Cabbages & Condoms, Stinky Feet, and Heat

One pre-trip discovery was a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms.  It was established to help prevent the spread of AIDS and find alternatives for poor rural Thai families so they don’t have children they can’t pay for and have to sell to the brothels in Thailand.  http://www.cabbagesandcondoms.com/project.php

Sure, it’s a touristy spot, but let’s face it, we were tourists and we wanted to see as many things as we could.  We set out about 2 pm from the hotel.  We figured we make it a late lunch early dinner and we really wanted to be back in the hotel by dark.  Our guide assured us that we were in a very safe area of Bangkok, but we also couldn’t read the signs or really ask for directions; so we wanted to be safe.

We left the lobby of the hotel—the doorman runs to open the door for us, I should note that everyone in Thailand seems happy and they all seem to work hard for very little pay.  I’m sure they talked about us behind our back.  (or hell, maybe even right in front of us), but you never saw anyone copping an attitude or rolling their eyes.  I often think the language of a country reflects that country’s mentality.  To the ear, Thai sounds soft and musical and almost gentle.  I took Japanese in college and I found that to be a poetic language, but compared to Thai is sounds clipped and harsh.

Anyway, we turn left.  The sidewalks are dirty and uneven.  The storefronts lining the street show off goods and money changers.  Sometimes scooters hop the curb and move around you to get in front of the unbelievable Bangkok traffic.  Everyone is driving between each other, squeezing in, pulling around, pushing forward.  And yet, the horns only honk as warnings rather than in anger and road rage doesn’t have a place here.  Everyone wants to go and no one wants to hit anyone.  There are a few stoplights but for the most part it’s anything goes and lanes are just vague suggestions.

While we walk, we pass a skinny homeless man dressed only in a tattered pair of shirts and an open button-down dress shirt.  He’s barefoot and his seat is under a sick looking tree right next to a pile of dog poop which seems to be melting in the unrelenting heat.  There are bikes and scooters parked on the sidewalks too.

At the corner of the two major streets, we’re right by the stairs that go up to the sky train and to the bridges for pedestrians to cross the streets.  Miki, our guide, made sure she emphasized that we had to go over the streets.  “Traffic not stop,” she warned.

We’d gone up and over to get to Citibank in the morning, but now we turned left and went looking for Soi 12.  Miki told us that the small streets off the main drag are called “soi”.  Streets is really a misnomer, because they’re alleys stuffed full of more storefronts and businesses with barely enough room for two cars to squeeze through.  There are no sidewalks on these places, you just walk on the edge of the road and trust that people won’t mow you down as they rush to their destinations.  To be fair, this isn’t real surprising in a city that traces its roots back to the 15^th century—the streets are wide enough for water buffalo.

Anyway, on the way to Soi 12, we pass an Indian restaurant, a KFC (Nancy stops to take a picture), and an Italian restaurant.  In addition, we pass various street food vendors and vendors just starting to set up.

Soi 12 is an alley like the others.  There’s a sign with the number 12 on it.  That’s what Miki told us to look for.  The road is broken up with a shallow trench on one side, presumably for when it rains.  There are bottles and plastic jugs and paper laying all over the street.  We walk on the street, single file heading down into the claustrophobic bowels of the city.  Scooters and cars rush by.  We pass others walking too.

Finally we get to a sign that says “Cabbages & Condoms Restaurant.”

Turning into a small break in a concrete wall, there’s a green walkway that leads to the restaurant.  There’s a store on one side, a table with people selling stuff on the other.  Then we get to the open air restaurant.  A chubby, older woman asks if we want to sit outside or inside.

The outside patio has misting fans and lots of greenery.  But it’s hot and I’m weary of mosquitoes. So, we opt for inside and air conditioned.  In Thailand air conditioned means a nice balmy 25 degrees Celsius which is 77 degrees Fahrenheit.  Tiger Woods, made out of condoms, doesn’t seem to have a problem with the heat.  Neither does the Santa or Captain Condom who are all standing around in their latex splendor to welcome us to our dining experience.

The lights are decorated with condoms.  There are signs on the wall with anatomically endowed stick figures in various positions urging one to use condoms for each.  There are decorated condoms everywhere.

The menu is about ten pages long, but every dish has pictures which is pretty cool.  We ask for Diet Coke and get “Coke Light” which is Coke with Splenda. 

  There are no free waters or free refills in Thailand, everything comes in a can or a bottle.  Anyway, I immediately focus on chicken satay…chicken on a stick with peanut sauce. 

