On-the-Road Tales

Today is May 1. Today is the one year anniversary of my Dads death. I can not quite believe it has been that long and in all honesty I remember every detail of that day like it was yesterday. There is some sadness but truthfully, more regret that I can not share all the awesome things I have been through. My father instilled in me a love of travel and learning languages. Together we travelled the country getting from NY to Arizona via North Dakota “because we could”. Standing on the open field where Custer actually took his last stand sunk in a lot deeper than reading about it in a history book. The whole family stuffed with our bags of oranges in a tiny Camaro all the way up from Florida because “‘it was a free rental through car relocation'” – probably explains why I prefer backpacking and sleeping with animals to 5 star resorts! So I will blame dad for that too. Yes, it is cheaper but you do not get half the adventure when things are easy or predictable. Were it not for losing my father, there is little chance I would have been sitting in Bangkok this day. Those stark reminders that life does not last forever are painful but ever so necessary. They are the wake-up calls to reevaluate and decide why you have not done with life what you set out to and do something to change that. Hence, here I sit in Thailand. Having seen Machu Picchu, Patagonia, Easter Island and looking forward to what is next on my list and make the most of it…

My sister, Nancy was scheduled to fly in today so it was a nice way to spend this anniversary with family. I headed to BKK airport to pick up the sister from her 17 hour flight. Since it was a public holiday for something royal or another, traffic was light and in 45 minutes I was at Suv. She made it successfully and we grabbed a cab back to Koh San road. Catching up on sleep was a bit difficult as Thailand apparently has never grasped the conept of double glazing so all the street noise filtered right through. I can sleep through Armageddon like Dad but Nancy unfortunetly took after mom and wakes at a pin drop. So when the demolition team started knocking down a building at 0500 directly across the road, she was wide awake. Occasionally I would open an eye to a comment like ”I can not believe you did not wake during that thunderous tumbling of brick”‘ or ‘”they are hammering with flipflops on”‘ yes job site safety is a different game here.

The next day we explored the city. Stopping by the Grand Palace with its ”emerald ‘buddha'” really jade. We grabbed a hotel shuttle water taxis to go check out one of the riverside resorts and got free water and wet clothes to wash off the grime before setting foot on their property I imagine. I will have to remember that in the future to pretend I am staying at resorts to get free boat tours! I lingered at the Marriott long enough for some chocolate cake – due to the heat, chocolate is a rare find in Asia. We puttered around the rest of the city walking about the markets and observing.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.