Taxis and Tuk-Tuks and Trains, Oh My!: Bangkok Public Transportation

Rick and I declared a personal rest day today so I finally have time to write up this post.  Over the last few days, we’ve experienced a lot of different things, most notably, the different modes of public transportation options available in Bangkok. 

Walking

Walking is our primary form of transportation to get from place to place.  It’s free and great exercise.  I do still suffer from minor anxiety every time I have to cross a street since most crosswalks aren’t protected by lights or signals of any sort, but I’ve found that the people living here seem to possess a preternatural sense of spatial recognition.  Motorcycles, tuk-tuks, and cars zoom past with inches to spare, often driving on the wrong side of the road in order to bypass a slower vehicle, but so far I have yet to see an accident of any sort.  Perhaps it is the slower speeds everyone drives, or the fact that the driving is ALWAYS crazy, but it seems most drivers here are super alert, effortlessly weaving their way to their destinations without running over any pedestrians like us. 

The toughest part of walking around is the constant unrelenting heat and humidity, even in the midst of a thunderstorm, the way it drains all the energy right out of me.  I can see why the Industrial Revolution sparked in a cold country like England, because I can’t seem to summon the energy for walking more than a mile before wanting to take a small siesta on the nearest bench. 

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Fuzzy Animals of Thailand

The weather here in Bangkok has been very hot & humid (no surprise, there!) with intermittent thunderstorms, so each day has been particularly draining for someone more used to the hot dry weather of LA as we are.  In fact, most days, I sympathize with these puppies:

I love all the fuzzy animals I see everywhere here.  Dogs wandering around, cats jumping from roof to roof or lazing in the shade as this one:

And one especially random gathering of well-dressed pet groundhogs in Queen Sikrit park (which made my day):

We’ve been taking it slow, reminding each other that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  Each night, we collapse into bed exhausted but excited for each day.  It’s a pretty darn good existence. 

Oh, and here’s my favorite fuzzy-hearted creature in Thailand:

And So It Begins…For Real!

I’m typing this from Bangkok, Thailand!   We’re staying at a place I found on Airbnb, a guesthouse in Bangkok off one of the side-streets.  Our host, Evan, seems nice, the little we’ve spoken to him.  He owns two beautiful green parrots and three squirrels, one of whom licked my finger with a scratchy tongue and then proceeded to attempt biting me.  After getting lost a bit on the way and struggling with our luggage over some rough (non-existent) sidewalks, it was relief to fall over onto the wide bed and sleep the rest of the day & most of the night away under the blessed A/C.  So far, all we’ve done is eat & sleep, but, then again, isn’t that the point of a vacation?

We’re off to explore on our first full day in Bangkok!

Pictures and more details to come soon!  Maybe even a video!  Also, check out Rick’s blog here, for his perspective on our trip.

Takeoff!

I set up this post the day before not knowing whether I’d get the chance to post this on the day of.  But, as of right now, we should be sitting on an airplane ON OUR WAY! 

After so much thought and planning, I can’t believe we’ve actually reached this point.  If you could see me now, I bet I’m screaming (silently, in my head, so as not to be a disruption) with excitement.  Or sleeping.  It’s always a toss-up with me. 

Please pray for our health and safety for this next year.  And that we’ll be transformed for the better. 

See you on the other side!  (Uh, hope I didn’t just jinx myself…)

Counting Down the Craziness

It’s one day before we leave and I’m a mass of contradictions.  I’m excited and scared, ready and not, yearning towards the unknown and bracing myself to miss the familiarity of everyday life. My stomach feels like it’s filled with the hot churning air of anticipation.  That’s what always kills me: the anticipation. 

I haven’t posted in a while because the last couple weeks have been insanity in-between packing, moving-out, vaccinations, and the last-minute things that always pop up in any endeavor this large.  Hopefully, I’ll have time on the long flight to Bangkok in order to get this blog up-to-date with various happenings. 

Also, Rick, my awesome husband, will be posting on his own blog.  I’ll post up the web address once he gets things to his liking.  Stay tuned!  Lots coming in the next year. 

