I woke up early this morning to call the aunts and uncles because they were going to be at dinner and I could catch them all at once. I was looking forward to talking to someone from Iowa and just seeing people again, which was achieved after a slight technical glitch.
I snuck out of the room to find a place to sit and make the call. The rooftop bar by the pool was closed. Starbucks was closed. Everything was still closed until 6:30, so I sat in the hotel lobby, which was thankfully empty, and talked to Iowa.
I will admit, it was a mixed experience. I enjoyed the connection. I liked feeling valued and missed and all kinds of emotions and things involved in simply being relevant to someone outside of oneself. And when the call ended, I felt good, yet lonely.
This thing of travel and being out here alone can be freeing, educational, and despite being an introvert who craves solitude, there is a touch of loneliness.
I am not sure what I miss. The comfort of routine for certain, but beyond that, is it the people? Is it just the familiarity of language and topic that brings me back to center and comfort? I don’t know. Not much about this trip is comfort to be honest. But again… that is the point.
Today instead of wandering aimlessly and catching taxis from here to there, we elected to join a hop on hop off tour of Bangkok.
I’m not impressed.
The pick up was right outside our hotel, which was nice, but as MJ stepped on the bus her flip flop broke. With her already having issues walking, it was not a good omen for the day.
The guided commentary was listened to through provided headphones, but that meant I could not record the information to refer to later. It was also not the best information, and half the headphone jacks I tried to use were broken.
I did like the fact they drove and I did see a lot of things I would not have noticed. Like this traffic circle, which apparently marks the start of all roads from Bangkok. It had a lot of other information such as the height, number of items, when it was dedicated and such, but again, I did not record, so I lost it. Honestly, do not have the interest right now to search the internet either. Go for it if you are so inclined.
The places listed on the brochure that we would see on the tour were: Siam Paragon; MBK Center; Samyan Mitrtown; Wat Hulaumpong; Wat Trai Mit; Chinatown (where we were staying); Dragon Temple; Kammalawat; Loha Prasat; Pra Tu Phee; Khao San Road; Mahanakhon Skywalk; ICONSIAM; Wat Arun; Giant Swing
Of those places, and the few others I think we saw, half were shopping malls or places to shop. The giant swing was apparently a cultural icon of Bangkok that everyone must see…
That is the giant swing. Cultural icon of Bangkok. Must stop for every tourist entering the city. Apparently at one point it had a swing, but people died so they removed the swing. If ever there is a giant cat in the Midwest who goes after the worlds largest ball of twine and dies, I imagine we would erect a giant cat sculpture to stand next to it and claim the worlds largest cat sculpture, so I understand why this is a thing. It is still weird it is a thing. Especially since it is essentially in the middle of a busy street with nothing of interest around it. For me at least.
But again, we have giant frying pans, they have swingless swings.
Shopping malls, shopping streets, shopping in general was theme A of the tour. Theme B was temples, which I know shocks you.
It was interesting to hear what I could of the commentary, but frankly it was hot and the traffic here is awful. We were at a stoplight for 8 minutes before it changed, and it was not the stop light being lazy, there is that much traffic. On the first day, we had to get off the bus because we sat in traffic for so long, the drivers day ended so he did not complete the loop. We found dinner, a convenience store and paid entirely too much for a car to take us back to the hotel… 2 km away. It took 20 minutes for the driver to arrive to pick us up and another 20 or more to get to the hotel.
But… it was kind of worth it. We got off at 3 stops over the 2 days we had this tour. Wat Arun, Wat Pho and the Palace, which were the 3 main places MJ said I should see anyway.
