Thursday, May 27, 2010

One Night In Bangkok


On Tuesday morning 5:30am I woke up to embark on my summer adventure. My beautiful and perfectly lovely in every way future room-mate drove me to the airport where I hopped on an Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle to meet Rachel Faller, the owner and founder of KeoK'jay (http://www.keokjay.org/file/Home.html) the amazing organization and store I will be helping out with/working at this summer. Of course it just so happens that on Monday afternoon, I was still under the impression I would be leaving on Wednesday… only the day after I was booked to leave Seattle and head on over to Cambodia… no big deal. So once the panic attack and the abundant apologies to the rents had finished, I calmly and as collectedly as a person with one days notice for a ten-week trip to Asia could be, jumped on board: with a Backpack (generously lent to me my the wonderful Mankers,) A carry on, two cameras, and of course: Seal. The debate over Seal ended up being a short one. The very second I rashly decided that bringing him was a bad idea. I turned around and said “haha yeah right!” So. Seal and I met Rachel in Seattle at our gate, and the seemingly life long comparison of us pretty much solidified. We both had dawned grey v-necks, jeans, brown leather sandals, KeoK’jay bracelets, and perfectly matching pixie cuts. We laughed about that one for a bit. Aaaaand 17 hours, 4 movies, sparatic naps, boy talk, yummy and not so yummy plane food, and 1 aching back later we landed in Bangkok international airport. So we got in at about 11:30pm and after hearing from many locals, business people, and tourists alike that Bangkok was indeed safe for travelers despite the recent political upset, we stashed our bags at the airport bag check, and camped out amid stray travelers taking naps, listening to ipods, and reading, including a very picturesque string of five or six guys backpacking boys resting up before their own great adventure. We planned on trying to take a nap (fail) until about 4am when we would hop a cab to the city, hang out for a bit, shop, get some vender food, and then return to the airport for our 2:00 flight to Phnom Penh. It only took us until about 3:30am to realize that both of our computers seemed to think it was Thursday. Trying to play it off as just a blip in the time difference, we didn’t want to freak out about the fact that our flight was booked for Wednesday… Quickly did some math in our heads. And well, time is a very funny thing, and when you fly for 17 hours and then land with a 12 hour time difference… you pretty much a loose an entire day. And one look at the monitors told us that indeed it was Thursday… Yeah… flight missed, and sadly unlike my Seattle flight, this blip was not quite caught it time. What are the odds, we both make the exact same mistake on the same trip and both ended up loosing the exact same amount of money in our blunders. Moral of the story: Tory and Rachel are really good travelers. Especially put together. Ok, so booking new flights to Phnom Penh was 6,500 Baht. Roughly $230ish. We said “okay, we’ll be back,” and went to look for other options. Trying to make this now long story a bit shorter, we decided to take a taxi to the Thai/Cambodian border at Poipet for 3,000 Baht. Our surprisingly kind cab driver provided a smooth ride and a quick stop for some genuine roadside Thai food, where for about $2.50 I got a good serving of pork and rice. I thought my tongue was going to burn out of my mouth right there and for about a good hour after… but it was really good non the less!! It’s funny how Thai food in America is fairly bland, but in Thailand it is most definitely not! So sadly didn’t venture into the city, but got to see some great countryside and secured my visa at the border (that was interesting…and hot) and then grabbed a cab with these two other girls, students from Taipei (I think?) To head to Siem Reap. Bikram Yoga has nothing to Southeast Asia let me tell you! Jeans, disastrous idea, sweaty sweat sweat sweaty. Gross. Anyway, cab two… not quite as legit. No AC (whatever)…but he mentioned something about hurring to the car so the police wouldn’t see… and there were three rather small, perfectly circular holes amid a large crack covering the windshield….hmmmm, but good rate, nice enough, and away we went. No trouble at all. So he took us all the way to Siem Reap for $30 split between all four of us. So here we are staying at Smily’s! A small guest house that Rachel often stays at while she is working at/on her Siem Reap store. $5 a night for the two of us. Nice rooms, no AC, internet (though slow,) a beautiful view of rooftops and a great center garden. Rachel knows all the locals at the rest house, and it’s so fun to watch her interact with them, and hear her speak Khmer so well. They, as well as many many others throughout the day, first asked if we were sisters: “no but like sisters” and then described us as a local saying “Same same but different.” I think that’s pretty appropriate. Us and the girls we met got some bikes and went into the town. Riding a bike here is so great. Not only does it help me forget how absolutely disgusting I look, and trick my mind into thinking I’m a cute Anthropologie add, but it’s much cooler than walking (not that that means cool) and you get a wonderfully paced view of the surroundings. Traffic here is much like Bostonian pedestrians. You go when you go, and hope for the best. So, it was alright and I felt right at home. We went to get some delicious cheap food, and then walked around the few really cool ally’s in Siem Reap, including the best one, which is also home to Rachel’s second store Circle, where she sells her KeoK’jay products as well as the products of her Circle business partner. I can honestly say I walked in, and it took every inch of me to not but absolutely everything in the store. It’s spectacular. Everything from the décor and ambiance to the products and their displays. There are probably three or four really great boutiques here, and it was super fun walking around and drooling over everything! I’m going to have to be careful what I buy here, because unlike the market, these boutique items are more expensive, meaning completely average for American prices. I did go ahead and buy a money belt from Circle that just looks like a scarf tied around your waist, it’s really cute, and such a better alternative to those ugly black neck ones! Tonight the plan is to hang out with some of Rach’s friends, chill in the city, which I am excited about, and kick this jet-lag thing right away. So far so good. So an accidental blunder, ended up with getting to come to Siem Reap and getting to relax here for a few days. Rachel has some work to take care of for the store, so she gets to get that done, and I get to begin to situate myself to this amazing culture without the craziness of Phnom Penh. As always, it works out in the end. We’ll leave on Saturday to go to her close friend and former manager of her store’s wedding, and then the Phnom Penh adventure begins. So classic me, this quick intro blog post is now miles long. If you didn’t read until the end…you won’t be reading this… but if you are! I hope I didn’t bore you, and come back for more!