“Hello! You didn’t get fat!”

The first time I traveled out of the country for a significant period of time was junior year in college. The morning of my flight to Europe I ran through the house in a frenzy, desperately throwing everything I owned into trash bags which I then stored in the basement. The day of my departure to Taiwan in 2012, I was frantically trying to finish a freelance writing assignment, sending out drafts right up until boarding the plane. The second time I left for Taiwan my poor roommate had to help move my boxes to a storage unit, clean my room for the subletter, and even give me a suitcase because I had not budgeted time to purchase one large enough for a year’s worth of stuff. This time around was almost…disturbingly smooth. Most of my room was packed up and stored a week before my departure; I had a great subletter in place; the room was clean, my travel bags packed, and I was able to spend my last evening enjoying my time with close friends. Sure, the morning was chaotic, but that’s just the nature of travel (also, does anyone ever really remember to leave room in the bag for pajamas? Of course not.) My first morning here in Bangkok I woke up in a panic, trying to figure out what I left unfinished. The answer? Nothing.

What does it mean that I have now become so adept at leaving? I’d like to think this is some marker of maturity, or at least that I’ve finally thrown away enough junk to make my belongings manageable. But I can’t escape the fact that this really means I’ve become accustomed to departure. It’s like slipping on a comfortable pair of shoes (or, more precisely, given the amount of eating in store, a supremely comfortable pair of stretchy pants.) And once I arrived, everything in Bangkok was pretty much how I left it: the same street vendors, the same job, even the same room in the same hotel, complete with the incense diffuser I left behind a year ago. Local restaurant owners remembered not just me, but my usual order.

Same fruit and broom vendors

Same greasy omelette-y goodness

Perhaps that’s part of my feeling of disquiet – things have become “usual”. I travel to challenge myself, to avoid my comfort zone, to run straight towards fear rather than hide from it. But humans are adaptable, and I have most certainly adapted to this peripatetic existence. Also, Bangkok is a very Western-ized city. With the (notable) exceptions of bras and deodorant, I can get anything here that I can get in NYC, with some it being much better and cheaper (I’m talking to you, NYC transit system.) I think I may need to change the way I approach this city – if the challenges won’t come to me, I will find them.

Challenge #1 - rock bedazzled sneakers

Challenge #2 - go shopping with monks

So with any luck, the next few months will feature absurd stories of transit disasters, disturbing food, and interesting characters. This is not to say that I spent the past two weeks holed up in my air-conditioned room (or at least, not entirely). My second day here I went to visit my friend Mai at her sister’s house. Mai recently gave birth to her first child, and the place was packed with relatives from Lao and friends from the neighborhood. I was incredibly jet lagged, broken by the heat, and unable to communicate with most of the group. At first I focused on staring at the baby, because, well, I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. Isn’t that the appropriate reaction around newborns? Stare at them, talk about how cute they are using unfortunate food metaphors (“I could just eat those cheeks!”) and smell their heads. Or something like that. I discovered that my comfort with infants has not improved dramatically since my pre-teen years. I cringe at the memory of my first “mother’s helper” job: I sat the baby down on the couch, and looked at it nervously until it fell over. The mom was not pleased. Then there’s the memorable picture of my newborn sister asleep on my lap, me looking at her with something akin to fear, hands held up in the air, reluctant to actually touch her lest I break the baby. There is now a very similar picture of me holding Mai’s young son Stephen. It is a portrait of barely concealed panic: “How do I hold this thing? Why is his neck so floppy? Oh great, now he’s crying. Back to mom you go!” Let me be clear: I love kids. They are amazing, tiny people who say crazy things and entertain us by deliberately crashing into furniture. Infants, however, are another story entirely. I can confidently say that even now, at 37, I do not feel that drive to have my own eating-puking-pooping machine. Which is probably a good thing, since I would most likely break it.  

After I finished staring at the baby, I didn’t have much more to offer. Luckily, there was food. Mai’s sister’s house is on the canal, and despite the heat, it was lovely to sit out there under the spectacularly lush foliage, watch the water, and sweat. The kitchen is actually outside by the porch-like area, so I spent most of my time out there drinking beer with Mai’s dad. At one point I offered to go in and help Mai with…whatever, but she said no no, I should stay outside and talk. Her father and I have absolutely no words in common, so the conversation was minimal, mainly consisting of him communicating (through charades) that I was very, very white. I suddenly remembered that this is one of the reasons I always got so drunk when visiting with Mai – drinking and eating are really the only activities available to me. This may also explain why my only Thai words are “delicious” and “shit drunk”. Of course, now there’s baby-staring as well. For me, not so much of a game changer.

Sometimes I fantasize about moving to California, mainly so I can have an outdoor kitchen. There’s something so appealing about the idea of cooking outside, under the stars. I also clearly have Foodnetwork envy. Now, however, I know that I don’t need to go to California to do this. I can just get a canal side shack and a hot plate. Anyway, while I sat drinking with Mai’s dad, her friend Ao worked on the meal (Ao is more commonly referred to by her nickname, which roughly translates to “Little Fatty”. Commenting on weight just doesn’t have the same stigma here, apparently.) In about 20 minutes she had prepared a wonderful spread featuring pork larb moo* (ground pork with assorted herbs, spices, and enough chilies to kill a horse. A horse that eats chilies, that is.), a cooling stir-fried eggplant dish, and a rich, flavorful pork soup, because soup is what everyone wants in 100 degree heat. As is typical in this cuisine, the table was covered with baskets of raw vegetables and herbs, which are used to chase the spice. I was also given many handfuls of sticky rice, because everyone could see that I was one step away from spice-tears. (In my defense, even one of the Thai guests commented on the vengeful red spiciness of the larb. Of course, she did comment in English, so it may have been an attempt to warn the sweaty farang.)

Summertime, and the canal-livin' is easy

By the time dinner ended, I had consumed two large bottles of Chang beer in quick succession, That, combined with the jet lag, brought me right up to the wall, then smashed my head into it. I was nodding off into my soup, and while I knew Mai wouldn't mind if I napped (as I had done earlier that day in between baby-staring and drinking) I told her I needed to go. She called their go-to motorbike taxi driver, who apparently has loads of experience shuttling drunken people back to their air conditioned lairs. And so I ended my first full day in Bangkok careening down the road, gripping the back of the motorbike in a boozy haze. I had returned to the land of smiles, where the food makes you weep, and the road safety is non-existent. It was good to be back.

Say what you will about smog- it provides a stunning sunset

* Yes, in Thai the word for “pork” is “moo”. I giggle every time I say it.