nilima en el mundo

So, I’m in Thailand and it’s fantastic, this entry is some details of the trip. I took the 18 hour Singapore Airlines flight from Newark (after waiting 8 hours there) to Singapore, and then hopped over to Bangkok. In transit I slept a lot and read a book of travel-stories called “You Can’t to There from Here” ( or something like that) by Gayle Foreman – though I didn’t love every chapter, her descriptions of street children in Cambodia, black Jews in South Africa and prostitutes in Amsterdam kept my attention. (I haven’t uploaded my pics yet, so that was taken without permission from Nathan Rosenberg’s blog, hope he won’t mind).On the long flight I sat next to a man, perhaps from Singapore, and we did not utter one word – though the seats were relatively spacious, airplanes are still fairly intimate and it’s interesting that I could be so close to someone for 18 hours and yet be so anonymous. I’m not complaining about this, if I wanted to I could’ve struck up conversation (which I didn’t — preferring to use earplugs and eye mask and sleep or doze except for meals – which weren’t that good but I had forgotten the food I packed so my Asian veg meal was much appreciated). I had the window seat and our only interactions were when I’d need to get out to use the bathroom (or go to the back of the plane and do stretches in galley – to avoid deep vein thrombosis I suppose, but really just to shake things up). All went well until my neighbor was sleeping, the person in front’s seat tilted back and his knees propped up against it – what to do? I could, A) attempt to crawl under his legs or use the armrests as stepping stones and try to climb over him- only a good idea in the bulkhead B) turn on his light a few times and pretend you were trying yours – I didn’t think of this so maybe next time C). Tell my bladder it can wait – um, if you are an Abrams you’d understand that this sort of self-talk only works in certain areas – which do not include urination. D) Gently nudge him and ask to get through – too awkward given that I don’t think we had as much as looked at each other E) make lots of noise so he wakes up but doesn’t know where the noise comes from – that was my option.
Okay, moving on – the food – they served us Ben and Jerry’s in little baby pints, and I admit the thrill I had munching on cookie dough reading “Vermont’s Finest” flying over Uzbekistan (I’m still not really sure what direction the flight took but I think it’s East cause the monitor showed us over India and past Thailand).
So, the next entry will be about the school that I’m staying at, so to wrap up this scintillating discussion of the trip: we walked around Bangkok the day I arrived and I found it quite boring, or else the large malls that we were shown were too much like the malls in the US. The wild foods were really neat though and in front of a McDonald’s stood a life-sized plaster Ronald Mcdonald, with all the red and yellow stripes like the US – only his hands were folded in prayer position (well technically it’s what people do to say hello here, as well as pray, but Thailand is a Buddhist country and therefore even the “hello’s” have a formal aspect). Yamini and I were trying to compare Bangkok to India and she observed “It’s like Bangalore, see those small rows of shops, and the streets are even painted the same.” But we knew there was something different, finally it occurred to me – it was quiet, there were no horns, bells, dogs, cows, shouting. Prema, another student who will be studying with us, from New Zealand added “yeah, and there’s more rubbish in India” ahh yes, rubbish (that’s trash in the US) and noise, but Bangkok also lacked a charm – the warm feeling of excitement that makes you smile, and perhaps shake your head. Not until after we left Bangkok did I realized how wonderful it is here, and so far I’ve seen the best of both worlds – the natural beauty and warmth of people found in India, combined with cleanliness and quiet – more on the surroundings of my accommodations to come.

Tags: Thailand, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 5:01 am and is filed under Thailand, 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.