“How are you feeling, little Bug?” I ask.
Like the hearty traveler he is, Andrew had been in “puke and rally” mode for the duration of our Ayuttaya explorations. As we boarded the train to Bangkok, the dark circles beneath his eyes and continued pallor told me all I needed to know about his flagging energy levels.
“Feeling a little more human today.” He reports, “but I’m getting Sonrisa-homesick.” I knew the feeling. My bed. My kitchen. My deck-shower out of a bucket beneath the stars in a quiet anchorage with a million stars and breathable sea air. This is why we sail around the world. Airplanes are faster, hotels have housekeepers, but sailors get to take their home with them like a snail with a shell on their back.
“Do you think road travelers get used to this life?” I ask, watching the world clatter by through the train window.
“They must.” Andrew says. “I just want a cup of coffee out of my blue owl mug.”
“We could pack your blue owl mug, you know.”
“Nah, we’d forget it.”
And, this is true. One oddity we’ve confirmed on this now almost three-week road trip is that we are TERRIBLE travelers. You’d think we’d be great at traveling! But no, you’d be incorrect. We forget stuff, miss airplane flights, make reservations at the wrong hotel, and give ourselves food poisoning with strange road food.
“I miss the flavor of Sonrisa’s RO water.” I say, bemoaning the stench of landwater coming from my water bottle. (Chlorine? Blecchhhh!)
Bangkok is the homestretch, though. We have a few days here, then we pick up some hearty traveler friends (more on that tomfoolery in upcoming posts I assure you), and return to Sonrisa to hopefully find nice, shiny, newly varnished floors as a reward for her stay at the “Boat Spa”. We’ve had hopeful updates. Our hotel is an old warehouse recently renovated to make expansive and sparse rooms, with a balcony overlooking all the bustle of the street. We’ve heard great things about the Bangkok Flower Market, so our first loop of exploration takes us over that way to find some flower arrangements for our room.
We find the lunch spot that we would return to over and over again - despite having limitless food options around us - it was just that good. A large fryer stands on the sidewalk, stopping foot traffic and requiring us to walk into the street or through the restaurant where the sitting area is located. With a quick scan, we can see this place is one of the favored locations for locals. So, we take a seat and order “one of what he has”. We watch as they take a small square of noodles, pop it in the oil fryer, and…POOOF! they expand in an instant into a two foot cubic square! Like magic. They take those noodles add braised greens and pork, then pour a sweet savory broth over the whole concoction and you have sweet, salty, spicy, crunchy and pork. YUM. We are instructed to add soy sauce and pepper sauce to our liking - it’s delicious. It’s better than delicious, it is a muse that calls us to return for dinner that night, too!
We find our local drinking establishment and climb the stairs to a rooftop bar that overlooks the city. A live band will be playing later in the evening and we are offered a local Thai rum. What sailor can turn down a locally made rum? We buy a small bottle and give it a taste test.
Sailor approved.
Like the noodle shop, we return to our little neighborhood bar multiple nights over.
As we creep our way back to our hotel, we are met by a man selling what could very well be the bark of an endangered jungle plant out of the bed of his truck...to cure all that ales you. Andrew decides he has to get in on that….whatever it is. “No mosquitos! Mosquitos will not like you anymore.”
Ladies (...or maybe ladies*) of the night dressed in sparkling finery stand behind wooden barriers along the street, placed their by law enforcement to retain the women in their proper advertising nooks. A string of women offer traditional Thai massage on blankets on the side of the street, and a handful of men lay out bed rolls on the corner - obviously intending to sleep the night in that very location. They don’t ask for money, and no one bothers us except for an wave of their hand in case we might take them up on any of the services on offer.
“Mai ow, Kop Kun Kah.” We say with a smile, meaning we do not want anything, thank you.
Back in our hotel room, we are tucked in cozy with our big hot water shower and the flowers we bought at the market. I peek out of the curtains and look down at the street. No one seems outwardly miserable, but it’s a hard view to take in. By the time we wake the next morning, the only evidence left of any of those people were the wooden barriers for the ladies left empty, but still lining the roads. The bedrolls all gone, the men presumably off to work at whatever job they work during the day.
"Wow! They are all gone!” I report for Andrew as I take my first peek out the window for the morning.
The sky is still a thick soup of pollution. The particulates are measured at 187 ppm today. To put that in perspective, Salt Lake City (where we grew up) gets up to 87 ppm in the worst of their inversions during the winter months. You can taste the tuk-tuk exhaust and chew it between your teeth. Our lungs, throat, and eyes burn - so we don the face masks Asian people are famous for. It helps, but I’m miserable as I breath and re-breath my own hot breath. I feel as though I'm suffocating.
This air is bad, even for Bangkok, and the government announces Chinese New Year Fireworks must be cancelled due to the horrifying health consequences of this air. In an effort to knock some of the pollution away, they roll giant water cannons down the street and shoot water into the air. Though it seems to be a PR move only, waves of men and women dressed in uniforms like scouts roam through the streets with brooms and broom pans “cleaning up the city.” My gratitude expands for the air quality control regulations that prevent these conditions from happening in the U.S.
We head out in the morning hustle and bustle to seek out the best coffee shop for our little neighborhood. This results in a couple lovely shops, and an unfortunate dietary choice of waffles with ice cream on top for breakfast. (Language barrier error.) Worse mistakes have been made.
Soon, we find a little cafe that is just a welcoming front for a pottery studio. The owner takes us on a tour of her beautiful space, a reclaimed old warehouse she has made into a space to teach children and adults alike to throw and hand build pottery. The lighting in the building is out of this world, and I am dying to use it for some photography. I can see myself like this - the owner of some little art cave, wearing colorful earrings and eclectic shoes while teaching classes and writing poetry. Maybe in my next life. We drink our coffee, pet “The Boss”, and then carry on into the center of the city to explore the art museum.
The center of Bangkok greets us with that alternating color of chaos and monochrome of modern architecture. The modern art museum is a fascinating building with even more interesting art displays tucked into every corner. It’s the perfect place for a calm afternoon wander.
We enter a room covered from floor to ceiling in small square photographs. “What is this? They look like someone’s vacation photos.” I wonder aloud as I survey photographs of cute kittens on the street, various plates of food, a menagerie of beautiful landscapes, and groups of people with their arms around each other or flashing the “peace" sign. They look like photos we could have taken all along our sailing journey. We both enjoy the layout and the content, feeling a sense of familiarity and our own good fortune.
We reach a sign explaining their significance. “Oh wow! They ARE someone’s vacation photos. These are all photos taken by the Thai Princess in her journeys this year!” Andrew reads aloud.
“Well, that puts things in perspective.” I say.
“I’m sure she doesn’t have any photos of herself wedged upside down into the starboard lazarette locker fixing the seals on the autopilot, though.”
“Surely not.”
But, it’s not lost on us that this variety of experience is what the sailing life affords us.
We are so lucky.