International Driver Permits and Pop Quizzes at the DMV

Though we’re planning on taking public transportation throughout our journey, I’m of the prepare-for-everything camp so we decided to get our International Driving Permit (IDP) in case we needed to rent a car at any point in our journey.  An IDP is as it sounds:

"Although many countries do not recognize U.S. driver’s licenses, most countries accept an International Driving Permit (IDP). IDPs are honored in more than 150 countries outside the U.S… They function as an official translation of a U.S. driver’s license into 10 foreign languages. Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on Road Traffic (1949) authorizes the U.S. Department of State to empower certain organizations to issue IDPs to those who hold valid U.S. driver’s licenses. These permits are not intended to replace valid U.S. state licenses and should only be used as a supplement to a valid license. IDPs are not valid in an individual’s country of residence. An IDP is valid for one year from the effective date provided the state license is still valid throughout that period."

~from the AAA website

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Snails Triumphant: Asian Garden Night Market, Westminster, CA, USA

On a search for balut, a Filipino delicacy consisting of a fertilized duck egg, Rick stumbled across the Yelp page for Asian Garden Night Market in Westminster, CA.  That Friday night, we drove to Westminster, commonly known as Little Vietnam.  We knew we’d arrived when the scent of smoke drifted through our open car windows.  Strung lights shimmered in the dark, illuminating the three or so rows of stalls set up in the parking lot of a larger shopping center.  We parked on the street and wended our way through the crowd gathered around the stage, Vietnamese music drifting in the air. 

We’d come in search of dinner, so, aside from snapping a few photos, our feet headed straight to the food stalls along the perimeter.  So many choices.  Such limited space in our stomachs.  How could we choose?  Unable to resist the glorious combination of meat and grease, we settled on pork skewers as our amuse bouche.  The older men manning the grills barely spared us a look as they shoved two pork skewers in a folded-up paper plate.  A younger man took our money with a distracted smile.  The skewers were burnt black on both ends and oil spots dotted the paper plate.  The pork tasted like sweet marinated heaven, warm and savory against my tongue.  While our teeth finagled all last remaining morsels off the stick without impaling our throats with the pointed end of the stick, we browsed the other non-food stalls.  Many sold discount clothing and sparkly discounted jewelry.  A large toy stall at the end provided children with boxes of tiny paper-wrapped packets that, when thrown on the ground, made loud cracks of sound.  Throughout our whole time there, not once did the symphony of sharp sound-bursts stop, the ground littered with discarded white papers.  A stall full of elegant bonsai stood near another one demonstrating a lemon juice spritzer, the owner watching each passerby with speculative eyes. 

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Protection Against Bad Luck: Notes on Travel Insurance

Protection as hard as a crab’s shell. 

One of the first things I wrote down on my to-do list when we started to plan out the trip was “get travel insurance”.  Travel Insurance is an insurance product that covers travel expenses if certain calamities  related to travelling happen: losing a laptop on a bus, missing a connecting flight, cancelling a hotel reservation due to sickness, evacuation if a dangerous situation crops up for tourists, etc.

Getting a quote

In my search for the best travel insurance, I found myself often stymied by the initial step of trying to get a quote.  Company after company asked me questions I had no answers to, refusing to let me proceed before I provided them with what they believed to be mandatory information.  The biggest issue I kept running into was the flexible nature of our trip.

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Waste Not, Want Not

Time is rushing by faster and faster with each passing day.  I’ve delayed time and again typing up blog posts because I simply don’t have the time to sit down, think things through, and put into words everything we’re in the middle of preparing.  We’ve reached the awkward stage in our moving process where everything’s half-finished and everything’s a mess.  We have half-packed boxes in the living room (2 boxes done!  woot!), papers in towering piles waiting to be sorted through, and a rapidly emptying kitchen.  Any purchase we make is with the full knowledge that in less than a month, it’s must be used, packed, given away, or thrown away. 

Rick had decreed a ban on all non-perishable purchases and frozen foods.  "We have to finish everything we already have in the freezer and cupboards before we buy anymore," he reasoned, Which makes sense and is all very good, until my stomach’s craving a quick midnight snack and there’s nothing to eat in the fridge except a shriveled head of cabbage, one potato, half an onion, some frozen-stiff porkchops, a bag of unidentified frozen specimens of the animal kingdom, a jar of mayo, and some questionable leftovers that may or may not have achieved sentience.  And no open supermarkets to remedy the lack.  (I can just hear my mom saying how this situation is very good for my diet)  Oh, how I mourned when I finished off my bags of frozen dumplings, frozen taquitos, and frozen ravioli.    After extensive use of puppy-dog eyes, Rick has relented a bit in terms of snacking.  Plus, thanks to daily visits to the supermarket, we have a never-ending supply of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Yay, healthy!  