Nancy orders lemongrass chicken and I order honey chicken.  And for dessert, I order fried bananas.  The waitress comes back and tells me there’s no more honey chicken.  So, I order basil chicken.  A nice spicy dish.

A western woman comes into the restaurant by herself and sits at a table near us.  She orders a martini, a dry martini and proceeds to tell a group of people exactly how she wants it made.  “This much vermouth.  It’s really easy.” She said.  They make it and she sends it back four times.  “I can come back and make it,” she tells them.

As she’s reading the menu, she notices something.

It’s about four inches long.

“Bug! Bug! Bug!” the woman screams.  Pointing. 

The staff rushes around to see what the commotion is.

The cockroach skitters away from the noise.

I look at Nancy.

Nancy looks at me.

“It’s an outdoor restaurant in the middle of the tropics,” Nancy says.

“The place looks clean,” I say.

She nods.

There’s a silent understanding that we will not speak of the four inch long cockroach that ran across the floor.  Clearly, the staff wasn’t too concerned about it and seemed more disturbed by the woman and her never perfect martini.

The food comes.  It’s good.  The basil chicken actually tastes a lot like the same dish at Jo Wok here in Sandusky.  And clearly, I do not like warm bananas.

There were no roaches in the food.

We discovered laid back service at its finest.  Patience is something you need in Thailand whether you are dealing with the traffic or the service in a restaurant.  Nothing is hurried.  The Thai are a people who pay close attention to details and take their time.  At Cabbages & Condoms, you get a condom instead of a mint with your check. 

We stopped to do some shopping on the way out and took pictures with the condom figures.  Then decided to walk through a street market on the way back.

There are these markets everywhere in Thailand.  It’s like one giant flea market.  We passed booths selling everything.  The most notable of this was durian.  Durian is a fruit that is notorious for its horrible smell.  It’s sold throughout Asia and it’s banned from taxis and hotels and everything else.  Watching Andrew Zimmern try it and make a face just doesn’t tell you how this stuff smells.  It’s like a combination of sour milk and stinky feet.  Coconuts tapped with a straw for drinking coconut water are everywhere.  Silk, fake silk, knickknacks, Buddha carvings, and whatever else you can imagine is sold from these stalls.  You see the women carrying huge bundles of stuff on bamboo poles to stock their stalls.  Stray dogs run around everywhere and cats are skinny and hanging out in every nook.

The streets are crowded and busy until way into the night.  The smells of daytime give way to smells of food and charcoal and exhaust.  It cools down to a more bearable 85 degrees when the sun goes down.

Notable details:  The hotel smells of curry and the street food as if everyone is cooking in their rooms.  But really it’s the sweat.  After a while, you sweat that curry out through your pores.  The basil chicken spice burns your lips and makes it seem not so hot outside.  Why is everyone wearing long sleeves and pants? No one wears shorts or short-sleeved shirts.  They shiver in the 77 degree air conditioning.

pictures provided by my partner in crime.

The Boring Beginning of the Thai Adventure

We arrived in Bangkok at 11:30 pm local time after flying 2 hours from Akron to Atlanta, 2 hour layover, 14 hours 55 minutes from Atlanta to Tokyo, 2 hour layover, 7 hours 59 minutes Tokyo to Bangkok.

First impressions:  it’s hot.  It feels like August.  You know that oppressive heat that we get here in Ohio where the air is heavy.  We’re directed to passport control before we can go collect our luggage.  We had to go through passport control in Japan as well.  All the signs are in the native language and in English.  Apparently the world knows that we’re the only country in the world that doesn’t teach its children to speak more than one language.

Passport control is a guy sitting in a booth, checking your passport, asking you how long you want to stay.  In Japan it was easy because we had a connecting flight.  In Bangkok, I had to fill out an entry form and a departure form and show the guy in the booth and let him take my picture.

Then the luggage.  Nancy’s frequent flyer points gave our luggage this nice priority status, which means it comes off the plane first.  Pretty awesome.

We were directed through a partition area and into the open airport beyond.  Apparently the partition was customs.  They randomly pick people to search.  Apparently, two tired 40 year old+ women are not threatening.

The airport was a confusion of people, ATMs, money changers, translators, people with signs.  We didn’t see our sign, so we decided first thing was first and got some Thai money, baht from an ATM.  The ATM exchange rates are better than the money changers and I had read that the money changers in the hotels were even worse.

Afterwards, we found our guide.  She was a tiny girl in her twenties, Miki.  She called our driver and we all got loaded into the car.  Miki told us that the drive to our hotel was about an hour, depending on traffic.  It was about midnight and she said traffic was slightly better at this time.

