It seemed like a marathon. Last night we concluded the day that, to me, felt like it began with a snow shoe in Prairie Farm. I'm switching to a smaller font, this is going to be a long post. There was too much going on to take many pictures, will post more tomorrow. Above is Doug, Alex & Lauren as we walked to our theraputic Thai Massage (we'll be getting one each day, more on that in a later post). We happened to walk along what is called Muslim Street, the center of the local community, so that is Arabic, not Thai, on the signs behind them. Although we are non-smokers, the hookahs behind them looked cool. The street life is absolutely overwhelming. We're staying on Sukhumvit Road, the very busy, trendy part of town. I see a lot of the big name hotels on this street. Alex lives on Soi 4 about 1/4 mile off the main road. After the massage we walked to a jewelry store where Alex has known the owner, Nancy, for many years. Alex wanted to purchase all of us our Buddha that, when selected properly according to your birth date and day, is meant to protect you from some of your personal rough patches in life. Lauren was deemed, "good for business and needing to be near water" which fits as she is anxious to return to California from Omaha. Doug was more problematic, it took Nancy quite while to basically tell us that what he says could potentially be misconstrued. None of us were aware of this issue but fortunately he is now protected from his fate. My path seemed pretty darn good. She read us a long paragraph in Thai then looked up and said a perfunctory, "good." We laughed and asked for the details. Seems like when I speak I can have an effect on people which is an excellent thing to have said in front of your boss. I'm not a jewelry fan and didn't see anything that appealed so I'll continue to soldier on without protection for a bit.
We then visited Alex's tailor. Interesting guy, "Bobby" is Indian, I don't know his religious sect but he wears a turban and is 4th generation Thai speaking almost accent less English. I ordered two suits. There will be four fittings in the next few days and they'll be ready for pick-up when we leave on Tuesday. Bobby insisted on knowing where I lived so he could direct me to appropriate fabrics. It took a moment for me to convince him that this was not pertinent information. I can think of no conceivable situation where it would EVER be appropriate to wear a suit in Prairie Farm, these are strictly for my business travel.
We then had a fantastic dinner prepared by Alex's gorgeous wife, Chat (pronounced, Cat). Best Thai food ever, so good. Dessert included three of the first of what I hope are many fruits I've never seen before.
Walking back to the hotel we were escorted by Alex & his adult son Michael. There is an amazing street life here packed with traffic, people and vendors of many kinds, pretty much fitting my image of what Bangkok might look like.
-Bar bars catering to foreigners, with lots of women of the type you'd kinda-sorta expect including a subset of a Bangkok specialty - kinda-sorta women? Check.
-Ride on a motorcycle/rickshaw contraption? Check.
-Elephants on the street you can pet and feed sugar cane? Check.
-Vendors selling a wide variety of crickets and insect delicacies? Check.
I'm way jet-lagged, exhausted, but didn't sleep well last night and now it's off to another day. Will be posting more about the Thais relationship with their King in the next few days.