I suggested the fabulous idea of a leftovers party to a number of friends and family, but was soundly rejected by all but two.  A leftovers party is when one gets a bunch of daring people together to create gastronomic delights out of the remains of one’s cupboard/fridge before gorging everything down.  Intriguing premise, no?  Sadly, the remains of our kitchen do not interest most people. 

As I watch the pepper shaker reach alarmingly low levels, the soy sauce dwindle, and the ketchup bottle make rather pornographic sounds, I realize how perfectly illustrative this is of our current limbo.  So close to the end, but just far enough to give me fits.

Harry Potter Dinosaurs and Space Monkeys-Discovery Science Center, Santa Ana, CA, USA

My phone buzzed with a text message in the middle of the day stating "…any plans this Sunday?  BofA free museum weekend this weekend!".  My eyes lit up.  Free.  Museum.  Uh, yes please!  Through the flurry of ensuing texts and a phone call from A.Y. when he took pity on my pathetic text messaging plan, we decided on the Discovery Science Center.  That second Sunday in July, after church, A.Y. drove over to our apartment to pick me up.  Rick declined our grand scientific exploration in light of his recent ocular surgery, lying with sunglasses in our dark living room like some mysterious vampire. 

When we arrived at the parking lot, we goggled at the huge black cube hanging off the side and the rocket pointing straight up the sky.  Then further shocked when we discovered the free parking, normally $4.  Free admission ($15.95/adult) plus free parking.  A savings of practically $36.  Our Asian hearts wiggled in glee.  We passed a large contraption clanking in perpetual motion on our way to the front counter.  Whipping out our Bank of America debit cards, we compared old pictures taken a decade ago and told each other we hadn’t aged a day.  The woman at the front barely glanced at the pictures before handing us our tickets. 

Waist-height kids ran every which way, narrowly missing our legs.  A science presentation started off in the corner and we stayed to watch for about five minutes before all the other displays around distracted us.  We busied ourselves building fortifications for an exhibit of castles sponsored by Lego, then wandered through to the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit.  There, we poked and prodded everything we could touch and peered closely at everything we weren’t allowed to touch.  I became motivated to work harder, surrounded by the physical manifestation of a single man’s thoughts.  If he only had twenty-four hours in a day and lived a normal lifespan (by our standards), then I had no excuse for whining about how little time I had to accomplish my dreams. 

We climbed to the second floor, the stairs guarded by a fascinating harp with invisible strings.  The second floor contained all the year-round exhibits.  We pinballed through all of them, exclaiming over each one, then distracted by the next.  A large sphere hung in the middle of a corner room, video projected on it so that it changed from moment to moment, from Jupiter to Saturn to the hurricane patterns or the turtle migrations of Earth.  For a long time, we sat on the benches set along the perimeter, watching the globe change color and resting our aching feet.  

A.Y. herded me towards the huge dinosaur land outside, and we braved the hot afternoon sun walking through the innards of a brontosaurus.  We watched children rushing around to various objects set around the area, tapping them with a plastic wand.  Sometimes the object moved, revealing the delicate tracings of a fossil or a hidden crystal.  Sometimes, the object blared out, "This is not part of your quest," startling the poor child into dashing off again.  I wondered if the students at Hogwarts would’ve studied dinosaurs in a similar manner.  Finally, the hot sun took its toll on me and we took shelter inside the big black cube surrounded by the explosive whooshes of water rockets shooting high.  The walls of the cube were perforated, so we could stare out at the busy patterns of the freeway. 

Near closing time, we made our way back inside.  A.Y. laughed as I created a stop motion film involving two astronauts and a space monkey a la 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Ending our adventure through a fake plastic supermarket, we found it a good transition back into the real world. 

Details: 

Bank of America Museums on US
First FULL weekend of each month
Museum hours vary

**This Travel Tale is part of the Summer California Series, where we try to enjoy all the goodies Southern California has to offer before we take off on our trip.