On our first taxi ride in Bangkok coming home from the airport, one of Adam’s American co-workers said, “At some point in the next few weeks you will wonder what you are doing here, and you will be absolutely miserable and feel like the next few months are never going to end. And then it’ll pass, and you’ll love this place and not ever want to go home.” I feel like I have been there. I have been miserable and I have wondered what I’ve gotten myself into and I’ve wanted to go home. But I think it’s passed, and I am excited for what’s ahead.
This trip has been both wonderful and difficult. Bangkok is full of bizarre and interesting contradictions – high rise designer malls and las vegas lights interspersed with shanty towns and filthy tijuana-style shops, dilapidated decade-old bikes hitched to carts spread with crusty fried fish in front of gleaming office buildings, a sea of shiny modern vehicles in traffic next to dirty farm trucks carrying 30+ workers in the open bed and pedal bike vendor carts moving at walking speed so not to spill their contents, beautiful modern metro and skytrain systems sharing the burden of public transportation with rusty open air buses and WWII era passenger trains. It is strange and foreign and charming and I love it!
That said…
There are 4 categories of activity in Bangkok: business, night life, touristy stuff, and shopping. We do business all day, we don’t go anywhere near Bangkok’s wild and famous nighttime scene, and all the touristy stuff like temples, museums, tours, and attractions close between 5:00 and 6:00 o’ clock – so that leaves shopping as the main weeknight offering for Mormons who work 40 hours/wk. There are tons of fancy-shmancy designer shopping malls and crazy awesome outdoor markets which are exhilarating and mind-boggling and overwhelming and endless. However, given my modesty, size, financial, and luggage restraints, shopping is not incredibly appealing as a daily activity. Thus, weeknights are pretty boring and Saturdays are very important. Saturdays are our only chance to see the highlights of Bangkok. Saturdays are also our only chance to try to leave bangkok in search of aforementioned jungles, mountains, temples, ruins, hill tribes, beaches, and rural life. And there just aren’t enough Saturdays in the week.
I have to constantly try to remind myself that we are not on vacation, and not to get upset about how many days or weeks pass without the kinds of adventures I’ve been dreaming about. There are so many wonderful and amazing things to see in Thailand, and I have been looking forward to seeing and doing EVERYTHING! This is something I’ve had to restructure my thinking about and come to grips with… the fact that we are not here as tourists. We are here so Adam can work. And that means we don’t have time to see much of Thailand. And anything we do see is a bonus, not a given. And as long as I remind myself of this, every day is full of adventure.
But since we are only here temporarily, we are trying to straddle two worlds…
I am trying to telecommute 15 hrs/week to my job in Provo, and that stinks. I am very grateful that my boss is being a good sport about me leaving right in a middle of some very stressful transitions. My office is undergoing some exciting changes right now, and I am completely disconnected from what’s happening, and it is nerve-wracking. I had planned on having consistent contract work from Adam’s company to partially make up for my lost income and to keep from going crazy being alone in our bitty apartment this summer. But I have been between project phases with Adam’s company for 3 weeks now, which means nothing to do and no money coming in, and that is a lethal combination for making me an unhappy camper – no matter what country we’re in at the time.
All considered…
Life is good. Today is a celebration. My stomach has ceased its rebellion. I saw my first Thailand temple ruins last weekend. I started teaching English classes to the Thai staff this week (which was a blast). I’ve made friends with the sister missionaries and they are more than willing to keep me busy this summer, and we are going on teaching appointments with the elders this week. I gave understandable instructions to a taxi driver (in Thai) on the first try and we got somewhere we’ve never been before with zero hassle. I have just started the next phase of a writing/editing project. And I am in Thailand with my best friend and favorite person and wonderful husband Adam, and I am very happy to be here.
I know that I am going to miss this country. I won’t miss 99% of the food or 85% of the smells or the squat toilets or the lack of sanitation and TP or not having a kitchen 
, but I will miss the patience and kindness and smiles of the thai people, the food carts at every street corner, the fruit, the smell of incense and the sight of people in business attire wai-ing and bowing to spirit houses on their way to work, the incredible pastries (I will DEFINITELY miss the pastries) and fruit drinks, markets (not of the meat or seafood variety), the enormous variety of styles and fashions, fried bananas, motorcycle taxis, never having to look for a parking spot, ramp escalators, monk kids, counterfeit DVDs (don’t tell Adam), the billions of extraneous uniformed employees and outrageously excellent customer service, cheap foot massages, ready-made prescription glasses, river taxis, cool furniture, cheesy TV programs, the overabundance of karaoke, playing the “he or she” game (did I mention that Bangkok is the world gathering place for transvestites? there are several that live in our building), buying everything in teeny asian sized packages (seriously, the average sized shampoo bottle is what I consider camping size), and the list goes on. And though I get irritated sometimes when I am starving and nothing looks appetizing (or even edible), or when I try (and fail) to cook a decent meal with limited resources, ingredients, space, etc. I know that I will always look back on this summer as one of the best.
