"Mai Pen Rai," My Pen Writes: Baan Nahk in Bangkok

Last weekend, Rita, Jes, Nok, and I headed down to Bangkok to get our fill of city life and to take a sneak peek at Jes's growing baby. As soon as we got off at 4 am after our 10 hour bus ride, we knew we were in for an exciting weekend. Even at 4 am the bus station was packed with people and there were taxis being filed into the area in 3 lanes. Yes, we were definitely baan nahk (loosely translated to "hicks" and featured in an awesome pop song) in the big city. Just for comparison's sake, Nakhon Phanom is about the same size as Nashua or Brockton. Bangkok is easily the largest city I've ever been to, it just sprawled for miles upon miles and took more than an hour to get into an out of on the bus.

Nok was able to hook us up in government housing at Chulalonghorn University, but when we got there we had to crash in the lobby for a few hours before our room was ready. After a nap, we wandered around and went to the MBK center, basically a big mall-type market to look for legitimate flip-flops and look around. It was absolutely bizarre to see so many tourists and falangs. Not only were there a lot of westerners, but a lot of middle eastern people as well as africans. It was really cool to see such diversity after being in the village and "city" for four months. It feels like we spent most of the weekend pointing out all the different kinds of people we saw. It was definitely a different type of tourist demographic than you might find in the caribbean or in europe, so we were just fascinated by all the people we saw. After wandering around for a while, we headed back to our room and enjoyed the hot showers.

Then we went on our first real excursion in the city, and took a cab to the hospital where Jes's will have her baby. Traffic in Bangkok was crazy! Going about 85 mph weaving through 3 lanes of heavy traffic was quite an experience. We pulled up to the hospital and were completely awed by what we saw. The hospital was like a swanky 5-star hotel. Bangkok Samitivej is one of the premier hospitals in the world, but I wasn't expecting it to be that nice. We got to go to Jes's appointment with her and look at the ultrasound, which was awesome. Its so interesting to hear all about the preganancy stuff, and a lot of fun to feel the baby kick and draw faces on Jes's stomach. That being said, it was incredible to actually see the baby we've been playing with for the last few months. After the appointment we were taken to see the birthing suite, where they have a giant tub, ropes to hang from (a Hmong tribe tradition), and even a ladder to climb. No stark white walls or machines beeping, the rooms looked like they could be in anyone's home. This hospital was simply incredible. AND it had an Au Bon Pain, where we most certainly enjoyed an awkwardly timed tuna melt. And a few days later, got a bagel and cream cheese fix too :) when we were in the area looking at apartments for Jes and Abe while they await the baby.

We then tried to go to a restaurant on top of the tallest building in Bangkok, but they didn't have any tables available for us. Mai pen rai, we wandered around the markets on the streets below in central Bangkok. It was where all the riots had been last year, and where there was a scheduled red shirt protest the next day - something we certainly wanted to avoid.

The following day we designated as temple and market day. We traveled to Wat Pho, the largest temple in Bangkok and the home of the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand, as well as the most buddha images in a single temple. It was definitely an incredible sight to see, but also difficult to navigate through the vast crowds.

After we'd had enough of the temple, we went to Jatujak market, one of the largest weekend markets in Thailand. With more than 30 acres of market stalls, we were sure to be lost among all the merchandise. We wandered around for a few hours, marvelling at the much higher quality goods than can be found in NKP. You could certainly say that we shopped til we dropped. After the market, we headed to Siam Square, the posh part of Bangkok and the home to designer stores and the international grocery store. We looked in the grocery store for a while, checking out the goods, and planning what we might want to purchase later. Granola and cheese seemed to top the list, with wine being quite the tease.

Jes's uncle, Pat, met us there and treated us to a wonderful dinner in a traditional thai restuarant nearby. We're so used to restaurant stalls and street food that it was really nice to sit down inside and enjoy a meal. He was great company too, sharing stories of living all over the world and particularly interesting Thailand stories. After dinner we headed back to the grocery store to stock up on goodies unavailable in NKP, and Pat treated Jes to several rolls of bakery bread and cookies. What an incredibly generous man.

Monday we woke up and headed out apartment hunting for a bit, which meant we went back to the hospital (for bagels with cream cheese!) so they could call an apartment's shuttle to pick us up. (concierge service at a hospital?) Afterwards, we went back to MBK to buy legitimate flip-flops and crazy pants - seriously, I got the coolest pants - and check for some last minute purchases. Back at the dorms, we treated ourselves with one last hot shower and packed up for the long journey home.

We got to the bus station with just enough time to get a 7-11 dinner and board our bus. Due to traffic leaving Bangkok, the bus ride was 12 hours. We got back to NKP around 7 am, just in time to catch the fresh market at prime time. About 5 minutes after we'd unpacked and were ready for a snooze, Pornchai called to say that he was picking us up to take us to an english competition at one of the city's schools. 1/2 hour later he was sitting in the living room waiting for us to get rip roy and whisk us off to judge the spelling bee and speeches!