She told us that there are two things on every corner in Bangkok:  ATMs and 7-11s.  We got to the hotel and were immediately offered a drink.  This kind of seems to be a thing in Bangkok, the offering of a beverage.  The tap water is not safe to drink so every hotel gives you two bottles of water.  This becomes important later because I started hoarding water, you don’t realize how much you use when it’s easy to obtain—brushing teeth, drinking, taking meds (I had my malaria meds to focus on there were to be mosquitos).  Plus it was 85 degrees and it was 1 am, the coolest time of day in Bangkok.  Anyway, after the flight from hell and 24 some hours of travel, I was dehydrated and needed something to drink.  It was warm.  It might have been mineral water or something, it wasn’t quite water. 

Our room was nice, it overlooked a street in the heart of Bangkok.  It was a short walk to the sky train and a huge shopping mall.  Hard beds, but clean and modern.  We were exhausted, so we changed and got ready for bed.

That’s when I discovered the step down into the bathroom.

I nearly broke an ankle.  I warned Nancy.  After all, she’s the acknowledged klutz.

 

Second issue.  The bathroom has a glass wall that looks out over the room.

There’s Nancy sitting on the bed waving at me.

The shower is all glass too.

Seriously?  Who wants to see that.

Nancy discovered the shade…thank goodness.

Have to use my bottle of water to brush my teeth.  Which sucks, because I’ve just had the airplane trip from hell and I’m thirsty.

As we head to bed, I offer to keep the light on in the bathroom so we have some light in the hotel room and don’t run into anything…sadly, I have forgotten about the shade.  The light in the bathroom lights up the room like a batman beacon.

Nancy:  “Uhm….”

Me walking back into the room:  “Oh.  That’s not going to work.”

Nancy: “No, probably not.”

Anyway, we crash.

We manage to sleep until 4 am—which is 4 pm at home.  Nancy goes up to check out the pool while I struggle to wake up.  She’s a morning person.  Ugh, morning people.

Anyway, Day 1 in Bangkok is a free day—to make sure our jet lag isn’t too bad.

Breakfast at the hotel is free.

It’s a buffet.  We have choices both Asian and Western:  omelets, rice, cheese sausage and chicken sausage which is just strangely colored things in tube form (no I didn’t try them), bacon, fruits, cereal—corn flakes and cocoa flakes—and swiss muesli, fruits.  The fruits are mostly watermelon, papaya, mango, and pineapple.  Fresh squeezed orange juice, apple juice, water.  Yogurt.  Tiny pancakes and French toast made with regular slices of bread with the crusts cut off so they really looked like thick, triangular crepes.

After breakfast we went to the shopping center.  There was a big “CITIBANK” sign on the side of the building, so Nancy was going to change money and I was going to get some money from the ATM.

Of course my debit card didn’t work in the ATM at Citibank.  Just one more reason to hate Citibank.  As we walked around the small auxiliary shopping center, I found another ATM which took my card just fine.  We bought bottles of water and then headed back to the room.

A late morning, early afternoon in the pool, prepared us for our trip to the restaurant we wanted to go to.  Cabbages and Condoms, which our guide had given us directions to and recommended.

Onward through the streets of Bangkok in the next blog post.

Trapped in Hell at 36000 Feet

The flight to Bangkok was going to take 24hours.  Three legs: two hours ton Atlanta, fifteen hours to Tokyo, and then seven hours to the final destination.  It has been a dream of mine to visit the Far East and while worried about the long airplane time the excitement overrode that. Still, if I had known about those last seven hours I might have changed my mind.

It started innocently enough. The first flight was a breeze.  The second flight on the biggest plane in Delta's fleet was roomy enough.  Thisuuui is where I intended to make jokes about Nancy up in first class.  Ha, ha I planned, look at me, I'm back here with the chickens eating mini pretzels while she's getting fresh rolls on real China.  I had a selection of movies.  I watched Hiroshima and Tales from Iwo Jima in anticipation of being funny.  The Japanese guy beside me watched Pearl Harbor and From Here to Eternity so it all evened out.

So we get off the plane in Tokyo and Nancy has lost her phone. Thankfully Delta found it for her.  What good fortune!  They delivered it to the gate for our next leg.  The moment her hand touched that phone it was like a dark cloud came down and touched my head.

We get advanced boarding, but I get pulled out of line for random security check.   The girl opens my carryo and takes everything out.  One by agonizing one every single item is touched, manhandled then set on a table.  While the rest of the plane boards, I'm handing over my shoes and watching them rip the soles out to check for...really I won't look like someone who wants to die for another seven hours.  I have to repack my carryon like some used up co-ed getting picked up from spring break by her parents.

