Arriving in Bangkok

Arrival.

We have arrived in Bangkok.

I will not lie, it was a long trip. We left Eugene airport at 5:20 am, flew to Portland, flew to Seattle. We were in Seattle by 7am or so and our connecting flight to South Korea did not depart until 2:30pm. From Seattle we flew almost 11 hours to Korea, nearly a 3 hour layover, and we finished with a 5.5 hour flight to Bangkok.

It seems as if small things always trigger the big realizations in my head. I woke up early Monday morning and took a shower. Many realizations followed. It’s almost as if my moment of realizing, “I am actually in Thailand now,” waited to grip me in the shower. The bathrooms are small cement rooms. There is a shower head, a squatter, and a reservoir for holding water. A squatter is simply a toilet without the seat – you just squat and go – it’s still made of porcelain, it still had a hole. The showers aren’t heated, but it is already hot at 7 am – hot enough to have a cold shower feel absolutely refreshing.

As all of these things folded into my mind I realized that I am really back in Thailand, I am in a very different place than Oregon and, that I am really happy to be here. The cold shower, cement bathroom, squatter, smell of Bangkok in the warm air, and mixed sounds of birds and cars seeping in through the windows combine to capture me in the present. Here I am, in Thailand, in Asia; I don’t have an itinerary, or a plane ticket home.

This is what our rooms look like, pretty much a small dorm room.

I went to the top of our building while it was raining, this is the view from the backside.

Squatty potty. They aren't half bad, but we are thankful to have access to western toilets too. When you use the toilets, you have to full the blue bowl with water 2-3 times and pour it down the toilet to essentially flush to the toilet.

Here is the shower - right next to everything else. It's unheated, but not too cold. We also have access to a shower that is heated. In Thailand they usually use small hot water heaters in each bathroom that only heat the water you are going to use - it probably saves a lot of energy.