Welcome to Bangkok

“Welcome to Bangkok” has been used as a form of congratulations, jocularity and sarcasm as depicted via the situations I’ve experienced over the last two days, or rather the first two days of my stay in Thailand.

The first official welcome that I received was via the Captain announcing our flight’s arrival in Bangkok and thanking us for flying Cathay Airlines. The next time it was said was from my contact who recognized me from a photo she had been shown prior to my arrival at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

Arriving in Bangkok produced a drawn out sigh as I could finally rest assured that I had arrived. Prior to arrival however, I had connected three times: once from Boston to JFK, then from JFK to Hong Kong and finally from Hong Kong to Bangkok. I had spent sixteen hours of my two-day travel on a flight with over a dozen small children. It was packed to say the least and I was glad that it was finally over.

The first thing I did was brush my teeth, change my clothes and freshen up before going through security and buying a java chip frappuccino at Starbucks. I had been craving something cold as I had spent the last twenty-four hours drinking room temperature water and juice. When I arrived in Bangkok, I had only slept about six hours in two days and was feeling the results of that. A dull headache had begun to persist behind my eyes from lack of sleep and dehydration.

Amazingly, I breezed through immigration and even more surprisingly, my luggage appeared after only ten minutes of waiting. I then walked out the doors and into the bustling terminal. Less than ten minutes later, I was recognized by Miss Pair, an assistant from the university, sent to pick me up. “Welcome to Thailand,” she said with a winning smile. She was surprised that I only had two main pieces of luggage and a small carry on. The last time I moved abroad, I had five pieces.

After my bags were loaded into a deep gray Honda Accord, we sped off and a few minutes later I was speaking with the director of the Language English Program (LEP) on his assistant’s iPhone. He said, “Welcome to Bangkok. What do you think so far?” I said, “I’m so excited to be here. I can’t believe this is real” to which he told me to enjoy the next few hours as those are always the best.

Twenty minutes later, the Accord was winding through narrow side streets on the left side of the road that barely looked passable before riding up on a steep sidewalk and stopping. Unlike in America, Thai’s drive on the left, which is a hard idea to accept when two cars from opposite directions are speeding towards one another and at the last moment, one of them swerves to the right. Had I been more awake, this would have scared the crap out of me.

In an over-tired state however, I just cared about getting connected to the outside world. In turn, when I stepped out of the car and entered a small 7-Eleven I purchased a sim card and Thai phone number. Miss Pair had originally asked me to pick a number, which I found amusing, as I didn’t care, so I had her choose. A few minutes later it was discovered that my Metro PCS Huawei phone was locked and rejected the sim card. Frustrated, I still paid for the card with the resolve that I would try to get my phone unlocked and even topped off the phone with a 100 baht. At the same time I fought rising panic that I wouldn’t have a way to get in contact with anyone in the city.

When I had first moved to South Korea in 2007, it took me two weeks before a kind teacher gifted me an extra cell phone and put me on her friend’s cell phone plan so I wouldn’t have to pay as I went. I simply had to pay her friend at the end of each month by transferring money from my account into hers. The sharing of bank account information between people was unlike anything I had or have experienced since.

Ten minutes later, we arrived at my new residence. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the building I was staying in was not the one viewed on the website, but I was. It was located directly across from the new building and my apartment was on the corner of the third floor, facing a divide between the two residences. It was at this point that I was introduced to a fellow ex-pat and colleague who had recently moved into the newer of the two buildings. He welcomed me to Bangkok and then offered to show me anything I needed and take me shopping for the essentials like toilet paper and food. I was grateful to have such a smooth transition.

After parting ways with the assistant and getting my bags into my apartment that was surprisingly more spacious than I expected, I insisted that my colleague show me where to buy everything. At this point my headache had disappeared but I was definitely on sensory overload and way past the point of exhaustion. Even still, I insisted on going out. I was determined to buy the essentials, before crashing.

My apartment building in Bangkapi, Bangkok

Standard all utility corner studio: 38sqm

Over the course of the next two hours, I took a taxi ride to a mall up the road and purchased a cheap Nokia cell phone with pay-as-you-go minutes, toilet paper, a laundry basket, two sets of utensils that included a spoon and fork, laundry detergent, four gallons of water, a chicken sandwich and three mini pastries. Another taxi ride back and I was thanking my new friend for all his help. As we parted ways, he said with a smile, “Welcome to Bangkok.”

A few bites into my chicken sandwich and I realized the rubbery taste was cartilage and part of a foot and the mayo was too sweet for my taste. I ate it anyway because I was hungry. I also ate the pastries that I thought were pistachio and turned out to be a very tart lime and were also very sweet.

Two hours later I had unpacked one bag of clothes and was beginning to feel sick from lack of sleep. I hopped in the shower and then laid down to test out the bed. As soon as I hit the pillow, I smiled and breathed, “Welcome to Bangkok” and then conked out.