We did not, and so we felt out of place, but knew we’d be forgiven or at best ignored as tourists. Traffic was stopped. People were out of cars as there was no hope of moving for some time, but they packed into buses waiting for them to pick back up again so they didn’t miss their chance to move from the crowds. These crowds, in numbers we’ve never witnessed, were later estimated between 150,000 to 250,000. We had no idea it would be like this. A true moment in history is taking place here and we, by pure chance, have the honor and privilege of witnessing and taking part in it (video from yesterday as pictures do no justice).

We never made it to the sculpture garden, but I don’t think we could have even if we tried. It was located through the masses and this was clearly more important than seeing some carved rocks. We did grab lunch, pad thai from a street vendor on the same property that a McDonald’s is on, then headed back to the hostel to rest till going out for birthday dinner and drinks.

Months ago, when we booked our stay in Bangkok, we planned to go to Mikkeller for my birthday. It’s a special Western treat of amazing craft beer and rich foods we couldn’t get elsewhere. Getting to the restaurant was a journey in itself. We’ve relied on Google Maps so much that when they aren’t accurate it really throws us. After some serious tech issues we did finally make it on the bus, paid our 6.50 bhat (about $.20 USD) and asked the attendant who takes the money if we were going in the right direction, just to be sure. Google said we’d be able to take the bus most of the way, which was great because it was raining and a long walk wasn’t what either of us wanted. The attendant eventually seemed to say sure and we settled in. At least GPS works without WiFi, so we could follow along the route to make sure we were heading the right way. As we’re nearing an expected turn the attendant seems to indicate we should get off. We know we’re suppose to go further, but maybe the bus is doing something different today (who knows around here) so we jump off and start walking. We’re still over a mile from the bar, but we figure better to get off than go the wrong way. After about 15 minutes we see a bus stop with our bus number on it, and then a bus, in the right direction that we were heading…. We didn’t need to get off, but oh well, onward we go.

Mikkeller couldn’t have put themselves in more of a dark back alley if they wanted. Shrouded in trees we were sure we were lost over and over again. After nearly giving up twice we see a the light and the familiar cartoons of the Mikkeller brand. Wow… What a trip! You can’t really see my face here… but man was I done! 

When we got in, all was well. The food was amazing (so much richer than we’ve been eating!) the beer was superb, and the service was lovely. They had coloring books and colored pencils and so, of course, I had to color! My favorite. At some point I say to Jason, “This is really expensive, I wonder if they don’t take credit cards.” He says, “They can’t expect you to carry thousands of bhat around. They’re an international establishment. They have to take credit cards. If they don’t I’d be insulted.” Well, they do, but just not tonight. I was heading to the bar to get one final birthday beer when I see a “No c/c. Sorry” sign. I said, “You guys don’t take credit cards?” The server says, “No, we do, but the machine is down right now. I’m working on it.” OK…. I refrain from getting another beer to not rack up more tab and tell Jason the news. The bar is never able to get the machine working while we’re there and, long story short, we left with Mikkeller’s banking information and no charge (thus far) for our most expensive meal. Oh Bangkok…. (that’s the name of the hostel next door to us too. Now I know why.)

At least there’s Uber here! We had a really nice ride with a great English speaking Thai person who told us about his province in Thailand and gave us some free lessons in Thai. I learned how to properly say thank you and hello (I was saying them wrong before, of course). Jason gave a tip and still the ride was about $4 USD for 6 miles. Whew! We tried to get one more beer at the 7-11 when we got back, but it was after midnight and so Bangkok was telling us it was time to call it quits.

We still have more days here in Bangkok and then Thailand itself. Chiang Mai is next. Then, we go to Malaysia next month. The journey continues! Thanks for listening! ลาก่อน (goodbye in Thai)