Back to Bangkok

An early morning in Siam Square, on good ol’ Soi Kasem San 1.  I suppose the upside of jetlag is that it is one of the few times where I am happily awake and alert in the early morning.  

I peered out the window, eagerly surveying the view that had been a mysterious, obscure darkness when I’d arrived five hours before.  A city worker sweeping the street, the golden top of a spirit house glinting from behind a wall, a bright pink taxi cruising past a lush yard plot with verdant mango trees nuzzling against slightly-worn houses.  The smell of curry from the street stalls.  The mellifluous morning snippets of songbird serenades echoes along the buildings.  All of this in the ether of thick, yet somehow refreshing, tropical air that seems to portend of excitement and adventure.  I love it!

This is the start of a 6-week visit to the region.  Tomorrow, I head off to Kuching,  Malaysia, for a workshop on cetacean conservation.  Then I galavant to the Semporna Archipelago for a few days of diving/beach paradise before heading over to the Philippines to do some fieldwork and Thailand to scout out my field site.  It’s going to be a fast-paced trip, for sure.  I’m glad I have a full day in Bangkok to rest up and get ready.

I recall my first visit to Bangkok, almost 6 years ago.  I wasn’t an inexperienced traveler, but I’d never been anywhere like this before.  The overwhelming cacophony of strong smells, raucous traffic sounds, and dirty air tumbled out at me, inundating me with anxiety about the unfamiliarity of it all.  My view of the city was further dimmed upon discovering the hard way that tuk-tuk drivers in Bangkok are not the most straightforward people to deal with (i.e., finding myself inexplicably pushed into a silk shop, awkwardly wandering among fabrics that I had no intention of buying, exchanging strained and confused smiles with the shop owners who stared at me as if trying to sell their wares via telepathy, all the while my inner monologue desperately shouts, “But I just wanted to go see the Emerald Buddha!”).  The huge mega-mall/market MBK didn’t help, with its packed crowds, bright lights, and labyrinths of stalls jolting my brain as I timidly searched for a cell phone.  I was ecstatic to leave, replacing these chaotic surroundings with the clean air and blissful peace of the Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary, where I lived for the next year.

Yet, with each return to Bangkok over that year, it endeared itself to me more and more.  It was no longer overbearing and garish, but rather, stimulating and colorful.  I love that you can enjoy the trappings of modernity among shrines and temples, see women clad in the latest fashions alongside Buddhist monks, and walk from the air-conditioned uber-malls to adorable boutiques to basic street markets.  I love standing on the walkway to the National Stadium Skytrain entrance in Siam Square, drinking passionfruit juice, ruminating over the scenes below…people laden with high fashion brand-name bags and sleek smartphones breezing past destitute street beggars; the shrine outside the MBK, a little spot of serenity among the frenetic traffic below; tourists wandering around (the "smelly hippies", the teva- and sunhat-clad, and every variation in between), trying to make sense of it all.

So, it’s the perfect place for me to spend the first day of what promises to be an amazing, but very, very busy, trip.  I’ve had a difficult time finding my focus in San Diego since my last big trip, and I’m pretty disappointed in how little I’ve accomplished in the past few months.  That lack of focus carried over to my planning for this trip, and I need to do a lot of work and organization today before I leave for Malaysia tomorrow.  I’m hoping to find a nice spot to settle down and be productive, to set a positive tone for this trip.  I’ve seen all of the big attractions, so I won’t feel guilty for sitting down with my computer instead of traipsing among breathtakingly beautiful temples.

On the flight here, in between bouts of deep sleep, my mind wandered from the practical (“oh yeah, I still need to book hotels for my Malaysia trip”) to the melancholy (“I miss San Diego already…”) to the more philosophical.  My musings were tinged with a hint of fear; as amazing as traveling is, these trips can be physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding.  I’d been so last-minute planning this trip, and I hadn’t really gotten around to preparing myself for that.  Jet lag, mosquito bites, various fun diseases, heat, wrestling with luggage…research ideas swirling around constantly, my mind expanding with the seemingly endless potential for projects, wanting to do everything but knowing I can’t…frustration over my (as yet) limited abilities in local languages, missing my loved ones and life in San Diego, enjoying the independence of traveling alone but dealing with spells of loneliness, stress about dodgy trip logistics. 

“Oh my goodness,” my mind would realize. “I am going to be in Thailand tonight.  I won’t be home for 6 weeks.  I am totally, totally unprepared in almost every way for this trip.  What the hell was I thinking?”  Ahhhhhhh…!

But, over the 26 hours or so of travel, I approached a considerably more “zen” state of mind:  “I’m going to have a fantastic trip.  It’ll be crazy, but it will be good.  And I’ve been to Siam Square so many times – it’s a familiar place, and that’s comforting.  Just think of the whole world as my home.  And as difficult as traveling can be, it’s what I want to do with my life.”  Getting settled at the Wendy House seemed pretty routine.  It felt like returning to a home, of sorts.  It warmed my heart, and helped me fend off anxiety and homesickness.

Before I get back to work, I’m going to revisit the streets and sights of Siam Square.  I’m probably going to take some time to people-watch from the walkway to the SkyTrain while I reflect upon how much life has changed since my first time here.  

One thing that hasn't changed, however, is my propensity for naps. Since my solution to jet-lag (and, one could say, my life philosophy) is to sleep whenever the hell I feel like it (which, I realize, runs counter to the generally accepted solution), I'm going to go enjoy a 10am nap.