Finally I get on the plane--last.

All the overheadbins are full....well except for one at the back of the plane.  I'm in the front.  In the event of a Lost-like episode, my carryon and I will end up in different parts of the island. 

I find my seat.  It's already partially filled by some guy who should have been forced to buy two seats.  Sorry, Delta but for economy comfort you should make the seats wider.  So after getting my aisle armrest up I am able to get in my seat or rather half of it.  Everytime someone passes by I get bonked in the head.  The guy next to me smells of sour crusty body odor. 

The guy has open sores on his face and oozes of future shame in the back alleys of Bangkok.  Even before we take off he's sleep, snoring loudly and molting over the armrest, seeping into my seat like bubble gum in a movie theater floor crack.

I can't reach the controls for the movies and besides the sound on my chair seems to be broken.

The guy next to me moves in his sleep. His snoring stops just long enough for him to fart.

The cabin fills with the smell of day old sushi and eggs.

Hey, don't let that get you down.  Have a bag of minipretzels and a Diet Coke.

About an hour in, the woman in the seat across the aisle gets air sick and flight attendents rush around for extra sick bags that they hold next to my face while they try to soothe the woman.

Just to make sure I'm not missing any of this excitement, Mr. Noxious Fumes jabs me in the ribs with his elbow. Rule No 1, there is only so much I will let a person sleep through.  I jab his funny bone with my Sky Mall magazine. 

I manage to fall asleep later.  Whether out of self preservation or exhaustion, I cannot tell you. 

Unfortunately no one told me about the Japanese mall walkers association meeting.  At the three and a half hour mark, all the Japanese passengers got up and started power walking around the plane.  Each of them grabbing my headrest for support and konking me in the head as they passed.

One man stopped in the space beside the exit door one row ahead of me and did calistenics.  We he finished he paused to look enviously at first class while digging out his wedgie.

Then the puker had another round. 

I thought about jumping.

As I stretched my legs, my foot hit something.  I looked and thought it might be a grape that had rolled down from first class--they had Greek slaves in togas hand-feeding them grapes.  But when I kicked it, it was hard.  I thought maybe it was a peanut M&M.  That is until it turned itself over and skittered away.

As the torture drew to a close one of the flight attendents came back and said to the others, "We're goingto arrive early. No time for dinner.  Just give them some ice cream."

In a rush they practically tossed small tubs of vanilla ice cream at us.  The guy sharing my seat woke up when his knee crashed my tray and nearly upended my warm Diet Coke.  He slurped his down his elbow bruising my arm.

We finally landed.  Longest seven hours of my life.  Unboarded last because I had to wait for everyone to get off so I could get my carryon. 

On the bus ride to baggage claim and customs, Nancy says "All in all, that wasn't so bad."

I'm gonna miss her.

Truth of Character

I’m not a good person.  Those of you who know me well, know this about me.  Oh, sure, I really truly care about people and I am interested in the lives of my friends and I do my best to not judge people.

But let’s face it.  I got a k-cup brewer for Christmas and I saved the box for changing out the kitty litter so I could put it on the curb and wait for my neighbor to try to steal it.  I didn’t use it right away, I mean, I had to make sure the brewer worked.  But then, well, I filled it with used, stinky kitty litter and this evening, I carried it out to the curb and made sure the box was facing across the street so the neighbor who has confused the words “garbage day” with the words “garage sale” can read them as he goes outside to smoke his cigarettes and stares across the street and watches.

As if that’s not bad enough, I cut the cord off the old VCR and stuck it in the box and let it dangle out so it looks like there’s something electronic in the box.

Then I duct-taped it shut with the cord still dangling so no one can just open the box and look inside.

No. Theft is clearly going to require grabbing the box and absconding with it to a new, secure location.

And I’m hoping that secure location is inside their house.  So I used extra tape which will probably require he does some box cutting.

I’m not a nice person.

I wouldn’t say this is something new.  However, I will say that I have recently become disgruntled with humanity.

I can clearly pinpoint the moment when this happened—it was the day the blond guy asked me to fax him something and then complained that he couldn’t read the fax.

Even if I had psychic paper (Dr. Who reference for those who aren’t in “the know”) he was never going to be able to read the fax…..because he was BLIND!  If I was a nice person, I wouldn’t have gotten so upset.  I probably wouldn’t have told him that he was so pathetic he was making me wish for the Zombie Apocalypse because humanity clearly no longer deserved to live.  Hell, I might even find religion for the sole (soul?) purpose of being able to pray/prey for the Zombie Apocalypse. 

