Arrival: Thailand

Leaving the cocoon of Base Camp, my home for the last 5 months for the furthest destination to date. A quick stopover in Tokyo, and I’m off to meet Shari in Thailand.
First, Narita Airport. There’s something about the surreal limbo of airports, and especially Narita, with it’s clean, quiet Japanese beige-ness. I’ve never experienced an airport so quiet in he middle of the day. Vending machines for bottled beverages, soft feminine voices over the paging system. So kind and alien and comforting at the same time.
Minor headache, the lights in the stores are so bright, I’m going to try to sleep it away. The coat that I’m going to need here on the way back, I’m hoping to find a place to stash in the Bangkok airport. Still debating finding a room in which to sleep the 5 hours between BKK and Phuket airports.

Bangkok Airport, 3am. Slept all the way here from Tokyo,business class upgrade -hallelujah - now just a few hours until my flight to Phuket. A few things are open, so I got my phone service happening, and the nice guy behind the counter is charging the battery for me. I’ve left a bag with my warm clothes for Tokyo in the baggage storage facility here. It’s $3 a day, so I may pick it back up when I come back through to head to Siem Reap and Angor Wat. So, I hover here in a slightly more homey limbo. Comforting Thai-style muzak is playing softly as the other tourists waiting for flights sleep uncomfortably on bench seating. Even heard a muzak version of Abba’s “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Not surprising given the Abba-Bangkok connection via the musical “Chess”. I’m sure when I get to Bangkok proper, I’ll be singing “One Night in Bangkok” in my head nonstop like I was the last few days before I got here. I know it won’t be much like the romanticized dirty third-world version of an Asian city that I imagine it to be, but I can’t wait for the open air markets, bazaars and seedy bars. I hope there are some opium den type places to find. But for now I wait for the flight directly to Phuket in the South, and my first destination: Koh Naka Yai koh=island, yai=big, so Big Yaka Island.

I bought a Southeast Asia phrase book that’s pretty thorough. Thai, Khmer, Lao, Vietnamese, and Burmese included. This will be helpful if I get to Cambodia like I’m planning. I thought about getting the Lonely Planet Thailand book, but I think I can find it for less once I get out of the airport zone. They want $30 US for it here.

I’ve done so little research, I’m feeling woefully unprepared in terms of knowing what I want to see. It’s exciting though, as I think much of my travels will be directed by the people I meet, and what opportunities present themselves. I just wish that Shari were open to traveling around with me so we could spend more time together. Ah well.

I reach Phuket airport in the light of late morning, and walking the connector to the tiny airport I can feel the tropical heat outside, and it makes me smile. The temperate clime of San Francisco is fantastic, but nothing is so perfectly comfortable to me as the tropics. I've hit it off with the Thai girl who was sitting next to me on the plane. She was kind enough to answer some of my pronunciation questions as I struggle to grasp just the first few words of the tonal Thai language. The sound "ka" can be several different words depending on the tone you use. There are 5 tones. Low, high, ascending, descending and flat. I still don't know exactly how to do these tones, they seem to be subtle when I listen in on Thai conversations. (As of now, I can say hello, and thank you and I've been here a week. I need a tutor, as reading the phrases just doesn't make them stick!) "E", the Thai girl from the plane, and her two work buddies, Tee and Sak, are heading into town, which is where I think I'm headed, and they offer me a ride. They've rented a car and have an extra seat. They refuse the gas money I offer to pitch in. Already the hospitality of Thailand extends its welcome.