Bangkok Dangerous

    The trip to Bangkok was an experience.  There was a German girl that I knew from Tonsai that was on the same bus, but then they gave her the run around and told her she had the wrong company.  Her ticket was the exact same as mine.  After losing her, I made other friends on the 3 hour van ride to the bus station, a couple from San Diego.  Before getting on the bus, they kept pointing at signs that told us to not leave valuables in our stored bags.  I thought it was just a nicety.

    We got to Khao San Road in Bangkok at 6 AM, just in time to see the parties dying down and people throwing up on the side of the street.  I got my bag off the bus and immediately noticed a few things: the zippers were moved and the draw strings were tied together, which I've never done.  Apparently, it's a known thing that people riffle through your bags during these bus rides, or, as my San Diego friend put it, "some dude totally got his little Thai fingers in your stuff man!"  Thankfully, I did have all my valuables with me.  They even took my shitty international phone out of it's case and put it back in the bag.  Beggars can't be choosers, but little Thai thieves can, apparently.  Good thing they didn't grab the $400 of travelers checks or the thousand dollar Eurail pass.  Idiots.

    So we get to a hostel and are about to take a nap before lunch.  I had gotten a nasty bug bite in my armpit about 4 days before that was starting to bother me, so I decided to take a look at it before hitting the sack.  I don't know if it was the hand sized rash, the dozens and dozens of pus filled red marks, or the hole in my skin where the original bite was, but something I saw there put me into panic mode.  Before leaving the USofA, my parents and I went over my insurance stuff and their recommended doctors across the world, so I knew I needed to contact them (and I knew that I should).  That shitty international phone?  Oh yeah that didn't work here - good call Thai thieves.  I emailed my folks but decided that I didn't want to wait for them to check it, so I looked around for other options.  I found Luke Davis on facebook and had him call my parents and my sister.

One day after starting antibiotics.  It looks kind of weak to me, but you should see each of those red dots up close, or the initial spot of the bite!

Had to cancel lunch plans

    By the way, if you want somebody you love to worry about you, have somebody else call them and tell them you need help.  But we contact the insurance and find a good place nearby - Bumrungrad International Hospital.  At this point, I was actually stoked to see what this place would be like, to have a new experience, and to write this post about it.  I took a tuk-tuk, a little tri-motorbike to the hospital, and after a fun ride we pulled up to what seemed to be a 5 star hotel.  I was smiling ear to ear from the time I walked in to when I saw a doctor - maybe 5 minutes of forms, 5 minutes of walking, and 2 minutes of waiting.  This place was better than any American hospital I've seen.

tuk-tuk

Bumrungrad Hospital

Hospital lobby.  

"if you take a picture of me, can I take a picture of you?"

    I feared that it was a staph infection, figuring that that was the worst that could happen.  The doctor took a look at it, noticed it in my other armpit (before I did), and said, "not staph... maybe yeast infection."  My first thought, besides "what." was "there's no way I can tell my friends that."  She ran a quick test on a little sample and determined it wasn't yeast infection, but told me the bite was definitely a mite or flea.  Turns out that rat hole in Tonsai wasn't worth it after all.  She never actually told me what it was, only what it wasn't, but gave me some bomb antibiotics and steroid cream.  I asked her if I would get jacked if I rubbed it on my biceps.  She didn't get the joke.

    Well, welcome to the BKK.  That's the abbreviation for Bangkok, which has put Jay-Z's line "moving the Nets to BK" firmly in my head for the last few days.  The song doesn't really allow for the extra K syllable, but I manage to squeeze it in there every time.

    This post is getting long, so here's a quick rundown.  After the hospital, I got dinner with my San Diego friends and walked around this Khao San Road place.  It's like Kuala Lumpur but with way more intrusive street vendors, women with adams apples and big hands, and a just all around dirty feel.  This morning I got breakfast by myself and saw the German girl from the bus, chased her down, realized I didn't know her name, and called out "Munich!" a few times until I got her attention.  We hung out for a bit then went to a cheap restaurant that she knew nearby.

Granola, homemade yogurt, papaya, dragonfruit, banana, mango, watermelon, pineapple - $1 USD

Cats and pagan rituals - my two least favorite things in the world

Street food fish

    Sitting in this cheapo place, with a shirt on for the first time, was my friend Elan from Tonsai.  I spent time with Elan every day for 2 weeks on Tonsai, so I need to elaborate on this guy.  44 years old, from Israel, travelling for 26 years, been to 150 countries, fills a passport every 2 years, been to Tonsai 20 times, speaks about 7 languages fluently, hates kids, super lazy, debbie downer, weird, doesn't talk to women unless their single, complains about people all day, favorite phrase is "can't be bothered."  Naturally, this is the dude I've spent more time with than anybody else (except for Dustin) in the last 2 months.  And here he was in Bangkok for what literally might have been the 100th time.  After eating, we went to the mall, shopped for sandals, and saw the Hunger Games.  Before the movies start, everyone stands up to "pay respect to the His Excellency the King" and has to watch a minute long slideshow of the king set to whiny Thai music.  I think Americans should have the same thing to the song "proud to be an American."

Elan, being Elan.  By the way, he used to be an ice cream truck driver in Houston.  He reminds me more of the evil snow plow guy from Snow Day.

   
    I've been in southeast Asia for a month now and I'd say I'm pretty much over the culture shock.  However, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the culture of the people that travel at least 3 months a year.  Elan works for a few months, travels for a few months, runs out of money, and does it again.  The folks from San Diego used to be ski bums in Chile and now work at Whole Foods, which allows them to work seasonal; they work for a while, travel for 3 or 4 months, then go back and start from scratch.  And the Europeans are even crazier - can't find a job? go travel and spend what little you have left until you can.  Some of these people don't consider themselves to have a home anymore.  A little different than what I know: finish school, get a job, keep that job.  Now when people say, "I don't know what I'm doing with my life," I think, "work at McDonalds and travel the world."

    I don't know what to think of it.  I might think that staying in one place, investing in people, and having a strong community is better, but to think that those things are impossible while traveling is to limit God.  Their lifestyle is much more uncertain, but since when does God call us to any certainty other than "Christ and Him crucified"?  I mean, Paul had his homies that he Skyped with or listserv'd or whatever, but spent most of his time on the move.  Who's to say that the Texan-Christian life is THE way to live?  I don't know, but it's just weird to see this lifestyle that's so counter-intuitive yet so appealing and full of potential if done right, in the pursuit of God.

Thai hospital?  Check.
Expanding horizons?  Double check.