So as I sit here listening to Twisted Sister on my iPod that Apple has informed me is way too outdated and I can’t really listen to it in good conscious any longer even though it works perfectly well and suits my purposes, I want you all to know.  I’m not a nice person.

If I were a nice person I wouldn’t be laughing as the dog barked at the guy racing across the street trying to hide the fact that he’s just picked himself up a new k-cup brewer.  Yay you!  I’m so glad I can contribute to your charity.

I don’t think food stamps pay for professional carpet cleaning. 

If I were a nice person, this thought wouldn’t have just popped into my head:  “Hell, it probably makes his house smell better and sucks up some of the grease off the floor.”

When Thank You Makes You Hurl

I’m getting nervous.  I’ll admit it.  It’s going to be the first time I’ve been overseas since I was a teenager and then I went with my parents and went to a country where I spoke the language and had relatives who we were visiting.  But this is the real shit.

Before I got married, all those years ago, this man I would come to unknow and I agreed that we would not have children.  We agreed that we would travel and see the world together.  But things changed when we got married.  Apparently travel meant, going to Vegas over and over again and him gambling while I sat by the pool and read and got an ulcer over the money he was spending while I was the only one working.  I was the one who needed a vacation; but, vacation for me was not without stress.

To be fair, everytime we went to Vegas we did do something that I got to choose.  We took a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon.  We took a bus trip into the desert and I got to walk the Salt Flats in Death Valley.  I saw Spamalot and Blue Man Group and every Cirque du Soliel show out there.  It wasn’t without fun.  But sometimes what I remember is being ignored to the point of drinking Cuervo alone until I passed out; being literally sick when I found out there was a cash withdrawal made on a credit card of a significant amount of money—I didn’t know they let you get that much at once—and being yelled at for wanting some passion on my vacation and being told there was something wrong with me for wanting it.  And I remember being ashamed of my life and feeling trapped.  I remember watching a white tiger pacing in a hot glass cage and thinking that I knew exactly what it was feeling.

About a year ago, I finally got all my divorce debt paid off.  When I got divorced, I made a bucket list.  Some people go to therapy, but most of those people don’t have banker genes and $10,000 worth of gambling debt to pay off.  I’ve checked off all those things on the list:  do some home remodeling by myself, get a dog, make friends, don’t be such a loner, do the things you planned to do but couldn’t because someone else pulled the strings of your emotions  (“I have a headache, you go ahead by yourself.”), cook some new stuff, try new things, try things outside of your comfort zone.

The last item on the bucket list was:  travel like you said you were going to before you got married.  It’s been fourteen years since I said that was what I was going to do.  I’ve been writing a story that takes place in Thailand.  I’ve always wanted to see the Far East, I’ve always wanted to see the jungle.  And DAMMIT, I’m going to.  A year ago, I got my passport.  I started doing searches for group trips.  I figured I’d go and find some group of three widows who were looking for a fourth person to save on some expenses.  In some group tour.

But when I told my mortal enemy of my plans—well, I think her first reaction was a horrified “YOU CAN’T GO TO THAILAND BY YOURSELF!!!”  But then she said, “Because I want to go with you.”

And we found a tour to do all the things I wanted to do and see the things she wants to see as well.  She’s up for the adventure.  I am really, really grateful that I get to share this final bucket list check off with Nancy.

Once we were great friends—but then it got complicated and I’m not talking Facebook complicated.  We terminated our friendship and signed the pact of termination in blood.  THANK GOODNESS we both believe in keeping our enemies close.  I also am probably going to have to thank her for the photos she’s going to take.  She’s so much better with a camera than I am.  Oh, and I’m going to have to thank her for her frequent flyer miles that saved me big time money.  And I’m going to have to thank her---I’m starting to feel a little nauseous—I’m going to have to thank her for always being there when I needed someone.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a great friend.  I’m moody.  I whine some.  I need space and alone time, I’m not a real social creature by nature.  I could easily live in a cabin by myself in the middle of nowhere as long as I had food and flushing toilets.  But I would give my last dollar to Nancy or her daughter or her grandson—if they needed it more than me and I know I could get to the bank soon.

I really expect this trip to be life –changing and transforming.  Symbolic of moving on and leaving the past behind.  I’ll blog.  Nancy will take the pictures.  When I win the lottery, we’re going to make a great team when we start doing travel blogs—even though we hate each other.