Ray and I have just returned from 31 days in Thailand (literally just returned - last week)and my head is still so full of sights, sounds, smells of all we did and experienced that if I don't get them down on paper soon I will quite possibly burst!!! So, what I intend is not a travel log of "we did this on day 1 and this on day 2" but more, as the title says, my reflections of what we did and saw. This will often be about the people ... because I always feel that it's the people who make a place what it is. Even with my extremely limited Thai, and most Thai's limited English we were able to have marvellous interactions using mime language and facial expressions, and it's those interactions which I still see in my mind when I try to sleep at night - it's like a video playing over and over in my head.
So, these reflections will be fairly random, and you can dip in and have a read at your leisure.
Having said that - where to start??? Maybe at the end ... because on the evening of Nov.25th Ray and I finally packed up a month's worth of grubby clothes and souvenir treasures, ordered a taxi for 8:30am to take us to the Bangkok airport, and settled in to get a good sleep before the long flights home. But, I was too excited to sleep ... so got up and was surfing the Internet when I clicked onto the 'Bangkok Post' website and saw that protesters had taken over the airport and all planes were cancelled!! With Ray snoring soundly in bed, I had no-one to share this devastating news with!! Not much sleep that night ...
Wed. 26th we went down to breakfast at our guest house to be greeted with sympathy from the wonderful owner and her staff. She had the news on the TV and everyone was watching as the startling events unfolded. Well, first things first, they had room for us to stay there for another night - but we had to change rooms, no problem as everything was packed up anyway!
That first day no-one was really worried, as the feeling was that this would blow over in 48 hours, the protesters would leave, and planes would resume flights. There was even a giddy sense of adventure at being caught-up in such a world-wide event. We decided to make the most of our extra day in Bangkok, went out to do some more sight-seeing, and had interesting discussions with many other stranded tourists from around the world. But, I have to say that as the days dragged on, any air of adventure totally evaporated, and frustration and mild panic set in ... this looked like it was never going to end - and with a huge group of opposing protesters setting up camp in a different part of Bangkok, there was even talk of civil war!!
GET ME OUT OF HERE!
We gave up any thoughts of more sight-seeing - even though Bangkok seemed totally normal, we didn't have the heart for it, and Ray spent long hours on the telephone trying to get through to Cathay Pacific. There were rumours of flights leaving from a military airbase; people were arranging to travel by car/bus to Malaysia and Singapore then fly onto Hong Kong; a travel agent we visited was extremely creative in her plans for our travel back to Toronto and maybe if we were 20 again and with just 2 backpacks we might have taken her advice; we received panic emails from family back home - some saying stay put don't go out in the streets, others saying just get into a taxi and get out of the city; my poor elderly mother thought we were in India and caught up in the dreadful attacks taking place at the same time in Mumbai!!
Thank goodness for the local massage parlour close by our guest house, they kept us sane ...ooooh, I so love those Thai foot massages!!! The girls there got to know us well, and were so sympathetic and sweet (or, as sympathetic and sweet as you can be with about 4 words which you can both communicate with!) I even screwed up my courage and had a proper full Thai massage during that time. Now, if you're not familiar with this type of massage, let me tell you it can be quite painful as they apply pressure on your body with various parts of their body, and push and pull your limbs into yogic positions. But, my young girl said quietly, "Soft??" I nodded with relief, and it was wonderful!!!!
I must say that when Ray finally got through to speak with a Cathay Pacific representative they were very helpful ... and finally on the 5th day we were told that they had booked us on a flight from Phuket to Hong Kong, and a flight from Hong Kong to Toronto. Hallelujah!! All we had to do was get ourselves and our grubby clothes half way down the country to Phuket.
But, the wonderful people at our guest house helped us again and arranged for a taxi driver whom they knew to drive us the 12 hours south to Phuket, leaving at 6am the next morning. He wanted 8,000 Baht to do the trip ($270), and we could probably have bargained and found someone cheaper, but at that point we were so exhausted we would have paid him a million $$$ to get us there! He turned out to be quite a character, and drove like a madman - hitting speeds of 160km hr. on the straight road to Phuket - he made the journey in 10 hours!!
When we arrived at the airport and Ray was paying him, all the other local taxi drivers gathered around as he counted the 1,000 Baht notes Ray had just given him - a huge roar of approval and slaps of congratulations rang out as he reached 8 ... we felt a little odd ... obviously we had just grossly overpaid him and he was being congratulated for 'sucking' the silly tourists, but for us $270 for such a long trip was a very low price. Anyway, we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we had made him very happy, we were there in one piece, ... and the Bangkok nightmare was over!
1 comment:
WHAT an adventure mate! I was so worried about you being caught up in something like that though, it sounds as if you made full use of your time waiting to get out. I bet you are noticing a difference in temperature between Bangkok and Magnetawan! The worst part of coming home is the laundry isn't it?
Glad you are back safely, all the best, Sue from Scotland.
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