thai airways, myanmar airlines-- bangkok airport[don muang international airport internet kiosk- bangkok, thailand]
i am currently typing from a crowded computer lounge, smashed up against twelve other travelers and their luggage, while waiting to board a flight to yangon,
myanmar (burma). the flight is on
bangkok airways, a carrier in which i have neither experience nor read an opinion. bangkok airways not a low cost carrier like
tiger airways or
air asia, and since this flight is an international routing, the service should be smooth.
this is good to feel extremely nervous right now. oh my god, what am i doing?!
several billion unrealistic problems were preconsidered before pressing on with the worry about what truthfully will go wrong this next week in myanmar. seeing as this pre-anxiety was profound, it left nothing uncovered. there are no more preoccupations left to act as a distraction. the balance of being petrified, stands right along with a freedom of knowing that i cannot plan or prepare for anymore trip uncertainty. i am done agonizing-- all that remains is to log off of this computer, swallow hard, and step on the airplane by myself.
a guest house in the city center of yangon is reserved for tonight. no problem. a locally owned guest house was opted for rather than securing an internationally recognized hotel. why spend money on
the traders hotel or the savoy if it's just me? i know internationally recognized hotels seem to scream of a false sense of security, but i also want to do this trip right and leave as little money in the government coffers as possible.
the owners of the guest house downtown should be able to put me on the correct path-- which hopefully includes a bus to ywama or inle lake. oh no, more worries! what if this guest house is actually a brothel? what if its clientele pay for rooms by the hour and here i am, a western tourist, just *a bit* out of place? what if the available room lacks security, privacy, is filthy, is situated in a dangerous part of yangon? see, panic is valid. why should i try to turn it off when anxiety acts as a protection? the fear should stop because i cannot plan or rectify any portion of whatever may be bothering me until it is confirmed to be a problem.
what side of the aircraft should i sit on to get the best view on the approach to yangon? is there a chance to catch a preliminary glimpse of the
shwedagon pagoda? what is to be expected from the officials upon deplaning in myanmar? are travelers seriously expected to exchange wads of money at the airport, or can i get away with finding a currency exchange downtown? what belongings need to be declared upon arrival? nothing accompanying me cannot be replaced, but does one need to declare even the most minor of items? the rings on my fingers? what about inexpensive jewelry? what about my beat up travel watch? these items are meaningless, but i wouldn't want them to be confiscated for lack of foresight while standing nervously at a customs counter upon departure. this is my first visit-- i cannot yet extract the myths and rumors from the facts.
what kind of vehicles do they use in myanmar? i keep launching ideas and guessing about what will be seen. how to have an open mind when it continues to try to fill with obsession? can the burmese population even obtain remotely newer models of cars? are they familiar with toyota or ford? are the interiors of the upholstery routinely abused and ripped out as in cambodia, or are physical items maintained in an exemplary condition because they cannot easily be obtained? see, it could go either way.
will the city of yangon feel antiseptic, safe, and smell of facade? will it lend itself to that particularly familiar version of sad? i cannot predict how the hushed demeanor of the people will come across and continue to have racing thoughts in an effort to instantly (and arrogantly) think i could translate a philosophy through the appearance of a population's tangible goods.
the fear right now? i don't know. everything, but nothing! i am taking issues of anxiety and a severe eating disorder to a country which lacks adequate sanitation and potable drinking water. i never do, but what if i need medical attention? what if i need help? i know of no one who can save me. my family cannot travel to collect me should something go wrong. purposely restricting food for a week in my own home and exhausting myself by avoiding the glow of 7-11 convenience store neon is psychologically tamer than complete starvation while enduring a grueling travel schedule (not to mention expending fortunes of calories on foreign language). i'll do fine. this is not like one of my earlier trips where the entire point was to welcome fear and be so scared to death that i could neither function nor acquire food. this challenge of myamnar will not be easy, but will be good for the current state of anorexia. what's going to happen? there is no imported water, is there? will i need to drink a bottle of their brand of soda pop? wouldn't that be processed with their own water? my radical anorexic restrictions will undoubtedly need to bend this week. should i choose to partake, here spans a week of hermetically sealed foods and bleach rinsed utensils.
