Our last two days on the trip in Bangkok were definitely
bittersweet. The sweet was all the unbelievable food we ate, riding elephants
and a Thailand-UM reunion, and the bitter was that this marks the end of our trip,
and a sad goodbye to the most amazing travel companion I
could have asked for. But let’s start with the sweet (and spicy/savory/any
flavor you can imagine).
Thai food isn’t internationally famous for no reason. Within
the span of 48 hours, we consumed a greater variety of food than I probably
have eaten in my whole life up until that point. Here are some highlights:
Bird Nest Soup:
Why would any one purposely spend money on eating bird
saliva? And why is there even a market for this. Um…because it’s ridiculously
delicious. And bragging right. Because I ate a bird’s nest today, what did you
do?
Food from A Boat:
Why would you eat food from a restaurant when you could eat
it from a boat? We went to the Floating Market and they sold everything you can
think of on little boats. People were frying meat, stir frying things and even
selling bubble tea. I don’t understand how you can be eighty years old, making
pad Thai AND rowing around while not capsizing, but hey, better than playing
Bingo on Thursdays?
Fruit that doesn’t look like fruit:
I think it’s a secret strategy so that other people won’t
steal their fruit, but nothing we ate initially looked edible. I guess if you
were interested in eating a tiny red porcupine, balls on a stick that look like
they belong in the massage room or a dirty dark purple tomato, then you might
have bought it on your own. We were lucky enough to have our friend and
host-with-the-most Ta, who bought some of every weird fruit we ran across and
gave us free tutorials on how to open/eat them. I really don’t think Marco and
I would have even been able to access the fruit without him, much less know
which part is edible. I also now understand why Asians are so skinny. I eat a
fudge brownie sundae, you eat a ridiculously delicious and probably really
healthy guava fruit.
Pant size increasing “toast”:
Then again, if you make it a habit to eat the Japanese-style
toast/mountain of amazingess, you may score more on par with the sundae. Why
put jam on your toast when you could fry it in butter, soak it in honey, put
powdered sugar on top and then eat it with a side of ice cream, whipped cream
and bananas? Just imagine the ones that the non-allergic to chocolate people
ate. I spared you and didn’t post those pictures because I’m pretty sure it
would make you go buy like three bars of Godiva to make yourself feel better
that you can’t have it.
Thai Coffee:
And now for the bitter. Three weeks seems like a long time.
But it flew by like the blink of an eye, where you catch a quick glimpse of
something amazing and then it’s gone. I am so grateful that my life allows me
to travel. We saw beautiful things, horrific things and everything in between.
Southeast Asia is the perfect place to learn, to be lost and to have your eyes
opened to a world you can’t imagine from sitting on your cozy couch at home watching the travel channel. The people are generous, warm, open and curious and the
cultures and diverse and rich.
Our trip wouldn’t have been the same without the people who
opened up their homes to us. The generosity of our hosts was humbling and gave
me a new faith in humanity. Our purpose on this earth is to help each other and
learn from each other. We experienced that from every person who lent us a
couch, a phone or advice about how to not end up in a super dangerous part of
the city late at night and die. Ok that’s an extreme example but it definitely happened.
Another thing that you need when you travel is a good
companion. My companion was patient, open-minded, adventurous, loving and full
of lots of great skills such as not being a total fail at any sort of
navigation (let’s not forget the road trip
from Maine to Ann Arbor where we accidentally drove to Cape Cod), and
street smarts that you probably could never learn growing up in 300 person
German village or hanging out in sketchy places like Burns Park.
So yes, Bangkok was delicious and sad all at once. And it’s
surprisingly hard to prep yourself for moving to a radically new culture after
three weeks of intense experiences that exhaust every one of your senses. The
support from home helps more than I can say. The quick skype calls, the
facebook chats, the e-mails and your comments all make feel like even though
I’m slightly terrified of leaving home for a year to live in a country where I
don’t speak the language, may or may not eat a dog on accident and probably
won’t be able to buy shoes in my size, I have a wonderful place and wonderful
people to go home to. My Dad always says the best part of traveling is coming
home. But this is just the beginning. I have some serious character
deciphering, learning-how-to-not-offend-authority and buying of long underwear to
do. For better or for worse, this blog is going to change from exciting, weird
and crazy things that happen while traveling to “Did I think about what would
happen if I actually GOT the Fulbright?!? : Stories of while girl and trying to
prepare for inevitable Chinese world domination”. That being said, the views expressed on this site are
entirely those of its author and do not represent the views of the Fulbright
Program, the US Department of State or any of its partner organizations. At
least I hope not. It would be pretty weird if the State Department had an irrational
obsession with motorbikes and thought it was a good idea to take a thirty hour ferry rather than a two hour flight from
Singapore to Jakarta.
Thanks for reading and see you in China!
