A Day Out On The Town

Today was a very positive day.

Iced coffee and a mangosteen from a grocery store.

I remembered that I'm a damn fine traveller.

I found a good deal on a cell phone and got it set up.  

I saw the gorgeous school that I'm going to be working for.

I drank iced coffee.

I'm grateful for lots of competent people.

It's been quite a long time since I've been unable to communicate with the majority of people.  This happened today for sure.  From the start, I tried talking with the lady at the front desk of the hotel, with only moderate success.  Both my taxis were arranged for me considering my grasp of the Thai language is beyond useless.  I pointed to the foods that I wished to consume since I wasn't communicating clearly enough.  The grocery store.... I'm the hopeless falang doing all of the things wrong.  I even had the front desk help me order a pizza because I was far too drained to try myself.  

However, even with all of these examples, I still remembered to smile, to sompea (hands in front of the chest), and say the one phrase I do know in Thai: thank you.  It's one of the things that I think makes my travels less stressful.  I was thinking as I rode in the taxi today that I should be more stressed.  I have so many things to do and very little idea how to get them all accomplished.  But, even without the knowledge of the Thai language, I'm still able to get the information I'm looking for by being polite and adding an extra smile to the end of my sentences.  

It could be easy to forget to laugh in this wild world.  Bangkok is a crazy city.  There is traffic all the time, lots of stray creatures roaming about, lots of noises to fill up the ears... and yet, it is sometimes just insanely entertaining. I saw a sign in the taxi today with pictograms identifying what was not allowed.

No... farting (?)

Water Buffalo (?)

Weapons

Sex

Dogs

Drinking

Durian (to be fair, it's really stinky)

Smoking

I find it difficult to think that there would be sex in the back of a taxi.  And I wonder about the buffalo image, but perhaps I'm more reserved than others.  It's a fun city, and it is going to be so fun to discover some hidden gems and see the new side of Asia again.  

Towards the end of my time in Cambodia, I really felt like the things I saw on a daily basis were completely normal, because to me they were.  Here I think I will see the unusual things once again and be that much happier for it.