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Published: July 11th 2011
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Pumpkin! Those Thais...they know how to make American tourists laugh hysterically and whip out their cameras.While a self-proclaimed Honorary Asian, I have come to accept that I will never truly be one of them. Walking down the street, it’s plain that I represent a collective history of 20th century America: 1920s flapper bob, 1970s floral maxi dress, leggings of the 80s, and iPod buds in my ears--Hanson and the Baywatch theme song on repeat. I think we can agree there's not much hope for me at this point.
I went to the eye doctor for a check-up today at Ramathibodi Hospital next to Mahidol. I went last week and was told I'm allergic to my contacts. What is with the two of us developing allergies here and there? Good grief.
I hated being at the hospital (I share that with Gramps I guess), but I was fascinated with everything that was going on around me. I was in OPD-Eye and it felt like an emergency room. No air conditioning, a queue so long you can't see the registration desk, and eyes swollen, black, and patched waiting patiently for their name. When my folder made it off the registration desk into the department itself (a 20 minute wait), I was ushered into a room of desks staffed
with nurses wearing white jumpers and nurse caps. I had my eye pressure checked at one station, blood pressure at another, and found out I couldn't even see the "E" without glasses at the last. It was like rotating tables in 2nd grade; except all of my classmates and teachers spoke a different language than me. I'm sure you can relate.
The hospital wasn't especially clean, but what hospital is, I guess. It smelled a little like a petri dish of Acinetobacter and urine if you ask me. I was quite surprised that the nurses didn't wear gloves as they strode the room dropping dilator drops into the eyes of one patient after another, wiping the excess with cotton balls. We were called to see the doctor behind the sliding door two at a time and played musical chairs again: sit in Chair #1 to have your eyes looked at, move to Chair #2 to talk to the doctor. Identity theft and privacy policies must not be an issue here. Despite all of this, the doctor was fantastic. I found out more about my eyes from her than Dave has EVER told me. I'll be looking at that scribble he
writes out to make sure I get contacts that actually cover my cornea when I get back to the states.
Ok ok, I'm getting to it: my weekend. It seems like such a blur since I talked to you; we're already planning for this weekend and the next so I'm starting to lose my mind.
July 2-3: With the enthusiasm of Tony the Tiger, this weekend was GRRRRRRREAT! Justin and I left Victory Monument for Kanchanaburi (which is pronounced with a "t" instead of the "ch") around 2:00 on Saturday afternoon. Located northwest of Bangkok, it took 3 hours by van to get to the bus station there. We took a bicycle-driven tuktuk out of the central part of town towards the River Kwai. I think that the tuktuk was meant for 1 person, but we squeezed. It was fun to go slow enough to see the shops go by, but fast enough to get to the river area before dark. I think it may be my new favorite form of transportation. We looked at a 400 baht room at Noble Night Resort on the river and knew it was for us. We would be staying ON the
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Bridge over River Kwai River Kwai. There was a cabin with three rooms, a bathroom, and an open living space built onto a raft, and we were staying on it. From that point on, we knew it would be our best weekend ever. From there we walked to see the Allied War Cemetery and the Thai-Chinese Cemetery. Justin and I agreed that while the cemeteries are sad to see (along with the River Kwai Bridge and WWII Museum we went to on Saturday), it's something that should be done out of respect. Those POWs never made it home; some are just a number, some without a name. It is a small tribute to live after them. It is a small tribute to travel to the places where they suffered and to remember the sacrifice that has allowed us to live as we have for the past 60+ years. I’ll make that small tribute because I can.
We stopped for supper at the Tofu Bar on the way home. Justin was ecstatic because he's a vegetarian. Never in Thailand has he been able to choose anything he wants off the menu (besides milk products because he's lactose-intolerant as well hahaha). He had some tofu curry
and I had a black pepper mushroom dish. It was probably the best thing I've eaten since I've been here. Who would have thought that tofu tastes like cheese!?!?! We may make the 3 hour trip again just to go back that restaurant. To drink, I had a Thai Milk Tea, and it tasted like melted ice cream. Don't tell Justin, but I'm really going back for that!!
Because it was the night before the elections, the bars were closed. Instead of "getting drunk for 10 baht" as was advertised here and there, we swam in the pool at the hotel for a while then had a beer on the roof of the neighboring raft. Two guys on business from Delhi came and chatted with us, so I had fun picking their brains and sorting out the ambiguous lies I was told in India. We said goodnight with the intention of meeting up with them in the morning and went to bed around 11:30. We agreed (Justin and I were busy agreeing this weekend) that this was exactly the weekend we wanted to have: relaxing.