the transportation between the airport and the guest house is included in the guest house tariff. additional worry: how am i going to find the driver (or the "guest house owner's son" or "whoever will be driving the car") at the yangon airport? is the airport facility going to be a huge, surprisingly modern facility; or is a dilapidated structure, complete with a metal roof, set out in a field among the rice paddies? i'm so nervous.
will the driver collecting me be a man standing in a crowd of 100 people holding a sign with my name? will i be one of three hundred wide-eyed tourists departing the plane or will i stand alone and obvious as everyone assembles into affluent tour groups? one typical scam in myanmar is for your name to be revealed, stolen, or sold from a hotel reservation. after your information is distributed among touts, several of those men at various collection points will wave signs and insist you are their client. the traveler would not know which driver is authentic, be apt to choose the wrong tout, and then be scammed out of a few extra kyats upon arrival to the hotel. i only use my first initials for reservations, which, mostly, is a practice reserved for the male population. in the past, proprietors notice the initials and expect a male guest rather than female and it initially confuses people working the books. when booking hostel accommodations online, often the desk clerk has reserved my space in a male dorm by default.
oh, this anxiety is so dumb. am i really writing myself through it again? i travel incessantly and have no issue in hiring a taxi to drive me to the guest house should the driver be a no show. try to think about something else-- do the men wear longgyi in the city? ah, again, the biggest worry is whether or not the the bottled water will make me sick. how does one purchase cans of diet coke or diet sprite smuggled in from thailand? i don't want it but may need it. how do travelers avoid using the government supplied electricity sources? will the guest house have an independent electric generator? okay, i'll stop... but i want to know everything right now instead of in a few hours.
this has been a fantastic trip so far:
- motherfigure successfully met up with me at narita international airport in tokyo. her initial flight from nowheresville to detroit was late which inspired her stress merely one hour into the trip. this delay has inspired three conversations of how neither the restroom could be used at detroit metro airport, nor the purchase of sundries were allowed before boarding the flight to tokyo. she deplaned, and then immediately boarded the next flight. of course, after boarding without snacks, her flight was delayed for two hours-- passengers were trapped in the cabin on the ground in detroit for that additional period of time. awful, but funny. it makes protocol easier for the airline crew to have travelers remain in the cabin during a delay rather than having only a portion of the passengers in the immediate boarding area upon boarding announcement. gather the cattle. they would be late, then even later trying to corral the passengers in the terminal. oh well.
my flight landed at narita tokyo first, and i could see from the digital arrival boards that my mom's flight was not going to make it in time to connect on with me to bangkok. northwest airlines has one daily flight from tokyo into bangkok, and i was scared northwest might not hold the flight and motherfigure would be rebooked on another carrier to thailand. then what? picture stressed out motherfigure with an attitude all alone in tokyo after a 14 hour flight. oh my. it turned out that many of northwest's transpacific flights were delayed that afternoon due to cargo restrictions, but what i didn't know was that northwest routinely holds its connections out of tokyo until their other flights from the mainland catch up even if it is many hours later.
motherfigure arrived, pissed off and spouting conspiracy theories about the airline industry, their financial situation, and airline cargo weights. when she was done ranting i laughed and said, "wow. you just flew halfway across the world alone and are standing in japan." her eyes flitted around for a second, then she hugged me and said, "well, i'm safe now." ha! she is crazy. previously sitting on an airplane with 400 passengers and a trained bilingual crew definitely offered more security than simply standing next to me, but i accept the sentiment.
i had yen from previous trips and bought her japanese snacks and necessary bottled water. we boarded our flight, flew to bangkok, and then after this slightly uncomfortable start, spent a few days exploring thailand.
upon arrival at the hotel, our taxi driver could not unlatch the trunk of the car to retrieve our luggage. it was horrifying to watch this man take a crowbar to the trunk of the taxi, denting it in several places, just to pry it open. we may have had a long journey, and luggage could have waited, but the driver insisted on pleasing us by opening up the trunk in the quickest way possible. it was around 1:00am, so the resort staff checked us into our room. the visible french bakery on the grounds and the extensive pool area somehow promoted a safety for motherfigure. "this is
a much nicer place than i expected," she said, commenting on the marriot resort in bangkok. this was prior to our side trip to phuket where the
jw marriott phuket resort and spa was even more upscale. nope, we never did get to see how the taxi driver secured the trunk closed.
