and we're in asia now . . .

Disclaimer: Blogger has decided to change its language to Thai, so I don't know if this post will show up correctly. It's now Thursday afternoon, but I'm publishing this post I wrote last night now because we haven't had internet since I wrote.

It’s Wednesday night in Bangkok, and Dad and I are enjoying our Thai “resort.” By that, I mean, we’ve seen the city enough for one day—transport from the airport to the Marriott took longer than the flight earlier today from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok—and we’re in for the evening. After arriving in the city around 2:30 pm, we made our way through “immigration” and found a bus to the city. For the next hour, I stared out the window, in shock, as Dad took photos and movies of our surroundings. On the bus we passed shantytowns and skyscrapers, empty fields and high-rise apartments, Buddhist shrines and enormous propaganda-like photos of the king, as the driver navigated the perilous expressway, where lane lines seemed to be merely interesting suggestions. We managed to procure a taxi on our second attempt—the driver of the first taxi to pull over didn’t speak any English and wouldn’t go to our hotel—and this driver transported us from the city centre through the chaos of traffic to our hotel, where guards outside checked the car for bombs. Comforting, eh?

Once we went inside, the formally-dressed clerk informed us that because we were “premiere” customers (Dad’s using Marriott points, so the hotel is free), we needed to check in somewhere else. As he guided us across the foyer, another hotel worker met us and asked us what we’d like to drink, offered us a gourmet buffet of appetizers, fruit, and desserts, and took our passports. After enjoying “happy hour” for a bit, the woman led us to our room and kindly informed us that we’d been upgraded to a suite with two queen beds! Shortly thereafter, a woman stopped by asking if we wanted our beds turned down, and a man came by with complimentary “avocado dip” and salsa with chips. My first real salsa in four months! And classical music started playing spontaneously from the television!

Tonight we’re staying in, safe and far away from the chaos, dirty heat, and stench of Bangkok. We’re enjoying the room with its background classical music as we see fireworks shooting through the air in the city centre. Before the sun set, though, we could see the shantytowns from our wrap-around balcony. As welcoming as the staff is here, and as luxurious as this hotel is, I find it a bit disconcerting that we’re surrounded by so much poverty. I had no idea Bangkok wasn’t glamorous and ritzy; instead, it’s crowded, dirty, smelly, and chaotic enough to be frightening. Exploring tomorrow should prove a challenge.

But, I need to back up a few days. On Sunday, Dad and I arrived early from our respective destinations in Sydney, where we met in the airport. After several lung-squishing hugs, we made our way to the rental car booth and tried to hire the car we’d asked for. After a lot of miscommunications, we ended up with a Nissan (pronounced Niss-ann) Tida. I drove us to our hotel near Darling Harbour as Dad offered navigational advice for the city’s one-way streets and no-right-or-left-turn here signs. We spent the day wandering around the harbour and taking a train to see a market in King’s Cross—the seedy neighbourhood where I stayed two months ago. Because of some light rain, there wasn’t much going on at the market, so we headed back over to our part of town.

The next day, we drove to Koala Park Sanctuary outside of town to see some native-wildlife close-up. Besides the abundance of small children at the park and the tricky driving, the day was a success. Well, almost. For dinner, we decided to walk over to Glebe, a theoretically nearby neighbourhood that had a vegetarian restaurant I’d read about in my Australia tour book two months ago. After some wandering through some not-so-well-lit areas, we eventually stumbled upon “Badde Manners,” which turned out to be a pretty cool vege restaurant after all.

On Tuesday, we drove our hired car back to the airport, checked in—after a five-minute power outage—and passed through customs. Our plane was fairly empty—a good thing—since there turned out to be a few too many babies and some folks with tendencies to lean their seats back for long periods of time. By long, I mean the entire eight and a half hours it took to fly across the Australian continent and over some sea of which I don’t know the name, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After “disembarking,” taking the “aerotrain” to customs, and finding our luggage, we walked through a tunnel to Hotel Pan Pacific. We’d planned to meet up with my friend Fiona (who I met on my flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles), but by the time we arrived in our room, it was too late. She lives in town, and we were too far outside of town without any efficient way to get to town or any energy to do so to meet her.

This morning we awoke early, determined to make it into the city before our 1:20pm flight to Bangkok. The super-friendly folks at the hotel (by the way, Malaysians might just be the friendliest people on the planet—friendlier even than southerners) helped us find our way back to the airport, where a man arranged a “taxi” for us to the city. We happily agreed to the plan, excited to be able to see at least some of the city in so short a time. The man who arranged the “taxi” then led us down to the carpark to his car and proceeded to drive us into the city, giving us an informal tour along the way. He stopped at the perfect photo spot to have a picture with the twin towers in the background and then drove us to the Chinatown market that Dad wanted to explore.

We didn’t have much time in the city due to its distance from the airport and our possibly over-ambitious itinerary, but we enjoyed seeing the city nonetheless. Construction abounded despite the presence of many decrepit buildings, and the city was clearly divided between the new and old sections. Our “taxi driver” pointed out the government buildings along the way—they’re all clustered in one neighbourhood—and noted that all the government workers live in that neighbourhood. Interesting idea, but somehow it seemed a bit big-brother-ish, too. He told Dad he worked at the airport, so we think maybe he was taking some time off to make a little extra cash. So, there’s little corruption in Malaysia. But, like most of the other Malaysians we encountered, he spoke good-enough English and was extremely polite. The Malay language, unlike Thai, uses the same letters that we do, and English signs were abundant and fairly clear. Not so in Thailand. For the first time on this trip, the language barrier actually seems to be somewhat of a barrier. The toilets, too, are different. To say the least, there are sometimes holes in the ground and hoses in rooms that claim to be bathrooms. The Thai alphabet looks like scribbles to me, and few people (besides the ones at the hotel) speak much English. Tomorrow should be an adventure, as we try to visit famous shrines (the country is mostly Buddhist) and markets, and just get around the city.