I woke up to Justin's elephant trumpet alarm at 6:00 the next morning and we
were out the door by 6:30. We walked about 2k in the cool of the Kanchanaburi air and took pictures at the River Kwai Bridge. We walked the length of it--a haunting yet beautiful experience. It was around 7:30 when we stopped in at the JEATH War Museum (Japan, England, America/Australia, Thailand, Holland). I don't think that it was open, maybe due to the elections, but a nice woman sold us tickets and we were able to look around the dusty museum in the dark. It was interesting to see all of the artifacts they still had after the time that has passed, a portion of history preserved in a glass case. It gives me the chills now to think of the machine gun I took a picture of--how I walked in front of the barrel to take it from another angle. Too, I have only just registered that I stood in the bamboo hospital building where POWs once died of dysentery and cholera; I touched a cattle car that transported the men along the Death Railway. I do feel fortunate to have seen that; I know I am fortunate to have felt history that way. It's a memory I
can bring back with me, one that should be shared with as many people as possible. Your brother and Fast Eddy can tell you: "if you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday." (Pearl S. Buck)
By the time we finished at the museum, ate breakfast, and checked out of Noble Night, we had missed our meeting time with the Indians. It was too bad not to be able to spend more time with them, but we had our own plan now. We got train tickets and waited 2 1/2 hours for our 2 1/2 hour train-ride to begin. During this time, we spoke with a nice Brit on holiday for a few days. He was disappointed that he couldn't find a good pub in Bangkok and the vendors outside the Uni don't sell any good food 😉
Once on the open air train, we rode through Kanchanaburi and across the River Kwai Bridge. For me, this solidified the reality of what happened on that bridge during the war. The rest of the ride was beautiful; sitting in silence most of the way, we gazed out the window. I can see why you live in Colorado. Mountains are
amazing pieces of nature.
We grabbed a taxi at the terminal stop in Nakom, and back-tracked south to Erawan National Park to see the waterfalls. Ok, the answer is yes. We decided to ride the train just to ride the train. There was nothing at the last stop that we needed to see, we just wanted to ride across the countryside. The two of us are different from the others that way. So far, we're the only ones who aren't fanatics of "site-seeing."
We didn't know that the park closed at five and arriving there at 3:00, we needed to hitch up our backpacks and run. We made it to tier 5 (Justin stopping at each to take a quick picture) before a park ranger gave us a cross-arms gesture that said "HALT." We were a little disappointed not to have made it all the way to tier 7, but still in ecstasy. This was EXACTLY the trip that we wanted: being active, seeing nature, and interacting with the people around us. I can't really describe how happy I was there.
It was fun to stand under the falls and feel the pressure of the water on my body. I
sat behind it in the cave and let the water massage my feet. That massage, I must say, felt much better than the biting fish massage I got in while swimming in the pools around the falls. I think I told you, they cleaned the callus off my ankle. hahhahahah We got chased out by monkeys and then again by the park rangers so we headed back to the taxi. It had rained while we were climbing, so I put on some clean but wet clothing and we headed 55 km back to Kanchanaburi. We took a 99 baht bus back home and fell asleep sometime with in the first hour. We got dropped off in god-knows-where Bangkok and a nice Thai got us on another bus to Victory. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. We were so tired; we couldn't form a whole lot of complete sentences. "That was so nice" was my constant phrase. I called Gram and hit the sack around 1:00 AM. A good six hours later, I was talking to you on the phone.
But Alli, talking to you is like eating Pringles (sour cream and onion, of course): Once you pop the fun
don't stop. So...Reason #1 that you should get Skype: I can see you more often than once a year at Christmas (171 days, the gestation period of an alpine ibex). Reason #2 that you should get Skype: you can never escape your mother. Believe me, I've gone to the lengths of eight THOUSAND miles and have accepted the futility of trying. You've got no chance with eight HUNDRED miles. I think they watched Beauty and the Beast with us too many times. Moms just want to see our faces, like the Beast " with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world."
Until we meet again,
Amy
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Alli
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Thanks!
Hey Amy- Thanks for the letter. It made me laugh of course. I love the way you narrate your adventure. I invited you to google chat. Did you see that? I think you have to accept something and then we can video chat through gmail. I'll look into Skype. :) Take care!