motherfigure was much more open minded than on our last (disastrous) vacation and what helped was first world name recognition-- marriott resorts. during our horrific trip to costa rica, the first night was spent in a hostel-like setting which functioned as a spanish language school-- no english was spoken there. this was the wrong way to go about introducing my mother to a central american culture. the lack of english language scared her. she had been nervous all that night and took the frugal do-it-yourself atmosphere to mean dirty or poor. i only held the idea that we were getting a level of cultural integration not found in a financially feasible tour package.
in bangkok and phuket, we had adequate western-style accommodations. the bathrooms were outfitted in luxury and offered consistent hot water-- quite unlike some of the local guest houses i have forced us to check into on past trips. both marriotts come highly recommended. each afternoon, the housekeeping employees saw there were a variety of local fresh fruits (mangosteen, rambutan, apple) and pastry available in our room. we were also provided with adequate bottled water whenever we walked onto the property. when traveling alone, i never purposely stay in four or five star rated facilities, preferring the locally-owned or independent establishment, but now know not to push this route on another person. the international choice in hotel is a better option when vacationing with my mom in an exotic location. from now on, i will "travel" and integrate with the local population when alone, but the two of us can "vacation."
motherfigure was relaxed enough to use the sky train, water taxi, and walk around bangkok. after hitting the main attractions, those must-sees, we wandered through the
tourist night market in the notorious
patpong sex district- something i never would have expected. knowing enough to look for battery-operated rather than self-winding models in the 'thai bazaar', no disposable fakes with cartier logos or replica rolex watches were purchased. the only kinetic watch models spied were stylish knockoffs. motherfigure didn't seem bothered by the surrounding sex clubs and reiterated that from the sidewalks, bangkok was nowhere as dirty as what could be seen from the sidewalk on our trip to las vegas.
we flew on a low cost carrier (
air asia) to phuket island for scuba diving and to take in some well deserved deserted beach atmosphere. we also took a touristy, but gorgeous, phang nga bay cruise on the 'june bahtra' restored
chinese junk boat.
around our third day together, motherfigure said that no vacation will ever top this one and i performed a fine job as a thailand tour guide. i hate to sound like an advertisement, but these marriott resort and spas were excellent and inexpensive thanks to the
bidding for travel website and
priceline.com. opting for these internationally branded accommodations made the trip go smoothly.
- a long post about sleeping on a dirt floor under the shell of a hut and living with a cambodian family for a few days, while waiting for the processing of an e-visa to myanmar goes here. it would have been better to stay longer, but no matter how i decided to live in the past, i am now spoiled for electricity and hot water. a few other people and myself are a part of our own independent humanitarian organization in cambodia. i will return soon.
notes: i "smuggled" one large trekking backpack full of pharmaceuticals into cambodia. "smuggled" since authorities seem clueless to the drug laws and sort of shake their head in apathy when asked. i researched in how to go about providing medicines legally but could not find a reference stating this was illegal, all of the while knowing the
poipet / aranyaprathet border officials would pay me no attention. along with the tablets, other medical supplies were delivered (bandages, antiseptic) and during the time i even bartered for, and subsequently purchased a cow for a family... rode sidesaddle on the back of a minibike from the commune into town to check e-mail a few times... drank bottled water to avoid catastrophe like a spoiled foreigner. the cambodian children enjoy nail polishes and playing with digital cameras, but could care less about seeing themselves on digital video recorded playback. i'll be praying to the hair conditioner gods when returning home... dirt and more dirt... what causes fingernails to predictably split vertically upon arrival to south east asia? cambodian women think warm water is bad for the skin, thus freezing showers and early morning bathing out in the rice paddies were the norm... after being mesmerized by a gorgeous golden python in the jungle (amelanistic burmese python), seeing more deadly snakes was a BIG concern... land mines... my only other anxiety being whether or not someone at the long-term baggage counter here at the airport was dissecting my worldly belongings (cell phone and charger, bikini from phuket, resort clothing, shoes,
assorted travel purchases like silk, spices, vases, and a stack of rice bowls). they needed to be left behind in bangkok rather than carried to cambodia, and the storage counters offered at the airport worked out perfectly.
well, i am running out of internet kiosk minutes again and am about to board a flight to yangon in a moment.
[phuket, thailand]
