December 1, 2005 - Half Adventure, Half Lonely Planet

Good-byes are tough for old friends as well as newfound ones. This morning involved both. We left what was new-found familiarity for me, into a truly foreign country. Thailand was waiting.

The Marriott is very nice. It is very, very, very nice here. I feel quite out of place. This is much more than the “Courtyard” that is by Marriott and the “Courtyard” is usually the best that I can do.

So, what did we do? Hop onto the first river taxi and headed into randomness. My sister had the suggestion to get a good overview of this part of Bangkok and see some temples from the water. But Thai is a particularly hard language to follow by matching up the characters from the signs with the words in the guidebooks.

We bought tickets to ride the water taxi upstream with an unclear destination. And, at what seemed like a busy stop, we hopped off. It ended up to be Phrannock which was the right stop…we just didn’t know it yet.

One of our goals was to find dinner and the street was full of food stands and carts. The alleys of the markets were even more insane. I felt like a small leaf that was dropped into a raging river. Even worse, my sister and I were two small leaves trying to ride the rapids in the exact same direction. As we rushed by the landscape of food, I was tempted beyond description to stop a grab some satay or noodle soup. But, as my sister would say, that would result in a certain gastrointestinal “blow-out”. Our goal, therefore, was therefore to find one of the restaurants listed in the Lonely Planet guidebook. Supatra River House was not far from where we were…just a bit down the river. The catch was that you can’t walk down the river. So, after a few turns and a stroll down an alleyway, we hit…a school. But, just by turning around and going down the other way, we found the restaurant. It was truly half adventure, half Lonely Planet.

Today was just a quick taste of Thailand. Tomorrow holds another plane flight, another Lonely Planet book, and another adventure.