Bangkok: Our Southeast Asian Adventure Begins

You know those top ten lists that pop up on facebook all the time? I usually ignore them, but recently one caught my eye “Top Ten Places to Travel in your Twenties”. One of them was a traveling through Southeast Asia, eating deliciously cheap street food (tums madatory), opening your mind to the blend of cultures and religion and making new friends through couchsurfing, getting lost and relying on friendly locals, and striking up a conversation with the other foreigners who also had no idea all the trains were booked because of a big Muslim holiday. So here we are, recent and almost graduates, broke and exhausted from the long, caffeine induced nights of undergrad and ready for an adventure filled with hours of reflection on rickety trains, comical misunderstandings involving innovative sign language and inspiring encounters with locals, fellow travelers and each other.

Bangkok marked the starting point of our three-week adventure through Southeast Asia. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lost and uneducated in my life. I realized after a few hours that this is the very first time I’ve traveled somewhere without understanding the script or any part of the language of the place I am visiting. When I moved to Sweden I at least knew how to say “fish” and “thank you” (really the only two words that matter in Scandinavia). According to Marco, my sentences are much too complicated to be understood by non-native English speakers. It’s been a steep learning curve, but now instead of asking “At what time in the evening do you start your last Thai massage?”, I use Marco’s version: “Close. Night. When.” (Add bold sign language for less confusion). Engineers. Why are they so good at everything?!?

Another thing Marco and I learned is not to underestimate is the difficulty and need for extreme flexibility while traveling during Muslim holidays. Our BNB host insists that every weekend people are celebrating some sort of Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu holiday. Perks of living in a country with many faiths. The more faiths, the more vacation! The importance of this particularly holiday was quite apparent by the lack of train tickets to Butterworth, Malaysia for an entire week (we still don’t really know what the holiday is, although we’ve asked at least five people and received different versions depending on the religion and occupation of the person. Taxi drivers pick the longer version of the holiday in order to charge higher fares for the whole week, whereas the train conductor assured us it was already basically over and that we’d have no problems purchasing tickets at the next station). Even though Bangkok is filled with fun water taxis and beautiful Buddhist Temples, we decided to take a train south to Hat Yai and try our luck there. Our travel book gave Hat Yai glowing reviews such as “especially out of bounds due to political unrest and threat of terrorism” and a “no-go zone” and “not recommended for travel because of violent attacks happening almost on a daily basis” (Note to self: next time read travel book BEFORE buying train tickets and NOT at the beginning of the 17-hour train ride that gives you 16 hours to come up with possible terrifying scenarios of what could happen in Hat Yai). Marco decided based on the cost and effect equation for terrorist they would attack in the afternoon when more people are out and about. Since we were arriving at 8 am, we decided we’d be fine. Two University of Michigan students travel through a terrorist zone and justify their safety based on terrorists probably wanting to have a leisurely breakfast. The Michigan difference.
P.S. This information will probably make my mother lose many hours of sleep. Especially applicable to those readers who live with her and are her patients. Remember, a sleep deprived Dr. Molly will probably make you drink a Swedish bitters cocktail or do shots of kale essence with her. But all’s well that ends with two tourists being conned into paying way too much for a bus to Butterworth since the train in Hat Yai didn’t realize the holiday was over and was still fully booked. Other than Marco being asked a million questions at the Malaysian border while I basically just walked in. Perks of looking like a totally naive American tourist. ‘MURICA!