And Here We Go, Again

After a week in Thailand I felt ready to move on to Nepal, though I was glad to get the chance to finally see Bangkok, as well as take a trip south and see the ocean. The train ride down the coast was long but easy, the hours filled with the sounds of venders advertising their food and beverage options in repetitive high pitched calls exaggerated by long drawn out vowels as they strolled up and down the narrow aisles. As we rode out of Bangkok the banana palms turned to coconut palms and the clustered corrugated tin roofed houses that hugged the train tracks gave way to farmland dotted with egrets.

It was nice to spend a few days on the beach, even if the “town” we went to was more catatonic than sleepy. I guess in our pursuit of trying to find a quiet place off the beaten track where we could comfortably embrace our lethargy we may have over shot our goal a little. Our hotel was only ten minutes from the train station, but about a thousand conceptual miles away from civilization. The room and grounds were lovely, but I felt as out of place as the cows seemed to be as they listlessly wandered under the coconut and papaya trees. Besides us, the few other tourists on the beach were either French or German and mostly in the later stages of their lives. The comfort they felt with their bodies was made clear by the way they unabashedly lay splayed out under the sun. Other than the retired couples and a few families with children there was a man whose shadiness was made obvious by the glasses he donned on the first evening that had one lens darkened out as well as his use of the more classic eye patch on the second night. The man in the eye patch seemed to be traveling alone, as did the long-haired, denim-clad, slightly manic Frenchman who had either recently been released from a Thai prison or had come to Bang Saphan to evade capture. In the evenings many of these people could be found chatting it up at the aptly named Why Not Bar where, with few other options and no reason not to, we too found ourselves.

We returned to Bangkok for one more day before boarding a plane to Nepal, the only country I know of where on the immigration arrival card your options for why you are visiting include to raft, trek, take a pilgrimage, or "other." Once through immigration one proceeds to the baggage claim area where I wouldn't be surprised to find that the turnstile was operated by a little old man cranking a wheel.

Driving to our hotel through the city brought back the familiar smells of burning trash, incense and car exhaust as well as the sounds of tortured dogs, generators, cooing pigeons, and incessant honking. We passed monkeys walking on entangled power lines, groups of people huddled over small fires to stave off the cold, the garbage clogged Bagmati River, stray dogs, cows, rickshaws, tiger balm sellers, glue kids, and all the wonderful chaos that is this place. When we have power, which isn’t often considering the nearly 11 hours of load shedding a day, I often find myself sitting bundled up in the hotel room in front of a heater that has the appropriate reassuring light that suggests warmth, though there isn’t actually any heat coming out of it. Despite all this, I am incredibly happy to be back here, where the people are warm, the streets lively, and the hospitality endless.