Put Your Future In Good Hands - Your Own.

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July 1, 2010

Sasha:
We got in last night around 3:30am and it was monsooning up a storm! (no pun intended) and then by some miracle it stopped when we got here - Khao San road - which we call the international Bourbon Street. It was full tourist party mode in the streets - crazy! It was surreal, I felt like I was walking in a dream and had walked into my photographs and by memory had to find the hostel we stayed at last time two summers ago. 
 
Now we're on a local bus going to the national gallery. Local bus means no less than 15 non-matching colors and interior decorating almost seems to be a competition between buses - and I love it all. It seems like it's going to be raining all day, but I also think that might be best because it's so hot out. 
After breakfast we went to another national museum and already we're in our groove of walking through exhibits and trying to analyze Thai culture and society through it's art. It refreshing to see Thai people's criticism of their own society, and their qualms with coming to terms with traditional practices and assimilating with the modern world.

Thailand is the "land of smiles" and there are flowers everywhere and I really think this might be one of my favorite countries ever and I'll come back every couple of years. 
 
Amazingly we found our way to the art museum and got off the bus at the right stop no problem. There was even a sculpture garden of sorts in front of the museum which was pretty cool - larger than life sized sculptures. 
We found lunch at the department mall and looking around we really got a feel for what daily life for the middle class Thai is like (at least I think). Every once and a while we'd see an old (or young) white guy with a Thai girlfriend, wearing booty shorts and a belly shirt and fake gucci sun glasses and my mom and I give each other looks...it's pretty gross. Last night too when we were looking for a hostel we saw Thai girls dressed like that on the corner and white western guys indulging and taking advantage of the "off the record" feeling that being on vacation in Thailand has.

Now I'm sitting on the bus on the way back to Khao San road where our hostel is, rain streaming down the window next to me so the streets of Bangkok are just a blur, and the fan above is dripping non-rhythmically right in front of my face. We went to the first and largest park in the city after touring around Jim Thomson's house museum.

Jim Thomson's legacy was in the decorations around his house. He also worked for the OSS (CIA) and started the silk industry Thailand is famous for. He mysteriously disappeared at the age of 61 in Malaysia when he went for a walk one day. His body was never found. Did he keep living under a different name, not wanting to be the same person his whole life? Did a wild animal kill him or a business enemy send an assassin? 

Wow. We got totally soaked in the rain when we walked for FOURTY FIVE minutes along the highway and alley streets, followed by an old lady smelling of whiskey half the way and led by two girls the other half.
 
Pennelope:

The Timelessness of Travel

One can't help but think of who you were when you were here last. For me, that was a bald eagle caught in the headlights, falsely believing the worst could be over. For Sasha, it was senior year and all the unimaginable possibilities of new beginnings. She, has now returned from Freshman year of college. I, am exhausted from surviving a transformed life. And Shaun, in our thoughts always, away on a five week stint in Cordoba, Mexico doing a service project with construction. We are a reconfigured family. I wonder what the next "go-round" will be. Sasha and Shaun alone together on the road could be interesting. I think they are discovering lately that, that just might be fun. We embarked after 36 hours in transit at 3am to find though wet, Khao San road still as always jumping, new characters wielding beer bottles and dancing to the beat, scrimpily clad in the wardrobe of youth - but filling the streets. We feel like preschoolers amazed that the party has continued since we left the room. Same Same but Different. Some things change, some things remain the same. As always, with my backpack filled with the same clothes I donned a generation ago, things seem the same except for the graying hair, wrinkles and thickening thighs. And, of course, the forever lost semblance of innocence.

Triumphantly, we found our old hotel on a back road called Sawasdee, "Hello" in Thai, and a welcomed sight at that hour of the morning. And, even as the music continued on the street below, we were able to pass into the oblivion of dreams - and nightmares respectively.

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